This Privacy Policy describes how TetherHub LLC ("TetherHub," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, stores, and protects your information when you use CookBetter (the "Service"). This Privacy Policy is part of our unified policy framework, which includes our Terms of Service and Usage Policy. By using the Service, you agree to the collection and use of information as described in this Privacy Policy.
1. Information We Collect
1.1 Account Information
When you create an account, we collect the following information:
- Email address — used for account identification, authentication, and communication.
- Display name — used for personalization within the app. If not provided, defaults to your email prefix.
- Password — if you register with email and password. Your password is cryptographically hashed using industry-standard methods by our authentication provider. TetherHub LLC never stores, accesses, or transmits your password in plaintext.
- Authentication tokens — if you sign in with Apple Sign-In or Google Sign-In, we receive an authentication token and basic profile information (name and email) from the respective provider. We do not receive or store your Apple or Google password.
1.2 Profile and Preference Data
You may optionally provide the following information to personalize your experience:
- Health goals (e.g., low calorie, high protein, low carb)
- Dietary preferences (e.g., vegetarian, vegan, paleo, keto)
- Dietary restrictions (e.g., gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free)
This data is stored in your user profile and is used solely to personalize AI recipe conversions and nutritional recommendations within the Service.
1.3 User-Generated Content
When you use the Service, you may create and store the following content:
- Recipes and recipe adaptations
- Collections and meal plans
- Shopping lists and pantry inventory
- Personal notes and ratings
1.4 User Feedback
You may voluntarily submit the following through the Service:
- Feature suggestions — ideas or suggestions for improving the Service.
- Bug reports — descriptions of issues you encounter while using the Service.
- Recipe reports — reports flagging recipe quality or accuracy issues, including the reason and relevant recipe data.
1.5 Usage Data
We collect limited usage data necessary for operating the Service:
- Import and conversion counters — weekly and lifetime counts of recipe imports and AI conversions, used to enforce free-tier limits.
- Subscription status — whether your account is on the free or premium tier, and the subscription plan type (monthly or annual).
We do NOT collect:
- IP addresses for tracking purposes
- Device identifiers (IDFA, Android Advertising ID)
- Location or GPS data
- Contacts, calendar, messages, or call logs
- Browsing history or app usage analytics
- Session duration or screen-level behavior data
1.6 Device Permissions
The Service may request access to certain device capabilities. These permissions are only activated when you initiate a specific feature:
- Camera — requested when you use the barcode scanner in the Pantry feature, capture a recipe image for import, or update a recipe image. The camera is not accessed at any other time.
- Photo Library — requested when you choose to import a recipe from a photograph stored on your device. Your photo library is not accessed at any other time.
- Microphone — requested when you use Hands-Free Cook Mode to navigate recipes using voice commands. Audio is processed locally for speech recognition only and is not recorded, stored, or transmitted to any server.
2. How We Use Your Information
We use the information we collect for the following purposes:
- To provide and operate the Service — storing your recipes, cookbooks, meal plans, pantry items, grocery lists, and cook history.
- To process recipe imports — sending recipe URLs to third-party extraction services, processing recipe images through optical character recognition, and parsing recipe text.
- To perform AI recipe conversions — sending your recipe data and dietary preferences to AI services to generate personalized recipe adaptations.
- To personalize your experience — applying your dietary preferences, health goals, and nutritional targets to recipe conversions and recommendations.
- To enforce our policies — monitoring usage counters to enforce free-tier limits, detecting policy violations, and managing account suspensions.
- To respond to your inquiries — processing and responding to feature suggestions, bug reports, recipe reports, and support requests.
- To improve the Service — analyzing aggregated, non-personally-identifiable usage patterns to enhance features and fix issues.
3. Third-Party Services and Data Sharing
We use third-party service providers to operate and deliver the Service. When we share data with these providers, we share only the minimum information necessary for the specific function. The categories of third-party services we use include:
- Cloud infrastructure and database hosting: We use a third-party cloud platform to host our database, manage user authentication, and enforce data access controls. This provider stores your account data, user content, and authentication credentials.
- AI processing services: We use third-party artificial intelligence services to power recipe conversions, image-based recipe extraction, and text recipe parsing. When you use these features, your recipe data, images, and dietary preferences are sent to the AI provider solely to process your specific request.
- Recipe extraction services: We use a third-party service to extract recipe data from web URLs you provide. Only the URL is sent — no user identity, account information, or personal data is included in the request.
- Product identification services: We use a third-party service to identify products from barcodes you scan in the Pantry feature. Only the barcode number is sent — no user identity or personal data is included in the request.
