Privacy Policy

Who we are

ShopHop (shophop.au) is an Australian supermarket price-tracking service operated by a sole trader based in Brisbane, Queensland. This policy explains how we handle personal information in line with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).

For privacy requests, email privacy@shophop.au. General enquiries: hello@shophop.au.

What we collect

We collect only what we need to run the service:

• Account & alerts: email address and authentication data (managed by our auth provider), and — if you provide them — a display name and postcode, plus your saved lists, price alerts, and any browser push subscription you set up for notifications.
• Support: name, email, message content, and any screenshot or diagnostic information you choose to include when you report an issue or contact us.
• Browser extension: if you install the ShopHop extension and connect your account, it links your account to that device and shows comparisons on Woolworths, Coles and Aldi product pages. It talks only to ShopHop and those retailer sites; see the extension's store listing for its specific permissions.
• Product data: publicly visible supermarket listings (prices, names, sizes, images). This is not personal information about you.
• Technical logs: request metadata (user agent, path and IP address) used for security, rate limiting and reliability. Analytics events use a salted hash of your IP rather than the raw value; our security and abuse logs may retain the raw IP address for a limited period to detect and block attacks. We do not use these logs to build marketing profiles of individuals.

We do not ask for payment card details on ShopHop for ordinary consumer use. If paid Intelligence or similar products are offered later, billing is handled by a payment processor under their terms.

Cookies, analytics and advertising

We use a mix of first-party and third-party tools:

• Product analytics and session replay (PostHog): measures page views, searches, clicks on product and retailer links, sign-up and alert funnels, page speed and JavaScript errors, using a random anonymous identifier stored on your device (not linked to your name or email). Requests are sent through our own domain (shophop.au/ingest) to PostHog, which may process the data on servers outside Australia (currently the United States or the European Union). We record anonymised session replays on public pages only: all text typed into form fields is masked, account, sign-in, alerts and list pages are never recorded, and email addresses are removed from anything we send. Analytics data is not combined with your account email.
• Google Analytics 4 (GA4) when enabled: measures traffic and usage with Google Consent Mode. Advertising storage, ad user data and ad personalisation signals are denied by default unless we say otherwise on this page. Searches you make are sent with email-like text and long digit runs removed. Google may process this data outside Australia under its own policies.
• Google AdSense on selected commercial pages (not on integrity, methodology, account, alerts, lists, or admin surfaces): AdSense may set cookies and use identifiers for ad serving and, where Google enables it, ad personalisation based on browsing activity. You can manage ad personalisation via Google's Ads Settings (adssettings.google.com) and browser controls.
• Campaign / referral links: if you visit ShopHop through a first-party campaign URL (for example shophop.au/r/reddit-beta), we store a first-touch campaign identifier in an HttpOnly cookie for 30 days, plus a random attribution ID. We record aggregate events (link click, landing, signup, first list, first alert, extension connected) in UTC and display totals in Australia/Brisbane time on an admin dashboard. We do not store your full IP for marketing analytics, do not fingerprint devices for ads, and the admin view does not show names, emails or user IDs. A server-side HMAC of an account id may be used only to deduplicate milestones and is never shown.
• Session / preference cookies for sign-in, theme, and similar site functions.
• Retailer cookies may be set by Woolworths, Coles or Aldi if you click through to their site. ShopHop does not currently use affiliate links or earn commission; those cookies are set under the retailer's own policies.

Your choices: we honour the Global Privacy Control signal and the Do Not Track setting in your browser: when either is on, PostHog and GA4 are not loaded and no analytics events are sent. You can also turn analytics off at any time with the “Opt out of analytics” control in the site footer, which also removes the analytics cookie described below. Our own first-party operational counters (for example, how many times a page was viewed) do not use cookies and do not include your email or name. When analytics is on we store one first-party cookie, sw_aid, holding the same random pseudonymous identifier for up to one year, so that a sign-up confirmed on our server can be counted once; it is not linked to your name or email.

Sign-up and usage step records: to find and fix the places where people get stuck, we keep our own record of which steps happen on the site: that a page type was viewed (for example “a product page”, never what you searched for), that a sign-up form was shown, submitted or confirmed (and whether by emailed code, emailed link or Google), which set-up steps were done or skipped (stores, state, list, price alert, notifications), which buttons were used (save list, set alert, share, install the app), which errors were shown, and on which days a signed-in account used ShopHop. If your cookie settings allow it, these steps are linked with a random code in a first-party cookie called sh_sev (kept up to 90 days) and a random code for the current browser tab. Browsers that ShopHop's own team uses for testing also get a cookie called sh_sev_test (kept up to one year) that marks their records as tests, so they can be left out of our counts; it can only be set from a signed-in ShopHop admin session. Once you are signed in to a confirmed account, the records are also linked to your account ID, so we treat them as personal information, not as anonymous data. They never contain your email address, name, IP address, search terms or anything you type. We use them only to improve ShopHop, they stay on our own servers in Australia, and we do not share them with analytics or advertising providers. On page, button and sign-up step records, the browser code, the tab code and the account ID are removed after 90 days. Two kinds of record keep the account ID for longer, up to 13 months, so that we can see whether people come back: the list of days on which an account used ShopHop, and the first thing an account did after signing up (made a list, set an alert or searched). All of these records are deleted after 13 months. If you delete your account, the records linked to it are deleted or have every code removed at the same time. The analytics opt-out, Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track stop the page, button and usage records, including the list, price alert and active-day records our server makes when you save a list or set an alert. The opt-out applies to the browser where you choose it: we remember it there in localStorage and in a small first-party cookie, sw_analytics_optout, that holds only “1” so our server can see it. Sign-up step records (sign-up form shown, submitted, email sent, link confirmed, and the first thing a new account did) are still counted, so that we can notice confirmation emails that fail.

