Who we are
DesiInVidesi (“we”, “us”) is a community platform for the Indian diaspora: classifieds, events, groups, discussions, a local business directory with member offers, and simple websites for those businesses. This policy explains what information we handle when you visit or join, and what we do with it.
What we collect
What you give us. When you create an account we ask for your name, email address, phone number, birthday, gender, where you live and where your family is from, your mother tongue and your visa status. Birthday confirms you are an adult; the rest helps match you with people, groups and businesses near you. Everything beyond name and email can be left blank or changed later. If you sign up with Google, Google sends us your name, email address and profile picture; we never see your Google password.
What you post. Listings, advertisements, events, posts, replies, reviews, invitations, business details, menus, prices, photos and the content of the websites you build. Orders you place with a business, including the delivery or pickup details you type, and enquiries you send to a business.
Payments. Memberships, promotions, tickets and subscriptions are paid through Stripe. Your card number goes to Stripe directly and never touches our servers. We keep a record of what was bought, when, for how much, and Stripe’s reference for it. For a Premier membership we also keep the delivery name, address and phone you give on the payment page, so we can send your welcome gift and track its delivery; only our team can see them.
Collected automatically. Your IP address and an approximate location derived from it (to suggest your city), your browser type, the pages you visit and the time of your visit, and the usual server logs. We do not run advertising trackers.
Location. If you allow it, your browser’s location is used once to find your city. Addresses and cities you type into forms may be completed through Google’s address service; your keystrokes in those boxes go to Google for that purpose.
How we use it
- To run your account, sign you in, and show you content for your city and language.
- To publish what you choose to publish: your listings, posts, events, businesses and websites.
- To pass orders, bookings and enquiries between you and a business, and to email both of you about their status.
- To take payments, send receipts, and switch on what you paid for.
- To send the emails and text messages the service needs: confirmation codes, order updates, invitations you send, replies to your enquiries, and one welcome message.
- To send our weekly deals email — usually on Fridays, with local deals, Connected business offers and promotions (some paid for by advertisers) — which members receive as part of their account, as our Terms explain. Every one carries an unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing never affects your account. We do not send promotional text messages unless you separately agree to them.
- To keep the platform safe: preventing fraud, abuse and spam, enforcing our Terms, and answering reports.
- To understand how the site is used, in aggregate, so we can improve it.
Who we share it with
We do not sell your information. We share it only as described here.
Your mobile number and SMS consent are never shared or sold. We do not share, sell, rent, or otherwise disclose your mobile phone number, your SMS opt-in or consent information, or any text-message contact details to or with any third party, affiliate, advertiser, data broker, or marketing partner, for their purposes or for any purpose. This information is excluded from every form of third-party sharing and sale described anywhere in this policy. We use your mobile number only to send the event invitations and reminders you have opted in to, delivered through our messaging provider (Twilio) acting solely on our behalf under contract; the provider may not use it for its own purposes. You can opt out of text messages at any time by replying STOP, or reply HELP for assistance.
- Service providers that run parts of the platform for us, under contracts that limit what they may do with it: Supabase (database, sign-in and file storage, hosted in the United States), Stripe (payments), SendGrid by Twilio (email), Twilio (text messages, where enabled), Google (sign-in with Google, address and map services), and our hosting providers.
- Businesses and members you deal with. When you order from, book with, or write to a business, that business sees what you sent: your name, contact details, the order and your message. When you send an invitation or reply to a post, the people you choose see it.
- Legal reasons. When the law requires it, to protect the safety of our members or the public, or to defend our rights.
- A change of ownership. If DesiInVidesi is sold or merged, your information moves with it under this policy.
Referral program
If you name a member as your referrer when you buy something, or if someone names you, we record the link between the two accounts and the purchase it applies to. A referrer sees the buyer’s first name, the service bought, the date and their reward — never the buyer’s payment details, contact details or the amount paid. If you earn rewards, we keep the PayPal or Zelle details you give us for payouts and, where tax law requires it, your tax form (such as a W-9). We use them only to pay you and to meet our tax and legal obligations, and keep them for as long as the law requires. See the Referral Program Terms.
Information we receive from Google
You can sign in to DesiInVidesi with your Google account instead of a password. This section explains exactly what we receive from Google and what we do with it.
- What we access. Only the basic profile information Google shares when you choose to sign in: your name, your email address (and whether Google has verified it), your profile picture, and a Google account identifier. We request only the openid, email and profile permissions. We do not access your Gmail, contacts, calendar, Drive files, YouTube account or any other Google data, and we never see your Google password.
- How we use it. To create your DesiInVidesi account, sign you in, show your name and picture on your profile and on what you post, and send you account-related email (such as sign-in and order notices). We do not use it for advertising and do not use it to build profiles for anyone else.
- How we store and protect it. It is stored with your account in our database (Supabase, hosted in the United States), protected by access controls and encrypted in transit.
- Who we share it with. We do not sell, rent or share Google user data with third parties, advertisers or data brokers. It is processed only by the service providers that run our platform for us (listed above) under contract, and your name and picture appear publicly only where you publish something.
- How long we keep it, and deleting it. We keep it while your account exists. You can ask us to delete your account and the Google information we hold by writing to desiinvdesi@gmail.com; we do so within 30 days. You can also remove DesiInVidesi’s access at any time from your Google Account (Security → Third-party apps with account access).
