Privacy · Last updated 20 July 2026
Your location never leaves your device.
That's the important part, and it's a property of how the app is built rather than a promise about how we behave. The rest of this page covers what does get stored when you make an account, and who else sees anything.
Please have this reviewed. This page accurately describes how Closebud works today, written by the person who built it. It has not been reviewed by a lawyer and is not a compliance document for GDPR, CCPA, or any other regime. If Closebud takes on users in those jurisdictions, get it reviewed.
Your location
When you tap Locate me, your browser asks whether to share your coordinates. If you allow it:
- The coordinates stay in your browser's memory for that session.
- Distance and direction to each shop are calculated on your device.
- The coordinates are not transmitted to Closebud, not written to any log, not stored in any database, and not shared with anyone.
The full shop list is downloaded to your device when the page loads, which is why the sorting can happen locally. There is no server-side endpoint that receives location, so there is nothing to leak, subpoena, or breach.
Closing the tab discards the coordinates. Closebud does not remember where you were.
What's stored if you make an account
You can use Closebud entirely without an account. Finding shops and reading reviews requires nothing. An account only enables favorites and writing reviews. If you create one, this is stored:
- Email address — to identify your account and let you sign in or reset a password.
- Password — stored only as a salted hash by our authentication provider. Nobody, including us, can read it.
- Display name — shown publicly on any review you write. Your email is never shown.
- Favorites — a list of shop identifiers linked to your account.
- Reviews — the rating, the text, and when you wrote it.
That is the complete list. No phone number, no address, no payment details, no advertising identifier, no contacts, no browsing history.
What's public
Reviews are public by design. Anyone visiting a shop's page sees the rating, the review text, the date, and the display name of whoever wrote it. Choose a display name you're comfortable being seen — you can change it any time in your dashboard, and changing it updates the name on your past reviews.
Favorites are private. Nobody else can see what you've saved.
No tracking
Closebud runs no analytics, no advertising pixels, no session recording, and no third-party trackers. There is no Google Analytics, no Meta pixel, no Segment, no PostHog. Nothing profiles you across sites, because nothing is measuring you at all.
We don't sell data. There is no data-sharing arrangement with anyone, and there is no advertising business here to create one.
Third parties that do see something
Being honest about this matters more than claiming purity:
Neon (database and accounts)
Account data and reviews are stored in a Postgres database hosted by Neon on AWS infrastructure in the United States. Neon can technically access what's stored there, as any database host can.
Vercel (hosting)
The site is served by Vercel, which keeps standard server logs — IP address, timestamp, requested URL, user agent — as essentially all web hosts do. These logs are a byproduct of serving the page, not something Closebud reads or analyzes.
Google Fonts
The site loads two typefaces from Google's font CDN. This sends your IP address to Google on every page load, before you interact with anything. It's a real disclosure, not a footnote. Removing this dependency by self-hosting the fonts is on the list.
Google Maps
Tapping a distance or Directions opens Google Maps with the shop's coordinates as the destination. At that point you're in Google's hands under their privacy policy. Note that only the shop's coordinates are in that link — yours are not.
Cookies
Closebud sets no advertising or analytics cookies. If you sign in, our authentication provider sets one session cookie so you stay signed in. Signing out invalidates it. That's the only cookie.
How long things are kept
Account data and reviews are kept until you ask for them to be deleted. Location is never kept at all. Hosting logs follow Vercel's own retention.
Deleting your data
There's no self-serve delete button yet. Email mybasementgrow@gmail.com from the address on your account and your account, favorites, and reviews will be deleted. Building this into the dashboard is on the roadmap; until it exists, saying so plainly is better than pretending otherwise.
You can delete individual reviews yourself from the dashboard at any time.
Age
Closebud isn't intended for anyone under 21, and accounts shouldn't be created by minors. It doesn't knowingly collect information from children. See the Terms.
Changes to this page
If what's collected changes, this page gets updated and the change is recorded in the changelog. Meaningful changes won't be made quietly.
Who's responsible
Closebud is operated by GCC Grow, LLC, which is responsible for the data described on this page.
Contact
Questions, deletion requests, or corrections: mybasementgrow@gmail.com.