Privacy Policy

1. Overview

This Privacy Policy explains how Gotta LLC ("Gotta," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, shares, and protects personal information when you use our mobile applications, websites, and related products and services (collectively, the "Services"). Gotta is based in Richmond, Virginia, United States.

Gotta is a social discovery service. Information you choose to post or share may be visible to approved followers, other Gotta users, selected recipients, or the public, depending on your settings and the feature you use.

2. Information we collect

Account information

We collect information used to create, authenticate, and manage your account, such as your email address, account identifier, authentication provider, login records, and related authentication information. If you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive information that provider makes available based on your settings, which may include your name, email address, and profile image.

Profile information

We collect profile information you provide, such as your username, display name, biography, avatar or profile icon, and profile visibility setting.

Content and saved information

We collect content you create, upload, save, or share, including posts, recommendations, requests, titles, descriptions, comments, replies, images, links, locations, lists, list covers, notes, attached items, mentions, and feedback. Content may include metadata such as creation time, category, source, and editing history.

Social activity

We collect information about how you interact with people and content, such as follows and follow requests, likes, saves, shares, list collaboration, mentions, blocks, reports, activity status, and notification interactions.

Location information

With your permission, Gotta may access your device's location to identify your current city, show nearby content, search for places, or help you attach a place or dropped pin to content. Device coordinates used to identify your city are sent to a mapping or geocoding provider, and the resulting city may be cached on your device. If you attach a location to a post or saved item, we may store the location name, city, region, country, latitude, longitude, place identifier, and source of the location.

You can decline location permission and search for or enter a location manually, although some nearby features may be limited.

Photos, camera, and files

When you choose to add an avatar, post image, or list cover, we access only the photos or camera features you authorize and process the selected image for upload. Uploaded images are stored with the content or profile to which they relate.

Device, usage, diagnostic, and notification information

We collect information needed to operate and troubleshoot the Services, such as device and operating-system information, app version, platform, error and crash data, timestamps, network information, and similar diagnostics. We also collect privacy-limited product analytics, such as screens viewed, feature interactions, content categories or types, and aggregate result counts. We do not send search text, post text, your email address, name, or username to our product analytics provider. For signed-in users, we use a one-way, provider-specific hash derived from an internal account identifier to understand activity across sessions and devices. Product analytics may also use a pseudonymous app-instance or device-scoped identifier. If you enable push notifications, we collect a push token, notification preference and permission status, platform, app version, and related delivery or interaction information.

Safety and moderation information

We collect reports, report reasons, moderation decisions, content hashes, and snapshots of reported text and metadata about reported images, links, or other relevant evidence. This information helps us investigate reports, enforce our rules, prevent repeated abuse, and meet legal obligations. We do not currently preserve a separate private copy of an uploaded image solely because it was reported.

Information from others

We may receive information about you when another person follows, mentions, shares with, reports, or otherwise interacts with you. We also receive catalog, place, media, product, and business information from third-party data providers.

3. How we use information

We use personal information to:

• provide, operate, maintain, and improve the Services;
• create, authenticate, secure, and manage accounts;
• display profiles and content according to applicable visibility settings;
• provide feeds, search, nearby discovery, recommendations, lists, sharing, collaboration, and other social features;
• personalize and organize content and generate categories, search indexes, previews, and other metadata;
• send service, security, activity, and push notifications;
• respond to feedback, support, and privacy requests;
• moderate content, investigate reports, enforce our rules, and protect users and the Services;
• detect, prevent, and address fraud, abuse, security incidents, and technical problems;
• analyze performance and understand how features are used; and
• comply with law, valid legal requests, and obligations involving safety, records, or enforcement.

4. Automated processing and AI providers

We use automated systems to help moderate, organize, and retrieve content. For example, post titles, descriptions, locations, and attached-item information may be sent to an AI provider to evaluate whether a post violates our safety rules. Post or saved-item text may also be processed to predict a category or create a numerical representation used for search.

Automated systems can make mistakes. We may use human review, reports, and other context to evaluate content or enforcement decisions. You may contact us if you believe an automated decision was incorrect.

5. How we disclose information

Other users and the public

We disclose profile information, content, social activity, and related metadata to the audiences permitted by your settings and the feature you use. For example, approved followers may see content on a private profile, while Gotta users may be able to view content on a public profile. Shares, mentions, comments, and collaborations disclose information to their intended recipients or participants.

Service providers

We use companies that provide infrastructure, hosting, authentication, storage, diagnostics, mapping, search, content data, artificial intelligence, notifications, security, and support. These providers may process information on our behalf or receive information when you use a feature that depends on them.

Current providers and integrations include Supabase for authentication, database, and file storage; Sentry for crash and diagnostic reporting; Firebase for privacy-limited product analytics and Android notification delivery; Expo for app updates and push notifications; Apple and Google for authentication and content or location services; OpenRouter and the model providers it routes to for moderation, categorization, and search processing; and catalog or search providers such as Spotify, TMDB, RAWG, SerpApi, Google Books, and Apple's iTunes services.

Providers that process personal information on our behalf are expected to protect it consistently with their obligations to us and applicable law. Some third-party features are also governed directly by the third party's privacy policy and terms.