DesiInVidesi’s use and transfer of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
What is public
DesiInVidesi is a community site, so some things are visible to everyone, including people who are not signed in: your display name, profile picture and city; your listings, posts, events, reviews and group activity; and every business you list, including its website, menu, prices, photos and the contact details you entered for it. Your email address, phone number, birthday, visa status and other account details are not shown publicly unless you put them in something you publish.
Cookies and browser storage
We use a small number of cookies and your browser’s local storage for things the site needs: keeping you signed in, remembering your city and preferences, holding a draft of a form you are filling in, and, while the site is in maintenance, remembering that you have been let in. We do not use advertising cookies. You can clear these in your browser at any time; you will be signed out and drafts will be lost.
Website analytics
We measure how the site is used with our own analytics, run on our own servers. No outside analytics or advertising company receives this information, and we never sell it. It tells us which pages and features people use, so we can improve them, and it shows advertisers how their adverts performed in totals only.
What is recorded. The pages you open, the page or campaign link that brought you to the site, roughly how long a page was actively in use and how far down it you scrolled, the type of device and browser, the searches you run on the site, and the buttons and links you use, such as contacting a listing, opening a ticket link or viewing an advert. Search words are cleaned before they are stored: email addresses and phone numbers are removed. We never record what you type into forms, your messages, passwords or card details.
How a visit is recognised. Your browser keeps a random visitor number in its local storage (not a cookie) and a visit number that ends after 30 minutes without activity. These are not linked to your name or account. We do not store your IP address for analytics; it is only used for a moment to stop abuse. Your approximate area (country, region and city) may be worked out from your connection and stored with the visit, never your exact location.
How to turn it off. Use “Do not track my visits” at the bottom of any page, and nothing more is recorded from that browser. We also record nothing when your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal. Analytics records are deleted automatically after about 13 months (400 days).
Account activity and site problems
Account activity. When you are signed in, we keep a record of the main things you do with your account — signing up and signing in, creating, editing or deleting listings, posts and other content, sending a message (that a message was sent, never what it says), reporting or reviewing something, and buying a service. Only our administrators can see it. We use it to keep the community safe, resolve disputes and support requests, and spot misuse. Pages you browse are not part of this record. It is deleted after 400 days.
Site problems. If a page fails to load, a page or address is not found, or our server has an error, your browser tells our server: the address of the page (without anything after a “?”), the page that linked to it, a short technical message, and the type of browser. It is not linked to your name or account, and emails and numbers are removed from the message. We use it only to fix the site, and delete it 90 days after the problem was last seen.
How long we keep it
Your account and what you have published stay until you delete them or ask us to. Orders, payments and invoices are kept for as long as tax and accounting law requires. Server logs are kept for a short period for security and then deleted. Website analytics records are deleted after 400 days. If you delete your account, your profile is removed and your published content is removed or anonymised, except where we must keep a record by law.
Your choices and rights
- See and change your details at any time from your profile and dashboard.
- Delete your content yourself, or ask us to delete your account.
- Ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
- Opt out of any non-essential message using the link in it or by writing to us — including the weekly deals email, from the unsubscribe link at the bottom of every one.
- Stop website analytics with “Do not track my visits” at the bottom of any page, or your browser’s Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track setting.
- Depending on where you live, you may have further rights under laws such as the GDPR or the California Consumer Privacy Act, including the right to object to or restrict certain uses and the right to complain to a supervisory authority. We honour these requests wherever you are. We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising.
To exercise any of these, write to desiinvdesi@gmail.com from the email address on your account. We answer within 30 days.
Age
DesiInVidesi is for adults. You must be 18 or older to create an account, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone younger. If you believe a minor has an account, tell us and we will remove it.
Security
Information travels over encrypted connections, is stored by providers with their own security certifications, and is protected by access rules so that a member can only read and change what is theirs. Card details are handled by Stripe, a certified payment processor. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach that affects you, we will tell you and the relevant authorities as the law requires.
Where it is processed
Our providers store and process information in the United States. If you use DesiInVidesi from elsewhere, your information is transferred there and protected by this policy and our providers’ contractual safeguards.
If you live in Canada
When you use DesiInVidesi from Canada, Canada’s federal privacy law (the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, “PIPEDA”) and, where it applies, your province’s privacy law protect your personal information. In particular:
- Consent. We collect, use and share your information only for the purposes described in this policy, which you agree to when you create an account. You may withdraw your consent at any time, subject to legal or contractual limits; we will tell you what withdrawing means, for example that we can no longer run your account.
- Marketing email. We send the Friday deals digest and other promotional email to Canadian members only if you ticked the box to receive them, or switched them on at My dashboard → My profile → Notifications. We keep a record of when you agreed and the words you agreed to. Every promotional email has an unsubscribe link, and we act on it right away. Sign-in codes, receipts and messages about your orders or account are not promotional and are still sent.
- Access and correction. You can ask for the personal information we hold about you and how it has been used and shared, and ask us to correct anything inaccurate. We answer within 30 days.
- Outside Canada. Your information is stored and processed in the United States by the providers listed above, so it may be accessible to courts, law enforcement and national security authorities there under US law.
- Prices and payments. In Canada mode, prices are shown and charged in Canadian dollars by Stripe.
- Questions and complaints. Write to our privacy contact at desiinvdesi@gmail.com. If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
Changes to this policy
When we change this policy we will update the date at the top. For a significant change we will also tell you by email or with a notice on the site before it takes effect.
Contact
Questions about privacy go to desiinvdesi@gmail.com. Our Terms of Service cover the rules for using the platform.