Privacy Policy
YardLink Eats is a directory of Caribbean restaurants in and around New York City. It has no accounts, no sign-up, no advertising, and no analytics. Most of what the app does happens on your device and is never sent anywhere.
The short version
- We do not track you. There is no analytics SDK, no advertising SDK, no advertising identifier, and no crash-reporting service in the app.
- Your location never leaves your phone. It is used on the device to show how far away a restaurant is, and nothing else.
- There is no account. You never give us a name, an email address, or a password to browse.
- We do not sell or share your data with data brokers, advertisers, or anyone else for their own purposes.
What the app collects
Location — optional, and it stays on your device
If you allow location access, the app reads your approximate or precise location to calculate the distance between you and each restaurant, and to sort results by how near they are. That calculation happens entirely on your phone. Your location is never transmitted to us, never stored on our servers, and never shared with anyone.
You can decline the permission and keep using the app; you simply will not see distances. You can revoke it at any time in your device settings.
Restaurant ownership requests — only if you send one
If you are a restaurant owner or a representative and you submit a request to claim your listing, you choose to send us: your name, your relationship to the business, a business email address, a business phone number, and optionally a website, an Instagram handle, and any notes you add. We also record an anonymous identifier for your app installation and the identifier of the listing you are claiming.
We use this only to verify that you are connected to the business and to contact you about that request. It is not used for marketing. If you never submit a request, none of this is collected.
Messages you send to Errol
Errol is the in-app guide. When you send Errol a message, that message, your recent messages in the same conversation, and a short list of relevant restaurants from our directory are sent to Anthropic's Claude API — through a server we operate — so that a reply can be generated and sent back to you.
We do not attach your name, your location, or your device identifier to these messages. Anthropic processes them to produce the response. Your conversation is held on your device and is not stored on our servers.
Anonymous identifiers
The app signs in anonymously to Firebase. This produces a random identifier for your installation. It is not linked to a Google account, an email address, or your identity, and it exists so that a claim you submit can be recognised as yours. A device identifier is recorded alongside an ownership request for the same reason.
Things kept only on your phone
Saved favourites, recently viewed restaurants, notification settings, and the taste preferences you set for Errol are stored in your device's own app storage. They are not uploaded. Deleting the app deletes them.
What the app does not collect
- No advertising identifier, and no advertising or marketing SDKs of any kind.
- No analytics or usage-tracking SDK.
- No crash or performance reporting service.
- No contacts, photos, files, calendar, microphone, or camera access.
- No payment information. Nothing is sold in the app.
- No browsing history from outside the app.
Who we share data with
We do not sell your data and we do not share it for anyone else's advertising or marketing. Data reaches these providers only for the purposes described above:
- Google Firebase (Firestore, Storage, Authentication) — hosts the restaurant directory and receives ownership requests.
- Anthropic — processes messages you send to Errol in order to generate a reply.
- Netlify — hosts this website and the small server that passes Errol's messages along.
We may disclose information if we are legally required to.
How long we keep things
Ownership requests are kept while the request is open and afterwards as a record of the editorial decision, so that a listing's history is auditable. Everything else described above is either not collected, or lives only on your device.
Deleting your data
Because there is no account, there is usually nothing of yours on our servers to delete. If you have submitted an ownership request and want it removed, email us from the address on the request and we will delete it. We aim to respond within 30 days.
To remove everything held on your device, uninstall the app.
Children
YardLink Eats is a restaurant directory intended for a general audience. It is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, or delete personal information we hold about you, or to object to how it is used. Contact us and we will act on it.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that affects what we collect or who receives it, we will update the date at the top of this page and, where the change is significant, note it in the app.
Contact
YardLink Studio, Queens, New York
yardlinkstudio@gmail.com