Privacy Policy

Our Approach to User Data

We firmly believe that user data should be treated as a responsibility rather than an asset. Our commitment is to minimize the collection of Personally Identifying Information (PII) to the greatest extent possible. It's important to clarify that we do not profit from the sale of your data; our earnings come from affiliate commissions, rewarding us for facilitating sales generated by our recommendations.

At no point do we seek to identify you or delve into your shopping habits or online preferences. Our primary goal is to keep data collection to a minimum.

Purposes of Data Collection

We gather data to address specific questions related to our service:

  1. Which product categories are in high demand?
  2. How effective are our recommendations in those categories?
  3. Do users follow through with the product recommendations we provide?
  4. What features of our service do users find valuable?
  5. Which features of our service are considered less valuable?
  6. What information influences purchasing decisions?
  7. How many users are using our platform?

It's crucial to emphasize that none of these inquiries necessitate identifying individual users. We rely on fully anonymized aggregate data to empower consumers with information about their buying choices. As of today, Nicked does not maintain user accounts or store any user-specific data in our databases.

Data Collection Instances

We only engage in data collection when users conduct shopping searches on a select few supported retail and e-commerce websites, which, at present, is restricted to Amazon.

Regarding our Chrome extension, it's important to note that while the Chrome Web Store may request permission to "read and change site data on all the websites you visit," our actual data collection only occurs in the aforementioned shopping scenario. We do not access your emails or any other browsing data in any way.

We welcome the Chrome team to revise permissions to allow us to request a more limited set of data.

Types of Data Collected

1. Anonymized E-commerce Product Pages

Similar to search queries, we use this data to gauge product popularity. If you view a product page on Amazon and that product is in our database, we receive data such as:

{ 'sku': 'B0000ABCDE', 'store': 'amazon' }

2. Anonymized Purchase Information

If you make a purchase based on our recommendations, we receive only this data:

{ 'sku': 'B0000ABCDE', 'store': 'amazon', 'purchased': 'yes' }

3. HTTP Server Logs

Similar to most websites, our servers log request and response information, including IP addresses and user-agents. While we generally do not track IP addresses or user-agents, we may occasionally review similar requests for debugging purposes. Our goal is not to link these requests to specific users. An example log entry:

5. Analytics

We currently employ event analytics via Google Analytics and Amplitude for generic user-flow analysis, not at the individual user level. We plan to replace these services with our own minimal and relevant data collection once feasible.

(In the interest of transparency, please be aware of our use of these services. We apologize for any inconvenience.)

An example of user-flow data obtained through Amplitude:

191 users clicked "Filter products."

92 of these users successfully filtered the recommended list.

12 users clicked on one of the displayed products.

Opt-In Product-Specific Data

You have the option to provide your email address to receive deal notifications for your preferred product categories. If you choose to do so, your email will be managed by a third party (MailChimp) and will not be associated with Nicked's extension or website usage. You can unsubscribe at any time, and if you have no subscribed categories, your email address will be deleted from our records.

Defining "Completely Anonymized"

When we refer to "completely anonymized," we mean that no personal data is attached in any form. There are no tracking cookies, IP addresses, user agents, or similar information. We only store the data outlined here along with a timestamp.

Nicked contains links to various websites, including product reviews and online stores. Some of these links may be affiliate links, allowing us to earn commissions on products sold. These links do not contain any Personally Identifiable Information (PII), and we do not receive reports about individual users' purchases. However, affiliate sites may provide us with aggregate data on customer purchases. Keep in mind that websites outside of Nicked have their own data collection practices and privacy policies that are beyond our control.

Our future offerings may include personalization, but these features will be opt-in and subject to additional policies that clarify any expanded data collection.