Privacy policy

Who we are

HopScotch is built and run by an independent developer. There is no company behind it, no data-broker relationship, and nothing here is sold to anyone. "We" and "us" below mean the HopScotch developer.

Questions, corrections, or a deletion request: sdoyle312@gmail.com. This policy covers the HopScotch mobile apps and the HopScotch website.

What we collect

Only what the app needs to build a crawl and hand the group a link.

• An account ID. The app signs you in anonymously the first time it opens, so you can plan a crawl without giving us anything. That gives you a random account ID. Nothing else is attached to it unless you sign in.
• Sign-in details, if you sign in. Email and password, or Google, or Apple. We store your email address, and the display name and profile photo URL the provider gives us. With Sign in with Apple you can hide your real address and we only ever see the relay one.
• The crawls you make. Title, city, date, start time, the bars you picked (their name, address, map coordinates, Google place ID, rating and price level), the order you put them in, the walking route, whether the crawl is private, link-only or public, and the account IDs of everyone who joined it.
• What you type into the address search. The text and, for a bar search, the coordinates of your chosen start point go to Google Maps Platform through our own server so the Maps key never ships inside the app. The results come back and are cached on our server for up to 30 days, keyed by the place or the map area, never by you.
• Usage and diagnostics. Firebase Analytics records a small set of named events: a crawl saved, a crawl shared, the paywall shown, a purchase, an ad impression, an ad failing to load, and your answer to the ads consent prompt. It also collects the standard Firebase device and app information (device model, operating system version, app version, language, approximate country from IP, and an app instance ID). If the app crashes, Firebase Crashlytics sends us the error and stack trace along with your account ID. Crash reporting is off in development builds.
• An app attestation token. On Android and iOS the app uses Firebase App Check (Play Integrity, App Attest) so our server can tell a real copy of HopScotch from a script. It attests the app, not you.
• Rate-limit counters. We count map searches per account ID to keep the Google bill from running away. It is a number and a timestamp, nothing more.

We do not collect your contacts, your photos, your calendar, your microphone or camera, or your health data. There is no account-level tracking of what you browse elsewhere.

Location

HopScotch does not ask for your device's location. It never reads your GPS, and the map does not show a blue dot for where you are. Every coordinate in the app comes from the start address you typed and the bars you chose, not from your phone.

Two ordinary exceptions apply, as they do to any website or app: our servers and Google's see the IP address your requests arrive from, which gives a rough idea of your city, and Firebase Analytics derives an approximate country from it.

Who else sees it

Other people, first: a crawl set to public is listed in Discover for its city and anyone can open it. A crawl set to link can be opened by anyone who has the link — that is the point of the share link, so only send it to the people you meant to. A private crawl is visible only to you and the people who joined it. Everyone on a crawl can see its title, its stops, and that the other members joined.

Then the services the app runs on. Each gets only what it needs to do its job:

• Google Firebase (Authentication, Firestore, Cloud Functions, Analytics, Crashlytics, App Check, Hosting) stores the accounts, the crawls and the diagnostics described above, and serves this website.
• Google Maps Platform receives your address searches, the coordinates you search around, and the list of stops we ask it to draw a walking route between. It draws the maps you see in the app.
• Google AdMob serves the ads in the free tier of the mobile apps (see below).
• RevenueCat handles subscription status, and receives your HopScotch account ID plus the store receipt.
• Apple and Google take the payment itself through the App Store and Google Play.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising beyond the ad consent you give below. We will hand over data if a valid legal order requires it.

Ads and consent

The free tier of the mobile apps shows a banner at the bottom of some screens and an occasional full-screen ad after you save a crawl. They come from Google AdMob. The website carries no ads at all, and HopScotch Premium removes them everywhere.

To serve an ad, AdMob receives your device's advertising identifier, your IP address, and the fact that an ad was shown or tapped. That is Google's data, handled under the Google advertising privacy policy.

If you are in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, the app shows Google's consent form (the User Messaging Platform) the first time it opens, before it loads a single ad. Say yes and you get personalised ads; say no and you get non-personalised ones — the same slots, filled without an advertising profile. Either way the app keeps working.

You can change your answer at any time: Settings → Privacy → Ad privacy options. On iOS the system may also ask separately for permission to track; declining is fine and simply keeps ads non-personalised. Your device's own setting for limiting ad tracking is always respected.

Payments

HopScotch Premium is a subscription sold through the App Store and Google Play. We never see your card. Apple or Google takes the payment and tells RevenueCat, which tells the app whether your subscription is active.

What we can see is the purchase itself: which plan, when it started and renews, whether it is still active, and the store's receipt, tied to your HopScotch account ID. We use it to unlock Premium, to restore it after a reinstall, and to handle refunds. Cancel a subscription from the App Store or Google Play, not from us.

Age

HopScotch is about bars. It is for adults of legal drinking age — 21 in the United States, 18 or older elsewhere depending on where you are. The apps are rated for adults and the app is not directed at children.

We do not knowingly collect anything from anyone under that age. If you believe a child has used HopScotch and left data behind, email sdoyle312@gmail.com and it will be deleted.

Keeping and deleting

Crawls stay until someone deletes them. Cached map results expire on their own after about 30 days. Analytics and crash data follow Google's own retention windows for those products.

• Delete one crawl in the app: open it from My Crawls and choose Delete. That removes the crawl and its stops for everyone on it.
• Delete your account and everything on it in the app: open Settings and choose Delete account. It happens straight away and takes the sign-in itself, the profile document, every crawl you made (for everyone on it) and your place in crawls you joined. It cannot be undone. If you would rather we did it, email sdoyle312@gmail.com from the address you signed in with; expect a reply within 30 days.
• Never signed in? The same button is there, labelled Delete my data, and it clears the anonymous account this device is using along with its crawls. Email cannot help here: with no address tied to the account we cannot identify it from a message.
• A subscription is separate. Deleting the account does not cancel HopScotch Premium: cancel that in the App Store or Google Play, which is the only place that can stop it renewing.

Depending on where you live you may also have the right to ask for a copy of your data, to correct it, or to object to how it is used. Same address; we will not charge you or make it difficult.

Security

Everything travels over HTTPS. Crawls are protected by server-side security rules, so a private crawl can only be read by its owner and members, and only its owner can change or delete it. Passwords are handled by Firebase Authentication and never reach us.

Our Google Maps key lives only on the server and never inside the app, and App Check keeps other clients from calling our functions. No system is perfect; if something does go wrong and it affects you, we will say so.

Changes

When HopScotch changes, this page changes with it. The effective date at the top always tells you which version you are reading. If a change materially affects what we collect or who sees it, we will say so in the app before it takes effect.