1.About this policy#
This policy explains what Forkfluence LLC ("Forkfluence," "we," "us," "our") collects when you use forkfluence.com, the Forkfluence mobile app, and the ordering, creator, and merchant tools we provide (together, the "Service"). It covers everyone who touches the Service: diners who order food, restaurants and other merchants who sell through us, creators in our Creator Program, partner organizations, and people who browse without an account.
Forkfluence is a marketplace. When you order, three parties handle some part of your information: us, the restaurant preparing your food, and the companies we use to take payment, send messages, and deliver orders. Section 7 names every one of them and says exactly what each receives.
If you only browse, we collect very little — analytics and, if you arrived through a creator's link, a referral cookie. Almost everything below applies once you place an order or sign up.
2.Information you give us#
Account information. Your name, email address, and phone number. If you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address, and profile image from Google. We do not receive your Google password.
Guest orders. You can order without an account. We still need your name and phone number to hand you the right food, so a guest order creates a minimal record with those two fields and the order itself. It has no password and you cannot sign in to it.
Order information. What you ordered, any notes you attach to an item, your pickup or delivery address, delivery instructions, and your tip.
Payment information. Your card details go directly to Stripe and are never transmitted to or stored on our servers. We keep a Stripe reference for the charge, the amounts, and the last four digits and card brand that Stripe returns to us. See section 7.
Creator information. If you apply to the Creator Program: your display name, bio, profile image, social media handles and primary platform, follower count, your chosen referral code, and — when you are set up to be paid — the payout details you give Stripe.
Merchant information. If you list a restaurant: business name and address, phone number, hours, menus and menu photos, and the business and identity details Stripe collects to verify you and pay you.
Catering requests. Event date, guest count, occasion, budget range, address, a contact phone number, and any dietary notes you choose to add. See section 5 — dietary notes deserve their own explanation.
Messages you send us. Support tickets, catering messages, and comments on creator posts. We keep the message contents.
Optional survey answers. During signup we ask how you heard about us, which creator sent you, and which restaurants you'd like to see. Every one of these is optional and skippable, and they are used for planning, not for paying anyone. Naming a creator here does not earn that creator a commission — only a referral code typed at checkout does that.
3.Information we collect automatically#
Referral and attribution data. When you arrive through a creator's referral link, we record the referral code, your IP address, your browser's user agent, a session identifier, any campaign parameters in the link (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_content), and the page you landed on. We also set a first-party cookie that lasts 30 days. This is how a creator gets credit, and it is the main reason we log IP addresses at all.
Device and usage data. Pages you visit, referring URLs, browser and device type, approximate location inferred from your IP address, and performance measurements.
Local storage. We store your cart, your selected city, your tip preference, your selected restaurant, and your referral attribution in your browser's local storage. This never leaves your device and we cannot read it from our servers.
Cookies. See section 8.
4.Location information#
We store the precise latitude and longitude of delivery addresses, at building-level accuracy. We need it to calculate delivery distance, to quote a courier, and to get your food to the right door.
Two things worth being specific about, because they are the questions people actually ask:
- We do not use your device's location services. The Service never calls your browser's or your phone's location API. Every coordinate we hold was derived from an address you typed, which we convert to coordinates using the U.S. Census Bureau's public geocoding service.
- We strip location data from photos. When you upload a photo through the mobile app, EXIF metadata — including any GPS coordinates your camera recorded — is removed before the image leaves your device.
We also store the coordinates and addresses of restaurants, which are public business information.
5.Sensitive information#
Our catering request form has a dietary notes field. People use it to describe allergies, intolerances, and religious or medical dietary restrictions. Some privacy laws treat that as health-related information, so we want to be direct about how it is handled:
- It is optional. You can request catering without filling it in.
- It goes to the restaurant that will prepare your food, and to Forkfluence staff handling the request. Nobody else receives it.
- We do not use it for advertising, profiling, or any purpose other than fulfilling your request.
The same applies to allergy information you type into an item's notes on a regular order — it is passed to the restaurant so they can act on it.
Please note: telling us about an allergy is not a guarantee. Restaurants prepare food in shared kitchens and Forkfluence does not control their premises or procedures. If you have a severe allergy, contact the restaurant directly.
We do not collect government identification numbers, biometric data, date of birth, or Social Security numbers. Where identity verification is legally required to pay a merchant or creator, Stripe collects those documents directly and we never see them.
