Privacy Policy

The short version

CigarShare is a place to log the cigars you smoke, rate them and share them with friends. To do that we need to hold on to some information about you. We keep it to what the app actually uses, and we treat it the way you’d want a good tobacconist to treat your humidor locker: it’s yours, we just look after it.

We don’t sell your personal information, and we don’t show ads.
Your email address, real name and birthday are never shown to other members.
Your profile, sessions and ratings are public. That’s the “share” in CigarShare.
We only record a location when you add one to a session.
You can ask for a copy of your data, or for us to delete it, at any time.

What we collect

What you give us

Your account: username, email address and password. If you like, also a display name, first and last name, birthday, tagline, home base, profile photo and preferred currency.
Your sessions: the cigars you smoke and rate, along with everything you log for each one: flavor notes, construction and strength, moods, pairings, pauses, photos, where you got the cigar and what you paid, and whether it was a gift.
Your lists: your smoking queue, wish list, favorites and anything you recommend to friends.
Your friends: who you’ve connected with through friend codes, and the herfs you host or join.
Your taste profile: your answers to the onboarding survey, if you take it.
Feedback: anything you send us through the feedback form or by email.

Location, only when you ask

When you add a location to a session, we store its coordinates with that session and use them to suggest nearby lounges and shops. We don’t track where you are in the background, and we never ask for your location until you tap to add one.

What comes along automatically

Server logs: like every website, our servers record your IP address, browser, the pages you asked for and when. We use them to keep the service running and to block abuse.
Error reports: if something breaks in the app, it can send us a short report: what went wrong, on which page, and in which browser. We use these only to fix bugs.
Usage analytics: how people move around the site, so we know what’s worth improving. See Who we share it with below.

What other people can see

CigarShare is a sharing app, so most of what you log is meant to be seen. Anyone, including people without an account and search engines, can see:

your username, display name, profile photo, tagline and home base;
your sessions and ratings, with their notes and photos;
your favorites, wish list and achievements;
any session you share by link.

Your email address, first and last name, birthday and password are never shown to anyone else. That includes your friends.

How we use it

To run CigarShare: keep you signed in, save your sessions, work out your scores, and show your profile.
To make suggestions: your ratings and taste profile feed the “For You” recommendations, and your friends’ activity feeds theirs.
To get in touch: account email (welcome, password reset, sign-in changes) and the push notifications you’ve switched on. No newsletters unless you ask.
To keep it safe: stopping spam accounts and abuse, and signing out accounts that have been compromised.
To make it better: fixing errors and understanding which features people actually use.

We use a handful of outside services to run CigarShare. Each gets only what it needs to do its job:

Uploadcare stores and serves the photos you add.
Yelp helps us find venues near a location you add. Our server sends Yelp the coordinates and nothing else: no name, no account.
Clicky runs our website analytics. It sees your IP address, browser and device details, and the pages you visit. If you’re signed in we also tag your visits with your username (already public), never your email.
hCaptcha protects sign-up, guest sessions and the feedback form from bots. It may collect information about your browser and device while it checks.
Apple and Google, only if you choose Sign in with Apple or Sign in with Google. They confirm who you are and share your name and email with us. Apple may give us a private relay address instead.
Your browser’s push service (from Apple, Google or Mozilla, depending on your browser) delivers the notifications you’ve turned on. The contents are encrypted on the way.
Our hosting and email providers run the servers and send account email.

We may also hand over information when the law requires it, or to protect CigarShare and its members from fraud or abuse. If CigarShare is ever sold or merged, your information would go with it, and this policy would still apply to it.

We don’t sell your personal information, and we don’t share it for advertising.

Cookies and on-device storage

CigarShare is an app that works offline, so it keeps a few things on your device:

your sign-in, so you stay signed in (in your browser’s local storage, or in a cookie if local storage isn’t available);
sessions and photos you log without a connection, until they can be uploaded, plus copies of pages you’ve seen so they still load offline;
small preferences, like whether you’ve seen a tip or dismissed a prompt.

Clicky sets its own cookies to recognize returning visitors, and hCaptcha may set cookies on the forms it protects. We don’t use advertising cookies.

You can clear all of this from your browser’s settings. If you do it before your offline sessions have uploaded, they’ll be lost. CigarShare itself doesn’t respond differently to “Do Not Track” signals.

How long we keep it

We keep your account and everything you’ve logged for as long as your account exists. If you ask us to delete your account, we’ll delete your personal information within 30 days, apart from anything we’re legally required to keep.

Server logs and error reports are kept only as long as they’re useful for security and fixing bugs. Password-reset links work once and expire after an hour.

Your choices and rights

Edit it: change your profile at any time on Edit Profile, and edit or delete your sessions from the sessions themselves.
Mute it: turn push notifications off on Notifications or in your browser settings.
Get a copy: ask us and we’ll send you your data in a readable format.
Delete it: ask us to close your account and erase your personal information.
Correct it: if there’s something you can’t fix yourself, tell us.

For any of these, email info@cigarshare.com from the address on your account. We may need to confirm it’s really you first. Using these rights will never change how CigarShare treats you.

Keeping it safe

Everything between your device and CigarShare is encrypted in transit. Passwords are stored only as salted hashes, so nobody here can read yours. Reset links are stored the same way, and using one signs your account out everywhere. A signed-in account can also be signed out remotely if it’s been compromised.

No system is perfectly secure, though. Pick a strong password you don’t use anywhere else. If we ever have a breach that affects you, we’ll tell you, as the law requires.

Age

CigarShare is for adults aged 21 and over. We don’t knowingly collect information from anyone younger. If you think someone under 21 has an account, let us know and we’ll remove it.

Where your data lives

CigarShare runs in the United States, and so do most of the services above. If you use it from somewhere else, your information is transferred to the US and handled under this policy, with the safeguards your local law requires.

EU, UK and California

If you’re in the EU or UK

CigarShare is the controller of your personal data. We process it to provide the service you signed up for (contract), to keep it secure and improve it (legitimate interests), for anything you’ve opted into, like push notifications (consent, which you can withdraw at any time), and where the law requires it. Besides the rights above, you can object to or restrict our processing. You can also complain to your local data protection authority, though we’d appreciate the chance to sort it out with you first.

If you’re in California

In the past 12 months we’ve collected identifiers (like your username, email and IP address), the content you post (sessions, ratings, photos), approximate or precise location when you add one, and internet activity on our site, all for the purposes described above. We don’t sell or “share” personal information as California law defines those terms. You have the right to know what we hold, to have it corrected or deleted, and not to be treated differently for asking.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle your information, we’ll update this page and the date at the top. If the change is a big one, we’ll also tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.

Contact us

Questions, requests or concerns about your privacy: email info@cigarshare.com or use the feedback form. See also our Terms of Use.