Privacy Policy

1. Information we collect

• Accounts: name, email, username, account dates, and a password hash used to authenticate you. Passwords are hashed rather than stored as readable account passwords.
• Profiles and marketplace content: biography, avatar, listings, item photos, descriptions, prices, selected city and state, ratings, reviews, and related account identifiers.
• Communications: listing messages, direct messages, public community-chat posts, and information sent through the contact form, including your name, email, and message.
• Shipping: ship-from and delivery names, street addresses, city, state, ZIP code, optional phone number, packed parcel dimensions and weight, service quotes, tracking numbers, carrier events, and request records.
• Payments, when enabled: connected seller merchant identifiers, connection and permission status, checkout and capture identifiers, totals and fee amounts, payment and refund status, policy-acceptance transaction records, and expected disbursement dates. PayPal handles payment-account login and funding details on its own service; our checkout does not collect card numbers or PayPal passwords.
• Site activity: visited page paths, visit times, a random browser identifier, recent activity check-ins, and approximate country, region, city, and location coordinates derived from your IP address.

Your browser sends its IP address to the server to connect. Application analytics uses a local IP-location database and saves coordinates rounded to one decimal degree, not GPS location. Raw IP addresses are not stored in the application's analytics tables. Hosting, network, payment, or shipping providers may separately process connection information under their own practices. The random visitor identifier is not the same as your account name, but activity records should not be treated as completely anonymous.

2. How information is used

We use information to authenticate accounts; display and search listings and seller profiles; deliver messages and reviews; provide shipping quotes, tracking, and supported payments; respond to support requests; detect misuse; and maintain the service. Administrative traffic reports help us understand page activity and approximate visitor locations. Information may also be used to investigate disputes, meet legal obligations, and protect users and the service.

3. Who can see information

• Other visitors: public listings and photos, seller display names and usernames, profile details, reviews, ratings, and community-chat posts can be viewed by other visitors. A listing's city and state are public. Do not place private addresses, financial information, or identity documents in public content.
• Message recipients: listing and direct messages are stored on the service and available to their participants. They are not end-to-end encrypted. Authorized operators may access stored information where needed to provide support, maintain the service, investigate misuse, or meet legal requirements.
• Trading partners: saving a shipping request shares its delivery address and tracking information with the buyer and seller. The website's buyer-facing quote does not expose the seller's full ship-from address. The carrier or a package label may separately identify a return address.
• Shipping providers: getting rates sends the origin, destination, and parcel details to EasyPost. Tracking requests send carrier and tracking identifiers and receive carrier events. EasyPost and USPS may process information needed to provide their services.
• PayPal: seller connection and payment flows send the information needed for onboarding, the purchase, item description, buyer's saved delivery address, amount, site fee, and transaction references. PayPal returns seller eligibility and transaction status information. PayPal applies its own verification, fraud prevention, retention, and privacy practices.
• Service operation and legal requests: authorized hosting and infrastructure providers may process information to run the website. We may disclose relevant information when required by law, to address fraud or security incidents, or to protect rights and safety.

We do not sell your personal information or share it with advertising networks for cross-context behavioral advertising. The current website uses its own traffic analytics rather than advertising pixels. Public information that you post may still be copied by others outside our control.

Provider policies: PayPal Privacy Statement, EasyPost Privacy Policy, and USPS Privacy Policy.

4. Cookies and automatic activity checks

The site records a page view on load and sends an activity check-in about every 30 seconds while a page is visible. The admin page is excluded by the page-analytics script. Analytics records page paths without the query string or URL fragment. Our current implementation does not include a cookie-preferences panel or interpret browser Do Not Track signals.

You can block or remove cookies using your browser settings. Blocking the session cookie can prevent sign-in and related features. Removing the visitor cookie resets the browser identifier but does not delete previous records or by itself stop future activity recording. Disabling JavaScript can stop the site's activity script and also disables many interactive features. PayPal may use its own cookies when you visit its service.

5. Security

The service uses password hashing, signed-in session controls, and access restrictions for private APIs. Shipping-request access is restricted to the associated buyer and seller; traffic reports and administrative tools require administrator access. Payment and shipping API secrets remain on the server. These safeguards do not make internet transmission or storage risk-free. Keep your credentials private, use a unique password, and report suspected unauthorized access promptly.

6. Retention and deletion

Account, listing, communication, support, analytics, shipping, and payment records are stored to operate the service, maintain transaction history, address disputes, and meet applicable obligations. Most of these records currently have no fixed automatic-deletion schedule and remain until removed by the operator or a supported deletion process. Cookie expiry does not delete associated server records.

Expired shipping quotes are eligible for removal once they have been expired for a day by the configured shipping cleanup task. Saved shipping requests, tracking history, and payment records are retained separately. We may need to preserve transaction, fraud-prevention, backup, or legal records after an account or content-removal request. Information already received or copied by another user or an outside provider may remain with them under their own policies.

7. Your choices and privacy requests

You can edit supported profile fields and choose what information to put in public content. For access, correction, account closure, or deletion requests that are not available in the interface, use the contact details below. We may need reasonable information to verify ownership before acting. Do not send passwords, payment-card information, or identity documents in an initial request.

Depending on applicable law, you may have additional rights concerning access, correction, deletion, portability, restriction, objection, or an appeal of a privacy-request decision. Describe the right or concern in your request so we can assess and respond under the rules that apply. You may also contact your relevant privacy regulator. This policy does not promise every right applies to every visitor or waive rights provided by law.

8. Age requirements

Accounts and transactions are intended for people 18 and older. The service is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly seek their personal information. If you believe a child has provided information, contact us so we can investigate and address it. The current account form does not independently verify a user's age.

9. Outside services and processing locations

Links to event organizers, carriers, sellers' outside pages, and payment services take you to services with their own practices. This policy covers Collection Connection's website, not those third parties. Information may be processed where our hosting and service providers operate; contact us if you need more information about a particular processing arrangement.

10. Policy updates

We will update this page and its date when our practices change and provide additional notice or seek consent where required. New advertising, analytics, payment, or shipping integrations may require changes to this policy and the site's privacy controls.

11. Contact and privacy requests

Contact Collection Connection using the contact form or email info/connection@mail. Our published contact location is Dallas, Texas. For a privacy request, use the subject “Privacy request” and describe your request and the account email or relevant record.

See the Terms of Use for marketplace responsibilities, fees, direct payment, shipping, and disputes.