- Authentication providers: If you sign in with Apple Sign-In or Google Sign-In, authentication tokens are exchanged with the respective provider to verify your identity.
- Payment and subscription processing: All subscription purchases, renewals, and billing are managed exclusively through the Apple App Store. TetherHub LLC does not receive, store, or process your payment card information, billing address, or financial details.
Important Notes on Data Sharing
- We do not sell, rent, trade, or share your personal information with third parties for their marketing or advertising purposes.
- Data sent to AI processing services is used solely to process your specific request (recipe conversion, image extraction, or text parsing) and is not used to train AI models on your data.
- Where possible, we avoid sending user identity or personal data to third-party services that do not require it.
- Payment data is managed entirely by Apple. TetherHub LLC does not receive, store, or process your payment card information, billing address, or financial details.
4. Data Storage and Security
4.1 Where Your Data Is Stored
All user data is stored in a cloud-hosted database managed by a third-party infrastructure provider. This provider offers enterprise-grade infrastructure with data encryption and access controls.
4.2 Security Measures
We implement the following security measures to protect your data:
- Encryption in transit: All data transmitted between your device and our servers is encrypted using HTTPS/TLS.
- Password hashing: Passwords are hashed using industry-standard cryptographic methods by our authentication provider. TetherHub LLC never stores or accesses plaintext passwords.
- Row-Level Security (RLS): Database-level security policies ensure that each user can only access and modify their own data. No user can view, edit, or delete another user's data through the Service.
- Minimal data sharing: When interacting with third-party services, we share only the minimum data required for the specific function.
While we implement commercially reasonable security measures, no method of electronic storage or transmission over the Internet is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security of your data.
5. Data Retention
- Active accounts: Your data is retained for as long as your account remains active.
- Deleted accounts: Upon account deletion, all personal data associated with your account is permanently deleted from our database, with one narrow exception described in the next bullet. The deleted data includes your profile, recipes, cookbooks, meal plans, pantry items, grocery lists, cook history, and feedback submissions. Deletion is executed using cascading database operations that remove all related records.
- Free-tier abuse prevention record: After account deletion, we retain a small record consisting of a one-way SHA-256 hash of your email address (your plaintext email is not stored) along with your remaining weekly recipe-import and AI-conversion counts. This record is used solely to enforce free-tier usage limits. It is automatically deleted within approximately 14 days, or sooner if you re-register with the same email address. The record is accessible only by our backend services; no user, app client, or third party can read it.
- Authentication records: Authentication records associated with your account are removed upon account deletion.
6. Account Deletion and Data Removal
You may delete your account at any time through the in-app Settings screen. Account deletion is permanent and irreversible. Upon deletion:
- All personal data (profile, preferences, recipes, cookbooks, meal plans, pantry items, grocery lists, cook history, ratings, notes, suggestions, bug reports, and recipe reports) is permanently removed.
- Your data cannot be recovered after deletion.
- The one exception is the limited free-tier abuse prevention record described in Section 5, which contains a one-way hash of your email address and your remaining weekly usage counts. It is automatically deleted within approximately 14 days.
Important: Deleting your account does NOT automatically cancel your Apple App Store subscription. If you have an active subscription, you must cancel it separately through your Apple Account settings before or after deleting your account. Failure to do so will result in continued billing by Apple. TetherHub LLC is not responsible for charges incurred after account deletion due to an active subscription.
7. Children's Privacy
CookBetter is not directed at children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a child under 13, we will take prompt steps to delete that information and terminate the associated account.
If you are a parent or guardian and believe that your child under 13 has provided us with personal information, please contact us at support@cookbetter.app so that we can take appropriate action.
8. No Analytics or Tracking
CookBetter does not use any third-party analytics, advertising, crash reporting, or user behavior tracking services. We do not integrate with services such as Google Analytics, Firebase Analytics, Mixpanel, Amplitude, Segment, Sentry, or any similar platforms.
We do not collect device identifiers, advertising identifiers, IP addresses, or any other data for the purpose of tracking user behavior, building user profiles, or serving targeted advertisements.
The only usage data we collect is described in Section 1.5 (import/conversion counters and subscription status), which is necessary for operating the Service and enforcing usage limits.
9. Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, the Service, or applicable law. If we make material changes, we will notify you through the Service (such as an in-app notification) or via the email address associated with your account prior to the changes taking effect.
Your continued use of the Service after the updated Privacy Policy becomes effective constitutes your acceptance of the revised Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to the updated Privacy Policy, you must stop using the Service and delete your account.
Previous versions of this Privacy Policy are available upon request by contacting us at support@cookbetter.app.
10. Contact Information
If you have questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or your personal data, please contact us:
TetherHub LLC
Email: support@cookbetter.app