Legal

Privacy Policy

Effective September 28, 2026

Dibs is a free web app that helps a group decide where to eat. It’s built and run by Noah Kleckner and Matt Stacy in Raleigh, North Carolina (“Dibs,” “we”). This page says what we collect, why, who we share it with, and how to get rid of it. If anything here is unclear, email support@icalldibs.co.

The short version: we collect what we need to run the app, we don’t sell your data, we don’t run ads, and you can delete your account and everything you posted from the You tab at any time.

You can use Dibs without an account

Voting on a friend’s decision, browsing the community feed, and running a decision yourself all work without signing up. In that case we store only what the feature needs:

A vote: the name you type, your ranking of the four spots, and the decision’s share code, so your group can see the result.
A decision you host: your filters (budget, distance, cuisines), the restaurants shown, the name you gave, and the winner, stored under an 8-character code so people with the link can vote.
Anonymous usage analytics (see below).

What we collect if you create an account

Account: your email address and a password (stored hashed by our authentication provider, never readable by us), or if you sign in with Google, the name, email and profile picture Google shares.
Profile: your display name, @username, the city or area you told us, your avatar, and your taste profile (favorite cuisines, cuisines you avoid, dietary restrictions).
What you post: ratings, captions, photos, comments, likes, who you follow, friends you tag, and reports or blocks you make. Ratings have a visibility setting (public, friends, or private) that you control per post.
Your lists: want-to-try and ranked spots, so they sync across devices.
Decisions and visits: the restaurants your group settled on, so we can ask “how was it?” later.
Notification tokens if you turn on push notifications, and your email preferences (whether you said yes or no to occasional emails, and when).

Location

Dibs only knows where you are if you allow it in your browser. When you do, your precise location is used for that search to find restaurants near you and measure distance. It is sent to our server and to Google Places for that search, and kept on your device with the decision. We do not store your GPS coordinates in our database. If you type an area instead of sharing location, that text may be stored with the decision. You can revoke location access in your browser settings at any time.

Usage analytics

To understand which parts of Dibs work, we record product events, for example “started a decision,” “shared a link,” “vote settled,” the filters chosen, the page a visit started on, and a referral tag if a link had one. These are tied to a random device ID stored in your browser, and to your account ID when you are signed in. We use this to improve the product, not to build an advertising profile. We do not use third-party advertising or tracking networks.

How we use it

To run Dibs: find and rank restaurants, show your group the vote and the winner, show your posts to the people you chose, sync your lists, and send the notifications you turned on.
To improve Dibs, using the analytics described above.
To email you, only if you opted in. We send at most a few emails a month, and every one has an unsubscribe link. You can also change this in the You tab.
To keep the community safe: acting on reports and blocks, and preventing abuse of our free service.
To meet legal obligations.

Who we share it with

We share data with the services that run Dibs, only as needed to run it:

Supabase — our database, sign-in, and photo storage (United States).
Vercel — hosting. Vercel’s servers see your IP address and standard request logs, which we use for rate limiting and keeping the service up.
Google Maps Platform (Places) — restaurant search. Google receives the search area or your location for that search and the search text. Restaurant details, photos, ratings and hours come from Google and are subject to Google’s Privacy Policy.
Anthropic — the AI that helps rank restaurants. It receives the list of candidate restaurants and the group’s preferences (cuisines, budget, vibe, and any dietary needs you entered) so it can pick a good four. It does not receive your name, email or account details.
Google — only if you choose “Continue with Google” to sign in.

Other people see what you choose to show them: your name to a group you host or vote in, your posts according to their visibility setting, and your profile to people who look you up. We do not sell personal data, and we do not share it with advertisers.

How long we keep it

Account data stays until you delete your account. Decision sessions and votes are kept so links keep working; we may prune old ones. Analytics are kept for product analysis and may be pruned. We keep a record of email consent decisions because we are required to be able to show how an address got on the list.

Deleting your data

Open the You tab and choose Delete account. This permanently removes your profile, taste profile, posts and photos, comments, likes, follows, notifications, lists, visit history, and notification tokens, and then removes the sign-in itself. It is not reversible. Decisions you hosted stay available to the group under their code, with only the name you gave them. If you would rather we do it, or want a copy of your data first, email support@icalldibs.co from your account email.

Cookies and storage on your device

Dibs uses your browser’s local storage to keep you signed in, remember an in-progress decision, your lists, a random device ID for analytics, and small preferences like whether you dismissed a prompt. Our sign-in provider sets the cookies or tokens it needs to keep your session. We do not use advertising cookies.

Children

Dibs is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, email us and we will delete it.

Security

Traffic is encrypted in transit. Our database is only reachable through our own server code, never directly from the browser, and photo uploads are restricted to a folder tied to your account. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a password you don’t reuse elsewhere.

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us to access, correct, or delete your personal data, or object to how we use it, by emailing support@icalldibs.co. We will respond within 30 days. California residents: we do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we do not discriminate against anyone for exercising their rights.

Changes

If we change how we handle data, we will update this page and the effective date above. For a significant change, we will also tell signed-in users in the app.