Western Boot World Privacy Policy

Overview

Western Boot World is a community marketplace for western boots. Browsing is open to everyone; posting and profile features require a member account, and members must be 18 or older. This policy explains what we collect and why, in plain English.

Information We Collect

When you sign in with Google, Microsoft, or email, we receive basic account information such as your name, email address, profile image, and provider account identifier. We also store what you choose to create here: listings (photos, video, descriptions, prices), your profile (username, bio, policies, fun fact, avatar), and drafts. Listings and public profiles are visible to everyone. If you turn on your public seller profile and add contact methods (Facebook, Reddit, phone, email), those contact details are published so buyers can reach you; leave any of them blank to keep them private.

How We Use Information

We use account information to operate member profiles, protect community accountability, enable posting and listing features, reduce abuse, and help members manage their own activity. We do not sell personal information.

Fraud Prevention & Security Signals

To keep the community trustworthy and enforce one account per person, we collect limited security signals when you sign in or create a listing: a device fingerprint (a hashed identifier derived from your browser and device characteristics), your network IP address, and your email domain. Sellers may also be asked to verify a phone number. We use these signals only to detect and prevent duplicate accounts, fraud, and abuse, never for advertising, and we store IP addresses and verified phone numbers in salted, hashed form rather than as raw values. This processing is carried out on the basis of our legitimate interest in protecting the platform and its members.

Third-Party Login Providers

If you sign in through Google, Microsoft, or Facebook, that provider may process your information under its own privacy policy. Email sign-in is handled on this site. We use these methods only for authentication and basic profile setup.

Service Providers & AI Features

We run on a small set of service providers, and your data goes to them only as needed to operate a feature: Supabase (database, authentication, and media storage), Vercel (site hosting), Twilio (sending the one-time SMS code for seller phone verification), Resend (delivering account emails), and OpenAI (automated content moderation of listing text and images, the optional screenshot-import feature, and our help chatbot). Messages you type or dictate to the chatbot and screenshots you submit for import are processed by OpenAI to generate the response; don't include sensitive personal information in them. We do not sell personal information to anyone, and we use no advertising trackers. Optional Dusty voice mode uses your browser’s speech-recognition service, which may process microphone audio remotely, and OpenAI generates Dusty’s AI voice from the reply text. Voice transcripts appear in the chat. Close voice or the chat, or leave the tab, to stop the microphone.

Boot Reference Contributions

Boot lookup proposals and reviewer notes are visible only to the contributor and administrators until review. With the contributor’s publication permission, approved reference fields and source citations appear publicly. Private notes, account identifiers, and linked Skin ID photos are not included in public records. Linked photos retain their separate Skin ID permissions. We keep the original proposal and review history for corrections and accountability; contributors can withdraw a proposal while it is pending.

Cookies & Local Storage

With your permission, we use Google Analytics to measure page visits and language choices. Analytics is optional and stays off until you choose Allow analytics. We do not send account details, form contents, or Dusty conversations to Google Analytics, and advertising features are disabled. You can change your choice using Analytics preferences in the footer. Google processes technical usage data; see its privacy policy at policies.google.com/privacy. Your browser stores the Supabase sign-in session and small amounts of site data such as theme, sound and interface preferences, game progress, and pending invite state. Founder/admin tools may also keep unpublished manual-entry drafts on that device. Signing out clears the sign-in session; preferences and local game progress may remain until you clear this site's browser data.

Skin Identification & Reference Photos

Skin identification requests and photo contributions are private to the submitting member and authorized expert reviewers. Photo uploads require a signed-in account with seller or photo-contributor approval. We store contributor-access requests, approval decisions, your photos, material descriptions, consent choices, and the expert's assessment. A contributor's description is kept separate from a reviewed identification.

If you choose Get AI assessment, your submitted photos and their view and boot-region labels are sent to OpenAI for a preliminary visual assessment. We do not include your account details or the expert's decision in that request. We store the resulting assessment separately from expert reviews. This optional processing does not grant permission for model training or public display, and simply uploading a photo set does not start an AI assessment.

You can request identification without allowing reference use, model training, or public display. Contributions to the reference collection require reference-use permission; model-training and public-display permissions are separate, optional choices. Giving public-display permission does not automatically publish a submission. Use My submissions to withdraw a photo set from active review and future reference use. Contact us for deletion requests, including questions about any prior use.

To help you finish signing in or retry an upload, unfinished photo submissions may be saved in this browser for up to 24 hours. You can clear the draft in the submission form. Signing out clears the locally saved submission draft.

Operational Metrics

To monitor reliability and operating costs, we record AI request timing, feature and model names, success or failure, reported token counts, and estimated cost. These records do not contain prompts, photos, conversations, account identifiers, or credentials. Only authorized administrators can view operational reports.

Data Retention

We keep your account information and the content you post for as long as your account is active. Fraud-prevention signals (device fingerprint, hashed IP address, hashed phone number) are kept only while they are needed to protect the community. When you request deletion, we delete or anonymize your data as described on the data deletion page.

Your Choices & Rights

You can view and edit your profile and listings from your account at any time. You can also ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it by emailing the contact address below. Depending on where you live (for example, California or the EU), some of these may also be legal rights. We honor such requests for all members regardless of location, and we will never treat you differently for exercising them.

Data Deletion

You can request deletion of your account data by following the instructions on our data deletion page.

Contact

For privacy questions, contact support@westernbootworld.com.