Page analytics: we also count which of our pages are viewed (including which product or category, never the part of the address after “?”, so never your search words), how long a page is open in front of you, how far you scroll, which links and buttons are clicked (by the name we gave the button or where the link goes, never the text on screen or anything you type), the name of the website you came from (for example google.com), a rough screen-size group and whether you were signed in. These records use the same browser and tab codes as the sign-up and usage step records above, so they can be linked to your account, and we treat them as personal information. We never store your IP address, browser details, email or name with them. The opt-out, Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track stop them, they are deleted after 90 days, and their browser code is cleared when you delete your account.

Sign-up tests and your sign-up list: we test small changes to the sign-up and set-up screens by showing some browsers one version and others another. The version a browser gets is kept in first-party cookies, so it stays the same on each visit. sw_exp_signup holds which sign-up version this browser is in, a random code and the time it was set (kept up to 90 days, not readable by page scripts), with a readable copy of the version in sw_d2_arm for the same 90 days. sw_onb holds only which set-up version this browser is in, “cur” or “new”, and is kept up to 90 days. None of these cookies holds your name, email or anything you type, and nothing is unlocked by them. The version is added to our own first-party records of sign-up and set-up steps, so that we can compare the versions. If you start a list before confirming your email, a copy of it is kept on your new account as product ids and prices (the product ids and quantities on the list, and the product id and price you picked for any price alert you asked for), never names or anything you typed, so the list can follow you to another device. It stays on the account until you tap Keep or Leave when we ask “keep the list from your sign-up?”; then it is removed. Nothing in it is saved to a list or turned on as an alert unless you tap Keep.

We do not sell your account email or alert lists. Integrity and methodology pages are kept free of AdSense and retailer corporate ads.

Who processes data for us

• Supabase — authentication and related account infrastructure (processor).
• Resend — transactional and alert email delivery (processor).
• Hosting / CDN — our self-hosted origin and Cloudflare (including tunnel and edge caching) for delivery and abuse protection.
• Google — Analytics and AdSense when those features are enabled on a page.
• PostHog — product analytics (processor; may store data outside Australia, currently the United States).
• Web push services (Google, Mozilla and Apple) — deliver browser push notifications if you enable price alerts; the message payload is end-to-end encrypted to your device.

Some processors may store or access data outside Australia. We use them because they are reasonably necessary to operate an online service, and we take reasonable steps consistent with the APPs when disclosing personal information overseas.

Why we collect it (APP 3 & 6)

We use personal information to:

• create and secure your account;
• send price alerts and service emails you requested;
• respond to support tickets and abuse reports;
• understand aggregate site usage and keep the service reliable;
• show advertising on permitted pages (AdSense) to help fund the free consumer site.

We do not use your alert list or account email to sell third-party marketing lists.

Retention

Account and alert data is kept while your account is active. You can request deletion of your account by contacting us; we then remove or de-identify associated personal data within a reasonable period, except where we must retain records for security, dispute, or legal reasons.

Support tickets and security logs are retained only as long as needed for those purposes. Sign-up and usage step records lose their browser, tab and account codes after 90 days, except the days an account used ShopHop and its first action after signing up, which keep the account ID for up to 13 months. All of them are deleted after 13 months. Aggregated analytics are kept in non-identifying form. Supermarket price history is a public data archive and is not personal information about ShopHop users.

Your rights

Under the Privacy Act you may request access to, or correction of, personal information we hold about you. You may also:

• request deletion of your account by contacting us;
• unsubscribe from alert or newsletter emails via the link in the email or by contacting us;
• control cookies and ad personalisation in your browser and Google Ads Settings.

To make an access or correction request, email privacy@shophop.au. We will respond within a reasonable time. If you are not satisfied, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at oaic.gov.au.

Security

We use HTTPS, access controls, and least-privilege database roles where practical. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure; please use a unique password for your account.

Children

ShopHop is a general grocery information service. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children for marketing purposes.

Changes

We may update this policy as the product or law changes. The “Last updated” date at the top will change when we do. Continued use after an update means you accept the revised policy.

Related

See also our Terms of Service (including the data-accuracy disclaimer) and About ShopHop.