Privacy Policy

If you create an account: if you sign in with Google, Google shares your email address and name with us; we use only the email to sign you in. We never see your Google password, contacts, or anything else in your Google account. If you sign in with an email link, we store the email address you enter. Either way, you choose a username. Your username is public; your email is not.

What you post: drink submissions, photos, captions, comments, votes, photo likes and reports. Submissions, photos, captions and comments are public and show your username once they're live. Votes, likes and reports are private — we show totals, never who cast them.

If you vote without an account: we set a small cookie called sms_anon containing a random ID, so we can remember your votes and stop the same browser voting twice. It isn't linked to your name or email.

Technical information: to prevent vote stuffing and spam, we turn your IP address into a scrambled, one-way code (a salted hash) and store that code with your votes. We don't store or log your raw IP address for this. Our hosting providers may keep standard server logs, including IP addresses, for security and reliability. When something on the site breaks, an error report (what failed, your browser type, the page you were on) is sent to our hosting provider so we can fix it.

What we don't collect: we don't run advertising, analytics trackers, or social media pixels, and we don't ask for your real name, birthday, phone number, or location.

Before a photo leaves your device, your browser resizes it and re-saves it as a new image file. In normal use this removes embedded metadata like GPS location and camera details. Uploaded photos are stored privately and shown on the site through links that expire, but anyone who views a drink page can see the photos on it. Please keep people, faces, and barista name tags out of your shots.

We use your information to: sign you in; show your username on things you post; count votes and likes; enforce limits on voting, posting and uploads; review reported content and act on rule-breaking (including banning accounts); fix bugs; and respond when you contact us. If you have an account, we may email you about your account or about important changes to these policies. We won't send marketing email unless you've opted in to it.

We don't sell, rent, or trade your personal information, and we don't share it with advertisers. We use service providers who process data on our behalf to run SMS: Lovable (website hosting and error reporting), Supabase (database, sign-in, sign-in emails, and photo storage), Cloudflare (bot protection on sign-in and submissions, and routing email sent to our contact address), and Google (only if you choose to sign in with Google). Fonts on the site are loaded from Google Fonts, which means your browser connects to Google's servers and shares your IP address with Google when pages load. We may also disclose information if required by law, to protect the safety of our users or the public, or to enforce our Terms. If SMS is ever sold or merged, your information may transfer to the new owner under this same policy.

We use: the sms_anon cookie (anonymous voting, explained above), and browser storage that keeps you signed in. Our bot check is provided by Cloudflare Turnstile, which may set its own essential cookie while it runs. We don't use advertising or analytics cookies, so there's nothing to opt out of. If you block cookies, browsing still works, but anonymous voting won't remember you.

Account information and your posts stay until you delete them or ask us to delete your account. Votes and their scrambled IP codes are kept so totals stay accurate; if you delete your account, your votes are deleted too. Content removed for breaking the rules, and records of bans, may be kept as long as needed to stop repeat abuse. Hosting providers' server logs are deleted on their own schedules.

You can delete your own photos and comments, and you can ask us to: tell you what we hold about you; correct it; give you a copy; or delete your account and everything tied to it. Email hello@secretmenusociety.com from the address on your account and we'll respond within 30 days. You can also clear the sms_anon cookie in your browser at any time. Depending on where you live, you may have additional legal rights over your data — we honor these requests for everyone, regardless of location.

SMS is not meant for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child under 13 has made an account or posted on SMS, email hello@secretmenusociety.com and we'll delete it.

We use access controls so people can only change their own content, encrypted connections (HTTPS), private photo storage, and limits on voting and uploads. No system is completely secure, so please use an email account you control and keep it secure. If you think you've found a security problem with SMS, please tell us at hello@secretmenusociety.com.

We may update this policy as SMS grows. We'll change the effective date at the top, and for significant changes we'll post a notice on the site or email account holders before they take effect.

Questions, requests, or concerns: hello@secretmenusociety.com. SMS is operated from New York, USA.