Privacy Policy

1. The short version

TasteTree collects the little it needs to run your account and render your tastetree. We don't sell your data, and we don't build advertising profiles from your listening. Your profile and lists are public; your email address is not.

TasteTree is operated by Cristobal Grana and Shang Wang, who are responsible for your personal data (the “data controller”). “We” and “us” in this policy means them.

2. What we collect

• Account details — your email address, username, display name, optional avatar image, and an identifier from Google or Apple if you signed in with one of those. TasteTree accounts don't have passwords, and we never see your Google or Apple password.
• Sign-in codes — when you ask for an email code, we store a scrambled copy of it (not the code itself) and a record of the request, so we can check the code and limit how many are sent.
• What you create — your lists, their titles and descriptions, the tracks, albums and artists on them and their order, and your tastetree's bio, social handles, sections, theme and layout.
• Technical data — request logs including IP address, browser user agent and timestamps, used to keep the service up and to enforce rate limits.
• Usage data — which pages are viewed, where visitors arrived from, and which buttons are used, so we can see how TasteTree is used and improve it. This is collected without cookies or device storage, and your IP address is discarded rather than stored. If you are signed in, these events are linked to your account ID (never your email address).
• Visitor counts — when you open someone's tastetree or list, we count the visit for its owner, along with the kind of site you arrived from (for example Instagram or a search engine). To count you once per day, we keep a one-way hash of your IP address and browser that changes every day and is deleted within two days. Owners see totals only, never who visited.

We do not collect payment details, and we don't ask for anything about you beyond what is listed above.

3. Why we use it

To create and secure your account, to publish your profile and lists at your chosen username, to power browse and search, to generate share cards, to look up music in the Apple Music catalogue and play previews, to understand how the site is used so we can improve it, and to prevent abuse. Where the law requires a legal basis, ours is performing our contract with you and our legitimate interest in running a safe service.

4. What is public

Your username, display name, avatar, bio, social handles and lists are public: anyone with the link can view them, they can appear in browse and search on TasteTree, and search engines may index them. That includes lists you haven't added to your tastetree. Your email address is never shown publicly.

5. Who else sees it

• Our infrastructure providers — Vercel, which hosts the site, keeps request logs and stores avatar images, Neon, which runs our PostgreSQL database, and Resend, which delivers our sign-in emails and so sees your email address. They process data only on our instructions.
• Music services — when you search for music, we send the search query to Apple Music from our servers, not from your browser. Previews and some artwork load directly from Apple's servers, which see your IP address.
• Analytics — PostHog, which processes the usage data described above on our behalf, in the United States.
• Sign-in providers — Google or Apple, if you choose to sign in with them.

We don't sell personal data or share it with advertisers. We may disclose data where we're legally required to.

6. Where your data is processed

Our servers and database are in the United States. If you use TasteTree from outside the US, your data is transferred to and processed there. Where the law requires it, we rely on our providers' standard contractual safeguards for those transfers.

7. Cookies

We use only cookies that are strictly necessary: a session cookie and a security token to keep you signed in, a short-lived cookie that holds a username you claim on the homepage before you finish signing up, and a cookie that lasts under a minute to style page transitions. Your browser's storage also keeps unsaved edits, whether you've dismissed a hint, and, for up to 10 minutes, the email address you're signing in with, so a mistyped code doesn't send you back to the start. Our analytics run without cookies or device storage, and we don't use advertising cookies.

8. How long we keep it

Account and content data is kept while your account exists. Deleting your account immediately removes your account record, profile, tastetree, lists and any linked Google or Apple sign-in, and deletes your avatar image. Deleting a single list removes it the same way.

• Backups — our database keeps a short restore history for recovering from mistakes. Deleted data drops out of it within 30 days.
• Sign-in codes — a code stops working after 10 minutes and is deleted once it's used or a new one is sent. Records of code requests are kept for about a day, to enforce sending limits.
• Request logs — kept for no more than 30 days, for security and debugging. IP addresses used for rate limiting are held only in memory and are not stored.
• Visitor counts — daily totals are kept while the tastetree or list exists; the hashes used to count unique visitors are deleted within two days.
• Usage data — kept by PostHog for up to one year. Email us to have the usage data linked to your account deleted.

Some copies are outside our control. Search engines may keep indexed pages for a while after you delete them, and share images that you or others have already downloaded or posted elsewhere stay wherever they were shared.

9. Your choices and rights

You can edit your profile and lists at any time, delete any list, and delete your account from your account settings.

Depending on where you live, you may also have legal rights over your data. If you are in the EU, UK or a similar jurisdiction, you can ask to access, correct, export or erase it, or object to or restrict how we use it, and you can complain to your local data protection authority. If you live in a US state with a consumer privacy law, such as California, you have similar rights to know, correct and delete your data, and we won't treat you differently for using them. We don't sell or share personal data for advertising.

To make a request, email hello@tastetree.io. We may need to confirm your identity first, and we aim to respond within one month. Complex requests can take up to three months, and if yours will, we'll tell you within the first month.

10. Children

TasteTree is not intended for anyone under 13. If you believe a child has given us personal data, contact us and we'll delete it.

11. Changes and contact

We'll update this policy as the product changes, and the date at the top always reflects the current version. Material changes will be flagged in the app. Questions go to hello@tastetree.io.