Business transfers

We may disclose information in connection with a proposed or completed financing, merger, acquisition, reorganization, sale of assets, or similar business transaction. Any successor's use of personal information remains subject to applicable law and the commitments that apply at the time of transfer.

Legal, safety, and enforcement reasons

We may preserve or disclose information when we reasonably believe it is necessary to comply with law or valid legal process, enforce our agreements, investigate fraud or abuse, respond to an emergency, or protect the rights, property, or safety of Gotta, our users, or another person.

At your direction

We may disclose information when you ask us to, consent to the disclosure, or use a feature where disclosure is reasonably apparent, such as sharing a post through another app.

6. Sale and targeted advertising

Gotta does not currently sell personal information for money or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising. We do not currently display third-party behavioral advertising in the Services. If these practices materially change, we will update this Policy and provide any notice or choices required by law before the change takes effect.

7. Data retention

We retain information for as long as reasonably necessary to provide the Services, maintain your account, fulfill the purposes described in this Policy, resolve disputes, enforce our agreements, prevent fraud or abuse, and meet legal, tax, accounting, safety, and recordkeeping obligations. Retention depends on the type of information, why we collected it, its sensitivity, and applicable legal requirements.

• Account, profile, content, and social information is generally retained while your account or the related content remains active.
• When account deletion is accepted, account access is disabled and public profile and content access is removed. Uploaded media and remaining account data are deleted from active systems through our deletion process.
• Short-lived moderation approvals and related technical records are retained only as needed to complete moderation and prevent abuse.
• Reports and reported-content evidence may be retained after the underlying content or account is removed so we can investigate harm, document enforcement, prevent repeat abuse, and comply with law. Reported-image metadata may remain even though the uploaded image itself is deleted.
• Limited deletion records may be retained to complete and verify deletion, maintain security, prevent fraud or abuse, resolve disputes, and meet legal or recordkeeping obligations. We minimize identifying information in those records as deletion is completed.
• Information may remain temporarily in backups and logs until those systems are overwritten or no longer reasonably needed.

8. Account and content deletion

You can delete individual posts, comments, saved items, and lists using available controls. You can delete your account from the Settings screen in the Gotta app. If you cannot reach the app, our account deletion page explains how to request deletion by email.

When account deletion is accepted, we disable account access and remove your public profile and content from public view. We remove identifying profile information, push tokens, and follow relationships; blank the text of comments that must remain as thread placeholders; and delete uploaded avatars, post images, and list covers as part of the deletion process. References held by other users may show a generic deleted or unavailable state, or may disappear after the underlying data is purged.

We also remove your authentication credentials and delete remaining account data from active systems through our deletion process. If your account uses Sign in with Apple, we attempt to revoke Gotta's Apple authorization. If we cannot complete that revocation, we may direct you to remove Gotta manually from your Apple Account settings. Account deletion is not blocked if Apple revocation is unavailable.

Content or profile images already copied by another person or cached on a device or external service may remain outside our control even after we delete the copy stored by Gotta.

We may retain limited, non-public account or deletion records for as long as reasonably necessary for safety, abuse and fraud prevention, recordkeeping, legal compliance, or to connect moderation evidence to a previously deleted account. We may also retain information temporarily in backups and logs until those systems are overwritten.

To request removal of retained content or other personal information, email hello@joingotta.com. We may need to verify that you controlled the account. We will review and honor requests as required by applicable law, but may retain narrowly limited information where permitted or required for security, fraud prevention, safety, legal compliance, or the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims.

9. Your choices and privacy rights

You can:

• edit profile information and profile visibility in Settings;
• grant, limit, or revoke location, camera, photo, and notification permissions through the app or device settings;
• delete content using available in-app controls;
• block users and report users or content;
• disable notifications or delete your account; and
• contact us to ask about access, correction, export, deletion, restriction, objection, consent withdrawal, or an appeal of a privacy decision.

Privacy rights vary by location, and some rights are subject to exceptions. We may verify your identity before completing a request. You may use an authorized agent where applicable law permits it. We will not discriminate against you for exercising a privacy right.

10. Children

Gotta is not directed to children under 16, and people under 16 may not create or use an account. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If you believe a child has provided personal information to Gotta, contact us so we can investigate and take appropriate action.

Our rules strictly prohibit child sexual abuse material, grooming, sexual exploitation, sextortion, or any other conduct that sexually exploits or endangers a child. See our Community Guidelines for reporting information.

11. Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect personal information. These include access controls, authenticated requests, encrypted network connections, and limits on access to sensitive moderation and deletion records. No system is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee that information will never be lost, accessed, or disclosed without authorization.

12. International processing

Gotta and its providers may process and store information in the United States and other countries where they operate. Those countries may have different data-protection laws from where you live. Where required, we use appropriate measures for international transfers.

13. Third-party links and services

The Services may link to third-party apps, websites, maps, marketplaces, media providers, or businesses. This Policy does not govern information a third party collects directly from you outside Gotta. Review the third party's privacy policy before providing information to it.

14. Changes to this Policy

We may update this Policy as the Services, our practices, or the law changes. We will post the revised Policy and update the effective date. If a change materially affects how we use personal information, we will provide additional notice or request consent when reasonably required.

15. Contact us

Gotta LLC is based in Richmond, Virginia, United States. For privacy questions or requests, email hello@joingotta.com. Please include enough information for us to understand your request without sending sensitive information that is not needed.