6.How we use information#
We use what we collect to:
- Take, process, and fulfil your orders, and send you confirmations, status updates, and receipts
- Route your order to the restaurant, and to a courier when you choose delivery
- Take payment, issue refunds, and investigate chargebacks
- Credit creators for orders attributed to their referral code, and calculate what they are owed
- Provide customer support and respond to what you send us
- Detect, investigate, and prevent fraud, abuse, and security incidents
- Keep the Service working — diagnose errors, measure performance, and fix what breaks
- Understand which cities, restaurants, and creators to grow next
- Send you marketing messages, where you have opted in or where the law otherwise permits it, and always with a way to opt out
- Meet our legal, tax, and accounting obligations
We do not use your personal information to train machine learning models. We do use an AI service to read and structure restaurant menus; that involves menu text and menu photos only, never customer information. See section 7.
9.Content that is public#
Some things are public by design:
- Creator profiles — display name, bio, profile image, social handles, and posts
- Comments — shown with your username next to them
- Uploaded media — photos and videos posted through the Service are stored in a publicly readable location. Anyone with the file's URL can open it, whether or not they have a Forkfluence account, and whether or not the post is still visible in the app. Do not upload anything you would not want to be public.
Usernames are never recycled. When a username is released, we keep a record of it and never reassign it to anyone else. This is deliberate: reusing a handle would let a new account inherit a former user's comment history and reputation.
If you are in the Creator Program, your content is also subject to the Content and Media Rights Policy, which explains who else may reuse what you post and for how long.
10.How we protect information#
- All traffic to the Service is encrypted in transit with TLS, and stored data is encrypted at rest by our database and storage provider.
- We never receive your full card number. Card details go directly from your browser to Stripe, which is certified to PCI DSS Level 1.
- Access to production data is limited to staff who need it, and administrative actions on user accounts are logged.
- Merchant and creator payout details are held by Stripe, not by us.
No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee that a determined attacker will never succeed. If a breach affects your personal information, we will notify you and the relevant regulators as the law requires.
11.How long we keep information#
| Category | How long |
|---|---|
| Account information | While your account is open, then up to 90 days after you ask us to delete it |
| Orders, payments, refunds | At least 7 years, for tax, accounting, and dispute purposes |
| Creator commissions and payouts | At least 7 years, for tax reporting |
| Support and catering messages | 3 years after the conversation closes |
| Referral and attribution logs (including IP address) | 24 months |
| Session recordings and error reports | Per Sentry's retention schedule, currently 90 days |
| Uploaded media | Until deleted, subject to the Media Policy |
Two honest exceptions:
- Deleted posts are hidden, not immediately erased. Deleting a creator post removes it from the Service; the underlying record and file are removed on our next purge cycle.
- We keep a permanent record of released usernames, as explained in section 9. It contains the username only.
We may keep information longer where we must to comply with a legal obligation, resolve a dispute, or enforce our agreements.
12.Your privacy rights#
Whoever and wherever you are, you can ask us to:
- Access the personal information we hold about you
- Correct anything inaccurate
- Delete your account and your personal information
- Export a copy of your information in a portable format
- Opt out of marketing messages — every marketing email has an unsubscribe link, and you can reply STOP to any text message
- Withdraw consent where we relied on your consent
How to make a request. Email support@forkfluence.com from the address on your account, or from any address if you tell us enough to find your records. We respond within 45 days and will tell you if we need longer.
What we may need to keep. We cannot delete records we are legally required to retain — principally completed order and payment records, which we keep for tax purposes. We will delete everything else and tell you what was kept and why.
We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights. Your prices, your access to the Service, and the quality of what you receive will not change.
13.State-specific rights#
If you live in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Utah, or another state with a comprehensive privacy law, you have the rights in section 12, and some additional ones:
- The right to know the categories of personal information we collected, the sources, our purposes, and the categories of third parties we disclosed it to. Sections 2, 3, 6, and 7 answer all of that; you may also request the specifics for your own records.
- The right to opt out of sale or sharing. We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of. We do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16.
- The right to limit the use of sensitive personal information. The only sensitive-category information we collect is the dietary information described in section 5, used solely to fulfil your request.
- The right to appeal. If we refuse a request, you may appeal by replying to our response. We will answer the appeal within 45 days. If we deny the appeal you may contact your state Attorney General.
You may use an authorized agent to make a request; we will ask for proof of their authority and may ask you to confirm directly.
14.Children's privacy#
Forkfluence is for adults. You must be at least 18 years old to use the Service — to browse, to order, and to join the Creator Program. See the Terms of Service.
We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If we learn that we have, we delete it and close the account. If you believe a child has given us information, email support@forkfluence.com and we will act on it.
15.Changes to this policy#
We update this policy when what we do changes. The version number and date at the top of this page always identify the current version.
For material changes we will give notice before they take effect — by email to the address on your account, by a notice in the Service, or both. Continuing to use the Service after a change takes effect means you accept the updated policy.
16.Contact#
Questions about this policy, or want to exercise a right in section 12 or 13? Contact us: