Privacy Policy

Adverships (“Adverships,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) operates an affiliate marketing platform that connects businesses (merchants selling products) with creators (people who promote those products to their audience). This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and the choices and rights you have over it.

This policy applies to:

• Visitors to adverships.com
• Businesses (merchants) using Adverships through our website or our Shopify app
• Creators using Adverships to promote partner businesses
• Shoppers visiting merchant storefronts where the Adverships tracking pixel is enabled

By using Adverships, you agree to the practices described here. If you do not agree, please do not use the Adverships service.

1. Personal information we collect

The information we collect depends on whether you are a business, a creator, or a shopper interacting with a storefront that uses Adverships.

If you are a business (merchant)

• Account information: your username, email address, display name, business website, and a short tracking identifier (“bizcode”) that we generate for you.
• Authentication credentials: a hashed password, or — if you install Adverships through Shopify — an OAuth access token issued by Shopify that lets us call Shopify APIs on your behalf.
• Subscription and billing information: your plan tier, subscription status, billing period dates, and either your Stripe customer/subscription identifiers (for direct subscriptions) or your Shopify charge identifier (for Shopify-installed subscriptions). We do not see or store your full payment card number — those are handled by Stripe or Shopify directly.
• Wallet records: your wallet balance, your top-up history, and per-sale void records.
• Partnership terms you write: any campaign descriptions or partnership terms you author for creators to read.

If you are a creator

• Account information: your username, email address, and a tracking identifier (“bizcode”) we generate for you.
• Authentication credentials: a hashed password.
• Payout information: the payment method and payment address (e.g. PayPal address, bank reference, or crypto wallet address) you provide so businesses can pay out your earnings.
• Earnings activity: a record of each click and sale attributed to you, the partnership or campaign it belongs to, and the amount earned.

If you are a shopper

When you visit a merchant's storefront that has the Adverships tracking pixel enabled, we may collect the following information about your visit:

• Click events: your IP address, browser user-agent, referring URL, the landing URL on the merchant's site, the attribution parameters in that URL (the creator's tracking code, and optionally the connection or campaign identifier), and the timestamp of the visit. This is stored in our click analytics so the creator who sent you can receive credit.
• Sale events: if you complete a purchase on the merchant's store and your visit is attributed to a creator, we receive the order's identifier, total amount, currency, item count, timestamp, and the email address used at checkout. We use the order identifier to de-duplicate orders; the email address is retained as part of the order record so the merchant can reference it from the Adverships dashboard and so we can investigate any abusive activity flagged against a partnership. Adverships does not see or store your payment card number, billing address, or shipping address.
• Cart attribution attributes: on Shopify storefronts, we attach attribution identifiers (adverships_t, adverships_d, adverships_cid) to your shopping cart so the attribution can survive checkout. These contain only the creator and campaign identifiers, not any personal data.

2. How we use personal information

We use the information described above for the following purposes:

• Running the service. Attributing clicks and sales to the correct creator, computing how much businesses owe, and processing payouts.
• Accounts and access. Creating your account, letting you sign in, verifying your identity, and providing customer support.
• Billing. Charging businesses for their Adverships subscription through Stripe or Shopify Billing, and recording wallet top-ups.
• Fraud and abuse prevention. Detecting duplicate orders, fake clicks, and abusive use of the platform.
• Communications. Sending you account notifications, password resets, payment confirmations, and service announcements.
• Legal and compliance. Complying with applicable laws, enforcing our terms, and responding to lawful requests from authorities.
• Improving the service. Understanding aggregate usage patterns so we can improve the product. We do not sell or rent your personal information.

3. Who we share information with

We share personal information only with the following categories of recipients, and only as needed to operate the service:

• Payment processors. Stripe, Inc. (for direct subscriptions and wallet top-ups) and Shopify, Inc. (for Shopify-installed subscriptions) receive the billing information needed to process payments. Stripe's privacy policy is at stripe.com/privacy; Shopify's is at shopify.com/legal/privacy.
• Hosting and infrastructure providers. Our application runs on servers operated by Hostinger International Ltd. These providers store data on our behalf and do not access it for their own purposes.
• Analytics. We use Google Analytics on adverships.com to understand aggregate website traffic. Google Analytics may set cookies and collect IP-address-based information. Google's privacy practices are described at policies.google.com/privacy.
• Between businesses and creators. Once a business and creator are paired in a partnership or campaign, each can see the other's username, the partnership terms, and the click and sale activity attributed to that partnership. We do not share creator payment-address details with businesses unless required to process a direct payout outside our wallet system.
• Legal requirements. We may disclose information when required by law, by a valid legal process, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Adverships, our users, or others.
• Business transfers. If Adverships is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred to the new owner, subject to the same protections in this policy.

We do not sell your personal information. We do not share it with advertisers, data brokers, or marketing networks.

4. Cookies and similar technologies

Adverships uses a small number of cookies and similar technologies to operate the service:

• Session cookies on adverships.com. Used to keep you signed in to your Adverships account. These are essential for the site to function.
• Attribution cookie on merchant storefronts. The av_aff cookie is set for 60 days on storefronts that have the Adverships pixel enabled. It records the creator who sent you to the merchant so credit can be given correctly if you return later. It does not contain personal information.
• Third-party cookies from Stripe or Shopify Billing during a payment flow. These are controlled by Stripe and Shopify respectively.
• Google Analytics cookies on adverships.com.

You can configure your browser to refuse cookies or alert you when cookies are being set. If you disable cookies, some parts of the service may not work correctly.

5. Shopify-specific data handling

When you install the Adverships app from the Shopify App Store, the following applies in addition to the rest of this policy:

• APIs we use. The Adverships Shopify app calls the Shopify GraphQL Admin API only. We do not use the REST Admin API, the Customer Account API, or the Storefront API.
• Scopes we request. The Adverships Shopify app requests read access to customers, orders, and products (read_customers, read_orders, read_products). We only use this access to receive sale attribution information needed to credit creators correctly. We have declared our use of protected customer data in the Shopify Partner Dashboard and only the customer email field is approved for access.
• Order webhooks. Shopify sends us webhook notifications when an order is created (orders/create), canceled (orders/cancelled), or refunded (refunds/create). From these we record the order identifier (used to uniquely match an order to a recorded sale), the order's total amount, currency, item count, timestamp, the customer's email address from the customer.email field, and the attribution identifiers attached to the cart at checkout. The email address is stored as part of the sale record so the merchant can reference it from the Adverships dashboard and so we can investigate any abuse complaint a creator or merchant raises against a specific order. It is never shared with creators, never used to send marketing, and never sold.
• Order amount queries. When a refund webhook fires, we query the order's cumulative refunded amount (order.totalRefundedSet) so we can correctly reduce the affiliate payout for that sale. We do not query or store any other order details.
• Uninstall. When you uninstall the Adverships app from your Shopify admin, the Shopify access token we hold is wiped immediately, your subscription is canceled, and no further calls are made to your store.
• GDPR webhooks. We respond to the three mandatory Shopify privacy webhooks:
  • customers/data_request — we log the request and fulfill it within 30 days.
  • customers/redact — we immediately redact the customer email and any other personal data for the specified orders in our sales records.
  • shop/redact — 48 hours after a shop is closed or the app is uninstalled, Shopify notifies us, and we permanently delete the shop's account, click analytics, sales, payout history, wallet records, campaigns, and connections from our database.

6. How long we keep your information

• Account information. Retained for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account, we retain account information for up to 30 days afterwards to allow for recovery and to resolve any outstanding disputes, then we delete or anonymize it.
• Click analytics. Retained for up to 24 months from the date of the click, then deleted or anonymized.
• Sales records and payouts. Retained for up to 7 years from the date of the sale, because they form part of our financial records and may be required by applicable tax and accounting laws. The customer email address attached to a sale record is retained on the same 7-year schedule because it is part of that record, and is handled in accordance with Section 5 above (used only for the merchant's reference and abuse investigation, never shared with creators, never used for marketing).
• Shopify access tokens. Deleted immediately when the app is uninstalled. Tokens are never written into our backups or log files.
• Customer redaction requests. When Shopify sends us a customers/redact webhook, we immediately erase the stored customer details (email and any other personal data the original webhook included) from the affected sale records, regardless of the 7-year retention window above. The sale record itself remains for financial reporting but the personal data is removed.
• GDPR request audit log. Retained as required to demonstrate compliance.

We may retain information for longer periods if required by law or to investigate suspected fraud or abuse.

7. How we protect your information

We use a combination of technical and organizational measures to protect personal information, including:

• HTTPS encryption for all traffic between your browser and Adverships.
• HMAC-SHA256 signing of every webhook and inter-service request.
• Hashed passwords (we never store plaintext passwords).
• Access controls limiting which Adverships personnel can read or modify production data.
• Regular software updates on our servers and dependencies.

No method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is perfectly secure. If we become aware of a security incident that affects your personal information, we will notify you as required by applicable law.

8. Your privacy rights

Depending on where you live, you may have some or all of the following rights with respect to your personal information:

• Right to access — request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• Right to correction — ask us to correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Right to deletion — ask us to delete your personal information.
• Right to portability — receive a copy of your data in a portable format.
• Right to object — object to specific uses of your personal information.
• Right to withdraw consent — where we rely on consent, withdraw it at any time.
• Right to lodge a complaint — file a complaint with your local data protection authority.

To exercise any of these rights, email us at support@adverships.com. We will respond within 30 days. For shoppers whose information was collected through a Shopify merchant, please contact the merchant directly; the merchant can then trigger the relevant Shopify data-request webhook to pass your request through to us.

9. International data transfers

Adverships is operated from the United States. Our servers are located in the United States (Boston, MA). If you access the service from another country, your information may be transferred to, stored in, and processed in a country different from your own. By using Adverships, you consent to this transfer. We rely on standard contractual clauses or equivalent safeguards where required by applicable law.

10. Children

Adverships is not directed to individuals under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe we have collected information from a child under 18, please contact us and we will delete it.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make material changes we will update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, notify you by email or through an in-app notice. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.

12. How to contact us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or about how Adverships handles your information, please contact us:

• Email: support@adverships.com
• Mailing address: Adverships, 108 North Greenfield Road #1269, Mesa, AZ 85205, United States

For privacy questions specifically related to the Adverships Shopify app, you can also email support@adverships.com.