My name is Sergey Timoshpolskiy, and I'm the creator of the Star.Mugs app. For now, Star.Mugs is free and provided as is, at no cost to you. This page explains my policies on the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information for anyone who uses the service. By choosing to use Star.Mugs, you agree to the collection and use of information as described in this policy. The personal information I collect is used solely to provide and improve the service, and I will never use or share it with anyone except as described here.
To give you a better experience, Star.Mugs may ask you to provide certain personal information, including (but not limited to) your email address, first and last name, profile photo, and home city and country. This information is stored securely in our Firebase database. Please note that the community we're building is centered on location, so once you share your home city and country, that detail is visible to other members. This is what lets us find, connect with, and meet one another in the real world. The app also uses third-party services that may collect information used to identify you. You can review their privacy policies below:
Star.Mugs lets you submit photos of mugs so they can be added to the shared catalog. When you submit a photo, I store the image itself along with the information you attach to it — things like the mug's name, series, and year — and a record of which account submitted it. Submitting a photo is always your choice; you can use the rest of the app without ever sending one.
Photos often carry hidden metadata, and the most sensitive part of it is location. Before your photo is stored, the app strips the embedded EXIF metadata from the image — including GPS coordinates, capture timestamps, and camera and device identifiers. Only the stripped image is written to storage, so the copy I hold does not carry the coordinates of where you took the picture. Please keep in mind that this covers metadata and not the picture itself: if the frame shows your street, your address, or anything else you'd rather not share, that detail is still visible in the image, so it's worth a look before you submit.
One thing to know if you crop a photo before submitting it: I keep the original uncropped frame as well, so the crop can be adjusted during review — only the cropped version is ever published to the catalog. The original is never shown to other members; it is visible only to me, and when you delete your account it is treated exactly like the rest of your submission, as described under Data Deletion below.
There is a second kind of photo, and it is never published. If you report that a mug's details are wrong, you can attach up to three pictures backing that up — the box, a listing, a screenshot, whatever you have. These come to me and go nowhere else: they are never added to the catalog, never shown to other members, and carry no credit, because their only purpose is to let me check the correction before I make it. The same metadata strip described above applies to them. I keep them with the report after it has been dealt with, so there is a record of why a mug's details changed, and they are deleted along with the rest of your data when you delete your account.
If a photo you submit is accepted into the catalog, it may be shown to other members of the community with a credit. There are two, and they work differently. The credit printed on the photo is the name you enter when you submit it: that field starts with the name from your profile, you can edit it to whatever you'd like shown, and you can use it to credit someone else if the photo isn't yours. Separately, a mug you added carries an "Added by" line showing the name on your profile — visible only to signed-in members, and hidden entirely while your account is in private mode. Your email address, and your home city and country, are never shown next to a catalog photo. If you'd rather contribute without any credit at all, email me and I'll publish it unattributed or take it down, whichever you prefer.
Submitting a photo also grants me a license to use it in the catalog, and that license is set out separately in the Terms of Use. Please read that page before you submit, because parts of it — in particular how an accepted photo is treated after you delete your account — continue to apply once you've contributed.
You can delete your account and all associated data directly within the app at any time. If you have a specific deletion request or need any extra help, feel free to email me at starmugsapp@gmail.com and I'll take care of it promptly.
There are two carve-outs to be upfront about. The first is photos that made it into the catalog. Photos of yours that were accepted are not deleted along with your account — the catalog is a collective reference that other members rely on, and pulling accepted entries out of it would leave gaps in everyone else's collection. What does happen is that those photos are de-identified: your submission record is severed from them, the "Added by" line disappears, and any credit naming you is replaced with a generic one. A credit you gave to someone else — another photographer, a shop, a listing — stays, because it was never yours to remove. The images remain in the catalog with no link back to you or to any of your personal information. If you'd like an accepted photo taken down entirely rather than de-identified, email me and I'll consider it case by case.
The second is messages you've already sent. Those stay in the chats you sent them to, so the conversations still read sensibly for the people you were talking with — deleting your side of an exchange would leave the other person with half a conversation. Your profile is gone by then, so your messages show up as coming from "Account Deleted" rather than from you by name. If there's a particular message you'd like removed, email me and I'll take care of it. Everything else goes — your profile, your email address, your name, your profile photo, your home city and country, your own collection, and any photos you submitted that were never accepted.
Whenever the app runs into an error, I collect data and information through third-party products — referred to as Log Data. This may include details such as your device's Internet Protocol ("IP") address, device name, operating system version, the app's configuration when the error occurred, the date and time of use, and other statistics.
Cookies are small files of data that are often used as anonymous unique identifiers. They're sent to your browser from the websites you visit and stored in your device's internal memory. This service doesn't use cookies explicitly. However, the app may rely on third-party code and libraries that use cookies to collect information and improve their services. You're free to accept or refuse these cookies, and to know when one is being sent to your device. If you choose to refuse them, you may not be able to use some parts of the service.
I may employ third-party companies and individuals for the following reasons: to facilitate the service; to provide the service on my behalf; to perform service-related tasks; or to help me analyze how the service is used. These third parties may have access to your personal information so they can carry out the tasks assigned to them — but they are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.
I value the trust you place in me by sharing your personal information, so I strive to protect it using commercially acceptable means. That said, no method of transmission over the Internet or electronic storage is 100% secure, so I can't guarantee its absolute security.
This service may contain links to other sites. If you click a third-party link, you'll be directed to that site. These external sites aren't operated by me, so I strongly encourage you to review their privacy policies. I have no control over, and assume no responsibility for, the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party sites or services.
This service is not directed at anyone under the age of 13, and I do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If I discover that a child under 13 has provided me with personal information, I delete it from my servers immediately. If you're a parent or guardian and you believe your child has shared personal information with me, please contact me so I can take the necessary steps.
I may update this Privacy Policy from time to time, so I encourage you to review this page periodically. I'll notify you of any changes by posting the updated policy here. Changes take effect immediately once they're posted on this page.
If you have any questions or suggestions about this Privacy Policy, don't hesitate to reach out at starmugsapp@gmail.com. This privacy policy page was created at privacypolicytemplate.net, generated by App Privacy Policy Generator, and modified by me ;)