Privacy Policy
Plain English. Your rights, your choices, your data.
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What this page is about
RateAds is a community where people rate and review advertisements. This page tells you what data we collect, why, who we share it with, and the controls you have. It is written in plain English at a US grade-8 reading level on purpose.
We do not sell or share information that can identify you. We may share grouped, anonymous ratings data with advertisers and researchers — and only when each group has at least 20 people in it. This is called k-anonymity. Read the full rules below.
What we collect
When you sign up or post
- •Account info. Name, email, username, password (hashed), and your date of birth (so we can apply the right age rules).
- •Profile info. Bio, photo, and the interests you choose.
- •Posts. Reviews, ratings, comments, and anything else you publish.
- •Messages to us. Help requests, feedback, and other notes you send.
When you visit the site
- •Usage data. The pages you view, the things you click, and how long you stay.
- •Device data. IP address, browser, and operating system. We use IP for country-level lookup and for stopping abuse.
- •Cookies and trackers. See our Cookie Policy for the full list, including the
sponsored_session_idwe set when you see a sponsored ad.
How we use it
We use your data only for these reasons. Each one has a legal basis under GDPR (the EU rule) and similar laws.
Run the service
- Sign you in
- Show you posts and ads
- Save your settings
Legal basis: Performing our contract with you.
Talk to you
- Service updates
- Security alerts
- Help requests
Legal basis: Our legitimate interest in keeping you informed.
Improve the site
- Pick what to build next
- Fix bugs
- Measure how well features work
Legal basis: Your consent (for analytics) or our legitimate interest.
Stay safe and legal
- Stop fraud
- Block spam
- Comply with law
Legal basis: Legal obligation and our legitimate interest.
How sponsored content works
Some ads on RateAds are paid placements. They are always labeled Sponsored next to the ad, in line with FTC and IAB rules.
When you see or click a sponsored ad, we save a short ID called sponsored_session_id in your browser. This ID is random and not linked to your account. It helps us count impressions and clicks. We delete it when your session ends.
Advertisers never see who you are. They see grouped numbers like “1,200 people aged 25–34 clicked your ad in California this week.” If a group has fewer than 20 people, we don't show it at all.
Automated decisions and the trending algorithm
The list of trending ads is picked by an algorithm. The algorithm uses five signals:
- Average rating
- How many people rated it (volume)
- How fast new ratings are coming in (velocity)
- How many people clicked or watched (engagement)
- How new the ad is (freshness)
No human picks what shows up. This is an automated decisionin the sense GDPR Article 22 and Brazil's LGPD use the term.
You can opt out. If you turn off automated decisions, your ratings still count for everyone else, but you will see ads in a simpler order (newest first). Use the form on our Do Not Sell or Share page or email privacy@rateads.us to ask for a human review of any ranking that affects you.
Security and breach notices
We try hard to keep your data safe. Nothing online is perfect, so here is what we do and what we promise if something goes wrong:
Encryption
Data is encrypted on the wire (HTTPS) and at rest in the database.
Access control
Only on-call staff can read user data, and every read is logged.
Breach notice
If a breach affects you, we tell you within 72 hours of finding out, as required by GDPR.
Audits
We run security checks on every release.
Bug bounty
Researchers can report issues to security@rateads.us.
Training
All staff get yearly privacy and security training.
Where your data is processed
Our servers are in the United States. If you are outside the US, your data crosses borders to reach us. To make this lawful we use:
- Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission and the UK ICO.
- Data Processing Agreements (DPAs) with every sub-processor.
- Supplementary measures (encryption, pseudonymization) for transfers from the EU and UK after the Schrems II ruling.
You can ask for a copy of our DPA on our DPA page. A copy of our Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) is available on request to privacy@rateads.us.
Your privacy rights by region
Find your region. The right column tells you the time we have to answer. We always honor a Global Privacy Control browser signal as a Do-Not-Sell request, no matter where you live.
| Region | Law | What you can do | Response time | How |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EU and EEA | GDPR | You can see, correct, delete, port, restrict, or object to our use of your data. You can also opt out of automated ranking. | Within 30 days | Email us |
| United Kingdom | UK GDPR + Data Protection Act 2018 | Same rights as the EU — see, correct, delete, port, restrict, object, opt out of automated ranking. | Within 30 days | Email us |
| California, USA | CPRA / CCPA | You can ask us to stop sharing your data, delete it, or correct it. You can also limit how we use sensitive info. | Within 45 days | Open form |
| Other US states (VA, CO, CT, UT, TX, OR, MT, more) | VCDPA, CPA, CTDPA, UCPA, TDPSA, OCPA, MCDPA | You can see, delete, correct, and port your data. You can opt out of targeted advertising and profiling. | Within 45 days | Open form |
| Canada | PIPEDA + Quebec Law 25 | You can see and correct your data. Quebec residents can also ask for it in a portable format. | Within 30 days | Email us |
| Brazil | LGPD | You can see, correct, delete, port, and revoke consent. You can also ask why an automated decision was made. | Within 15 days | Email us |
| Australia | Privacy Act 1988 + APPs | You can see and correct your data. We tell you when data goes outside Australia. | Within 30 days | Email us |
| India | DPDP Act 2023 | You can see, correct, and erase your data. Our Grievance Officer answers complaints. | Within 30 days | Email us |
| Singapore | PDPA | You can see and correct your data. You can ask us not to call or message you. | Within 30 days | Email us |
| South Africa | POPIA | You can see, correct, and delete your data. You can object to direct marketing. | Within 30 days | Email us |
Our sub-processors
These are the companies that handle pieces of your data on our behalf. They are all bound by a Data Processing Agreement (DPA). We update this list when we add or remove a vendor.
| Vendor | Purpose | Data shared | Region | DPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stripe | Payments and billing | Name, email, billing address, card details (handled by Stripe) | USA / Ireland | View |
| Cloudflare | Site delivery and security (CDN, bot blocking) | IP address, request headers, cookie tokens | Global edge | View |
| Google Maps and Places | Showing maps and place suggestions | Approximate location when you use map features | USA | View |
| Google Analytics 4 | Site usage analytics (only with your consent) Off by default. Toggled in our cookie banner. | Page views, click events, anonymized IP | USA | View |
| Sentry | Error tracking Off when you turn off Analytics in our cookie banner. | Stack traces, browser type, the URL where the error happened | USA | View |
| ipapi | Country-level lookup so we show the right currency and language | IP address | USA | View |
| Groq | AI ad-copy assistance and image moderation | Ad text and image URLs (no personal data) | USA | View |
Children and minors
You must be at least 13 years old to use RateAds. We ask for your date of birth at sign-up. If you are under 13, we cannot create your account.
In the EU and UK, the legal age of digital consent is typically 16. We will offer parental confirmation for users aged 13–15 in those regions when our minor-consent flow ships.
If you think a child under 13 has signed up, email us at privacy@rateads.us and we will remove the account quickly.
Contact us and Grievance Officer
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, want to exercise your rights, or want a copy of our DPA, contact us:
Privacy Team
Grievance Officer (India DPDP)
grievance@rateads.us — answers within 30 days, as required by India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act.
Postal Address
RateAds Inc.
363 Tipperary Loop
Delaware, Ohio 43015
USA
Last updated
2026-05-03