Squishers Privacy Policy

Effective date: [DATE OF PUBLISHING]
Version: 1.0
Contact: support@trymastery.app

This policy explains what information the Squishers app collects, why we collect it, and the choices you have. We tried to keep it short and clear.

1. Who we are#

Squishers is an app where collectors keep track of their squishy toys and buy, sell, and trade them with each other. Squishers is run by Nikolas Machemehl in Texas, USA. In this policy, “Squishers,” “we,” and “us” mean Nikolas Machemehl and the people who help run the Squishers app. “You” means anyone who uses it.

Squishers is only for people who are 18 or older.

2. What we collect#

Things you give us

Account info: your email address, or your Apple or Google sign-in ID. If you sign in with Google, Google also gives us the name and photo on your Google account.
Your age: you enter your birthday so we can check that you’re 18 or older. If you are, we keep only your birth year and the fact that you passed.
Profile: your username and profile photo.
Your squishies: your collection, your wishlist, listings, posts, comments, photos, and reviews.
Restock posts: if you post a restock, everyone can see the store, its city, and its ZIP code.
Your area: your ZIP code, how far you’re willing to go, and your meetup choices. We turn your ZIP code into a general area. Other collectors see that general area and about how far away you are, never your ZIP code. Squishers never asks for your phone’s GPS location.
Messages: the messages, photos, and offers you send to other collectors.
Trade details: what was traded or sold, the price you agreed on, how (meetup or shipping), the meetup place and time you type, and both sides’ confirmations. If you ship, you give us a name and a shipping address. We share them only with the other collector in that trade.
Your agreement to our terms: which version of our Terms and this policy you agreed to, and when.
Reports and support: anything you tell us when you report a problem or email us.

Things we collect automatically

App activity: what you do in the app, like adding a squishy, making a listing, sending an offer, or finishing a trade. This includes the price you agreed on in a trade.
What you look at: which posts you’ve already seen and which squishy pages you open. We use this to pick posts for your feed and to show what’s trending.
Device info: your phone type (iPhone or Android), app version, language, time zone, an app ID we make for your phone, and app IDs made by Google’s tools (Firebase) that help the app work.
Push notification tokens: so we can send you the notifications you’ve turned on.
Basic connection info: like your IP address, which our servers log for security and to stop abuse.

Things we make to stop cheating

We turn your email, your Apple or Google sign-in ID, and your phone’s app ID into scrambled codes. We use them only to catch fake accounts, people inviting themselves, and banned people who come back.

Things from other companies

Apple or Google: basic sign-in info, if you sign in with them. If Apple or Google ever give us an age range for you, we may use it to check that you’re 18 or older.
App Store or Google Play (through RevenueCat): whether you have an active Squishers Pro subscription. We never see your card number or payment details.

Phone permissions: we ask for your camera and photos only so you can add pictures. If you add a meetup to your calendar, the app adds the event on your phone. We never upload your calendar.

What we don’t collect: we don’t save the words you type into search. Your recent searches stay on your phone. We don’t use crash-report tools.

3. How we use your information#

To run your account and the app.
To show your collection, wishlist, listings, and posts to other collectors.
To find matches between what you want and what other collectors have.
To pick posts for your feed and show what’s trending.
To deliver messages, offers, and notifications.
To calculate trust scores from completed trades, reviews, and confirmed problems.
To give you Squishers Pro and free Pro months you earn by inviting friends.
To check every photo you upload with automatic tools. Google’s tools look for nudity, violence, and other harmful content. We also use a child-safety tool that looks for images of child sexual abuse. Photos that fail aren’t posted. If many of your photos fail, our safety team may look at your account.
To keep people safe, stop scams, spam, and cheating, and enforce our rules.
To fix bugs and improve the app.
To answer you when you contact us.

4. What other collectors can see#

Other Squishers members can see: your username, profile photo, general area, collection, wishlist, listings, posts, comments, trust score, reviews about you, number of completed trades, sales, and purchases, when you joined, and whether you have Pro. Reviews are shown without the reviewer’s name.

Trade banner: when two collectors complete a trade, the app may show a short note like “Maya just traded a Pink Nice Cube with Jules.” This only happens if both collectors have “Share my trades” turned on. It’s on by default. You can turn it off anytime in Settings → Privacy.

Private (not shown to other members): your email, birth year, ZIP code, messages (only the people in the chat can see them), offers and trade details (only the people in that trade), and your saved listings.

People who aren’t signed in can’t browse Squishers or search for you. But if someone copies the link to a photo you posted, anyone with that link can see that photo.

5. Messages#

Messages are protected while they travel over the internet and while they’re stored on our servers. They are not end-to-end encrypted.

People on our team don’t read your messages, except in these cases:

Someone reports a message. Then our safety team may read that message and a few messages around it to decide what to do.
The law requires it, or someone’s safety is at risk.

Our computers check messages automatically to keep you safe. They check photos for harmful content. They check links for scams and viruses. They look for words often used in payment scams, so we can show you a safety tip.

Message previews: when this is on, part of a message shows in the notification on your phone. It’s on unless you turn it off. To show it, the text passes through our notification service (Expo) and Apple or Google. You can turn it off in Settings → Notifications → Show message text in notifications.

We do not sell your personal information. We do not share it for advertising. We don’t use ad trackers, and we don’t track you across other apps or websites.

