This Privacy Policy explains how Spot Around Me ("we", "us", "our") collects, uses, shares, and protects your information when you use the Spot Around Me mobile app and related services (the "Service"). By using the Service, you agree to this Policy.
Contents
1. Information we collect
Information you provide
- Account details — name, email address, phone number, password, and (optionally) a profile photo when you create an account.
- Content you create — homes you save, your notes and photos on those homes, your neighborhood priorities, and the status you assign to a home (e.g., considering, toured, offered, bought, passed).
- Communications — messages, feedback, or support requests you send us.
Information collected automatically
- Location — with your permission, we use your device's precise location to score the neighborhood around where you are and to find nearby places. We may use coarse/approximate location for analytics and to tailor local content. You can turn location off in your device settings (some features won't work without it).
- Addresses you enter — addresses or listings you search, paste, or score.
- Usage & behavioral data — how you interact with the app (screens viewed, searches, homes scored and saved, features used) and derived signals such as an estimated buyer-readiness stage. We use this to operate and improve the Service, personalize recommendations, and produce market analytics (see Sections 2 and 4).
- Device & diagnostic data — device identifiers, device model and OS, app version, IP address, and diagnostic/crash information.
Purchases
Subscriptions are processed by Apple App Store or Google Play. We receive confirmation and receipt information to enable your subscription, but we do not collect or store your payment-card details.
2. How we use information
- Provide, operate, and secure the Service (accounts, neighborhood scoring, nearby places, saved homes, subscriptions).
- Personalize your experience and recommendations.
- Send you service messages and, where permitted, notifications (e.g., updates or nudges you can control).
- Analyze usage to understand demand and improve the product.
- Create aggregated and de-identified insights and data products (see Section 4).
- Detect, prevent, and address fraud, abuse, and security issues, and comply with law.
3. AI features
The optional "AI neighborhood summary" generates a short written summary of an area. To do this, we send relevant, non-identifying inputs — such as the location's coordinates, the computed fit facts, and local news/events context — to our AI provider (Anthropic) to generate text. We do not send your name, contact details, or account identifiers to the AI provider for this feature.
4. Aggregated & de-identified data
We may create aggregated and de-identified information that does not directly identify you. This includes trends about neighborhood demand, buyer preferences, and market activity derived from usage across our users. We may use, retain, and share this aggregated/de-identified information for any lawful purpose, including research, analytics, product development, and commercial data products offered to third parties (for example, real-estate businesses). We maintain de-identified data in de-identified form and do not attempt to re-identify it, except as permitted by law.
5. How we share information
- Service providers — vendors who process data on our behalf under contract (hosting, mapping, email, analytics, AI, push notifications), only as needed to provide the Service. See Section 6.
- Aggregated/de-identified data — as described in Section 4.
- Legal & safety — to comply with law, enforce our terms, or protect the rights, property, or safety of users, the public, or us.
- Business transfers — if we are involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, bankruptcy, or sale of all or part of our assets, your information (including personal and de-identified data) may be transferred or disclosed as part of that transaction, subject to this Policy or a successor policy. We will note any material change in ownership or use of your personal information.
We do not sell your personal information in exchange for money. Certain sharing for analytics or advertising may be treated as a "sale" or "sharing" under some laws — see Sections 7–8 for your choices.
6. Third-party services
We rely on the following providers, each governed by its own privacy policy:
- Google Maps Platform (Places, Geocoding, Maps) — nearby places, addresses, and maps.
- Google Firebase — push notifications and app diagnostics.
- Amazon Web Services (hosting and Amazon SES) — infrastructure and transactional email.
- Ticketmaster and PredictHQ — local events and activity data.
- Anthropic — the AI summary feature (Section 3).
- Apple and Google — subscription processing.
7. Your choices & rights
- Access, correct, or delete — edit your profile in the app, delete your account and its data from Profile settings, or contact us at support@spotaroundme.com.
- Analytics opt-out — you can turn off usage analytics/personalization in the app's Profile settings ("Help improve recommendations").
- Location — control location access in your device settings.
- Notifications — control push notifications in your device settings.
8. California privacy rights (CCPA/CPRA)
If you are a California resident, you have the right to know what personal information we collect, to request access or deletion, to correct inaccurate information, and to opt out of any "sale" or "sharing" of personal information as defined by California law. We do not sell personal information for money. To exercise these rights, contact support@spotaroundme.com; we will not discriminate against you for exercising them.
9. EEA/UK privacy rights (GDPR)
If you are in the EEA or UK, our legal bases for processing include performing our contract with you (providing the Service), our legitimate interests (improving and securing the Service, analytics), your consent (e.g., location, notifications, optional analytics), and legal obligations. You have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict, or object to processing, and to data portability. To exercise these rights or to withdraw consent, contact support@spotaroundme.com. You may also lodge a complaint with your local data-protection authority.
10. Retention & security
We keep personal information only as long as needed to provide the Service and for legitimate business or legal purposes, then delete or de-identify it. Aggregated/de-identified data may be kept indefinitely. We use commercially reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your information, though no method of transmission or storage is completely secure.
11. Children
The Service is not directed to children under 13 (or the minimum age required in your region), and we do not knowingly collect their personal information. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we will delete it.
12. Changes to this Policy & contact
We may update this Policy from time to time. We will revise the "Last updated" date and, for material changes, provide additional notice. Questions or requests? Contact us at support@spotaroundme.com.