Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

This Privacy Policy explains how WeedBates ("WeedBates," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, shares, and protects your information when you use the WeedBates website, mobile experiences, and related services (the "Services").

WeedBates is a cash-back and marketing-facilitation platform. Consumers scan their purchase receipts and earn cash back that is funded by participating brands, retailers, and other advertisers. WeedBates is an intermediary that facilitates offers and marketing between those advertisers and you, and earns a fee for doing so. By using the Services you agree to the collection and use of your information as described here and in our Terms of Service.

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Information you provide

• Account & contact data: email address, password, phone number, and communication preferences.
• Identity & age-verification data: when you scan or enter a government-issued ID (e.g., a driver's license), we collect and store the data encoded on it — including your name, date of birth, address, ID number, sex, height, weight, eye and hair color, and issue/expiration dates — to verify your age and identity, prevent fraud and duplicate accounts, and comply with law.
• Receipt data: images of receipts you scan and the information we extract from them, including store name and location, date, product names, brands, categories, quantities, and prices.
• Payout data: your chosen cash-out method (e.g., Venmo, CashApp, Zelle) and the associated handle or account identifier.
• Other submissions: support requests, survey responses, and anything else you send us.

2.2 Information collected automatically

• Location data: with your consent, precise device GPS location (see Section 6). Without consent, approximate location derived from your IP address.
• Device & usage data: IP address, device and browser identifiers, operating system, pages and screens viewed, offers viewed and redeemed, and interaction timestamps.
• Cookies & similar technologies: for authentication, security, analytics, attribution, and measuring advertising performance (see Section 9).

2.3 How receipt scanning works

When you scan a receipt, the image is transmitted to and processed by our optical-character and AI processing providers to extract the data described above. We use this data to match your purchases to funded offers, to verify that a purchase actually occurred (including by comparing the store location to your device location), and to generate purchase and visit insights that we may share with advertisers as described below.

3. How We Use Your Information

• Operate the Services and pay out cash back you earn.
• Verify your age, identity, and eligibility, and detect and prevent fraud, abuse, and duplicate or ineligible accounts.
• Match your purchases to offers funded by brands, retailers, and other advertisers, and measure whether and how offers drive purchases and store visits.
• Facilitate advertising and marketing to you from participating brands, retailers, and other companies — including companies outside the cannabis industry — as described in Section 4.
• Personalize the offers, content, and communications you see.
• Send you transactional and, with your consent, promotional messages by email, SMS, and push notification.
• Analyze, secure, maintain, and improve the Services, and comply with law.

4. Advertising, Sponsored Offers & Third-Party Marketing

WeedBates is funded by advertisers. Participating brands, retailers, and other companies — including businesses that are not cannabis companies (for example, restaurants, consumer brands, and other advertisers) — pay WeedBates to fund cash-back offers, to place sponsored or featured offers, and to reach and market to WeedBates users. WeedBates earns a fee for facilitating this marketing.

By using the Services and providing the consents described in Section 5, you agree that:

• We may use, process, and share your information — including your purchase, brand-preference, category, location/visit, and inferred-interest data, and, where you have consented, your contact information — with and on behalf of advertisers so they can present, target, deliver, and measure marketing and offers to you both inside and outside the Services.
• Advertisers and their service providers may market to you through the Services and, where you have given the applicable consent, through email, SMS, and push notifications.
• We may create and share aggregated and de-identified insights (such as category trends and store-visit analytics) with advertisers and partners, and we may build audience segments used to target marketing.
• WeedBates acts solely as an intermediary and facilitator. We are not the seller, manufacturer, advertiser of record, or provider of any advertised product or service, and we are not responsible for advertisers' products, offers, or their own handling of your data once shared with your consent.

Depending on where you live, some of this sharing may be considered a "sale" or "sharing" of personal information under privacy laws. You can exercise the choices described in Sections 5 and 7, including opting out of certain sharing — though doing so may limit the offers and cash back available to you, because the Services are funded by this advertising model.

5. Your Choices & Consent

• Marketing communications: at signup and in your settings you can opt in to promotional email, SMS, and push notifications. Message and data rates may apply; SMS marketing is sent only with your express consent and you can reply STOP to opt out. Transactional messages about your account may still be sent.
• Location: you control precise-location access through your consent setting and your device permissions, and can turn it off at any time (see Section 6).
• Advertising / data sharing: you may request that we limit certain sharing of your information for third-party marketing as described in Section 7.

6. Geolocation

With your consent, WeedBates collects your device's precise GPS location, including while you use the app in the background where your device permits, to:

• show nearby participating stores, offers, and deals;
• verify receipts by confirming your device was at or near the store where a purchase was made (fraud prevention); and
• generate store-visit and foot-traffic analytics that we may share with advertisers in aggregated or de-identified form to measure the effectiveness of their offers and marketing.

You can withdraw location consent at any time in your settings or device permissions. If you decline precise location, some features (such as receipt-proximity verification and nearby-store discovery) may be limited or unavailable.

7. Your Privacy Rights

7.1 General rights

• Access & portability: request a copy of your personal information.
• Correction: update or correct inaccurate information.
• Deletion: request deletion of your account and data, subject to legal retention obligations and fraud-prevention needs.
• Opt-out: unsubscribe from marketing communications and limit certain data sharing for third-party marketing.

7.2 U.S. state privacy rights (including California's CCPA/CPRA)

Residents of California and certain other states have the right to know, access, correct, and delete personal information, and the right to opt out of the "sale" or "sharing" of personal information and of targeted advertising. To exercise any of these rights, contact us at privacy@weedbates.app. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights, though — as noted — limiting data sharing may reduce the offers and cash back available to you.

7.3 Other jurisdictions

The Services are directed to the United States. If you access them from elsewhere, you do so on your own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local law.

8. How We Share Information with Service Providers

In addition to the advertiser sharing described in Section 4, we share information with vendors who process it on our behalf, including for authentication (NextAuth-based sign-in), payments and payouts, receipt OCR and AI processing, cloud hosting and databases, storage of receipt and ID images, analytics, and communications. We also disclose information when required to comply with law, enforce our Terms, protect our rights and users' safety, or in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets.

9. Cookies & Tracking

We and our partners use cookies, SDKs, device identifiers, and similar technologies for authentication, security, analytics, referral and offer attribution, and to measure and improve advertising. You can control cookies through your browser or device settings; disabling some may limit functionality.

10. Data Retention

We retain your information for as long as your account is active and as needed to provide the Services, then for the periods required to meet legal, tax, accounting, audit, dispute- resolution, and fraud-prevention obligations. Financial and payout records are retained as required by applicable financial and tax rules.

11. Data Security

We use administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect your information, including encryption in transit and at rest, access controls, and hashing or encryption of sensitive identifiers. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

12. Children's Privacy

The Services are intended only for adults of legal age to purchase cannabis in their jurisdiction (21+ in most states). We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under that age. If you believe a minor has provided us information, contact privacy@weedbates.app.

13. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will post the updated version with a new "Last Updated" date and, for material changes, provide additional notice. Your continued use of the Services after an update means you accept the revised policy.

14. Contact Us

• Privacy requests: privacy@weedbates.app
• Legal: legal@weedbates.app
• Entity: WeedBates