We use these companies to run Squishers. They may use your information only to provide their service to us:

Google (Firebase and Google Cloud): sign-in, database, photo storage, servers, app records, and safety checks. Google’s tools check photos for harmful content and links for scams.
RevenueCat: manages Pro subscriptions. It gets your Squishers user ID and your purchase status, not your card.
Typesense: powers search. It gets public info like listings, usernames, and general areas. When you search, it gets the words you type so it can show results.
Expo: delivers push notifications, including message previews if they’re on.
Apple and Google: app stores, sign-in, push notifications, and checks that the app is real.
A child-safety service: checks photos for images of child sexual abuse.
Our email provider: handles emails you send to support.

Amazon: some product pages have a “View on Amazon” button. If you tap it, you leave Squishers and go to Amazon. We don’t send Amazon your name, email, or Squishers ID. Amazon’s own privacy policy applies there. Right now these are plain links. We may add Amazon Associate links in the future. If we do, the app will say so next to the button, and Squishers may earn a commission from qualifying purchases.

We may also share information if the law requires it, or to protect someone’s safety. For example, U.S. law requires us to report child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). We keep that report and related account data for at least 1 year. We may also share information if Squishers is sold or merged with another company. The new owner must follow this policy.

7. How long we keep information#

Your account and content: when you delete your account, we hide your profile right away. You have 30 days to change your mind. Just sign back in. After 30 days, we erase your profile, collection, wishlist, listings, posts, comments, and photos.
What stays after you delete your account: messages you sent stay in the other person’s chat, labeled “Deleted collector.” Photos in those messages are removed. Your trades, offers, and the reviews you wrote stay, labeled “Deleted collector,” without your username. So do listings that were part of an offer, but without their photos. Squishies you added to the catalog stay, without your name or photos. If a comment you wrote has replies, we erase your words but keep an empty spot so the replies make sense.
Trade records: kept for 3 years after the trade. Then we remove the names and keep only basic facts, like the date and item.
Shipping addresses: erased 90 days after the trade ends, or sooner if you delete your account.
Safety reports: kept 1 year after a case is closed. Then we remove the names. If we took action on an account, we keep the record for 2 years after the action ends. If we ban someone, we keep a short note of the ban so they can’t come back. We keep child-safety reports at least 1 year, or longer if the law requires it. Records of what our team did are kept 3 years.
Anti-cheating codes: kept up to 2 years after your account ends.
Birthday check for under-18s: if you enter a birthday under 18, we keep a scrambled code made from your email for 30 days. If we close an account because the person is under 18, we keep that code for 1 year (see section 9).
App usage records: kept up to 14 months.
Data download files: erased 7 days after we make them.
Backups: we keep backup copies to protect against data loss. Deleted data is fully gone from our backups within about 15 weeks.

8. Your choices and rights#

See or download your data: Settings → Account → Download my data. You’ll get a file with your account, profile, collection, wishlist, listings, posts, offers, trades, and reviews you wrote. Want a copy of your messages, comments, or photos too? Email us and we’ll send them.
Fix your data: edit your profile in the app, or email us.
Delete your account: Settings → Delete account (at the bottom of Settings). You can also use our website page “Delete your account,” or email us. Any free Pro months you haven’t used are lost when you delete your account. If you pay for Pro, deleting your account does not cancel your subscription. Cancel it in your App Store or Google Play settings.
Notifications: turn each type on or off in Settings → Notifications, or in your phone’s settings.
Trade banner: turn “Share my trades” off in Settings → Privacy.

Your privacy rights. Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

know what information we have about you and get a copy,
fix information that’s wrong,
delete your information,
say no to the sale of your information, targeted ads, or profiling. (We don’t do any of these.)

To use a right, use the app or email us. We’ll check that the request is really from you, usually by asking you to email us from the email on your account. You can let someone else ask for you if you give them written permission.

We’ll answer within 45 days. If we say no, we’ll tell you why. You can ask us to look again by replying “Appeal” to our answer. We’ll answer your appeal within 60 days. If you’re still unhappy, you can contact your state’s attorney general.

Using these rights never changes your price or access to Pro.

9. Age limit#

Squishers is only for adults 18 and older. It is not made for children. We don’t knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.

If you enter a birthday under 18, we don’t create your account. We delete what you gave us. We keep only a scrambled code made from your email for 30 days, so the same email can’t sign up again right away.

If we learn that someone under 18 has an account, we’ll close it and delete their information within 30 days. We keep a scrambled code made from their email for 1 year, so they can’t sign up again right away. We may keep what we must by law, like safety reports. If you think a child is using Squishers, please email us.

10. Where we operate#

Squishers is made for people in the United States. We run it from the United States. Your information is stored and handled in the United States by us and the companies listed above. If you use Squishers from another country, your information will be sent to the United States.

11. Security#

We use industry-standard protections, like encryption in transit and at rest, strict access rules, and security checks. No system is 100% secure, so please use a strong password and keep your sign-in safe.

12. Do Not Track#

Some web browsers send a “Do Not Track” signal. Squishers is a phone app and doesn’t track you across other apps or websites, so we don’t respond to that signal differently. We honor Global Privacy Control signals where the law requires it.

13. Changes to this policy#

If we change this policy, we’ll update the date at the top. If the change is big, we’ll tell you in the app before it takes effect. If a change lets us use your information in a new way you didn’t agree to, we’ll ask you first.

14. Contact us#

Questions or requests? Email support@trymastery.app.

Mail: Nikolas Machemehl (Squishers), [MAILING ADDRESS]