Privacy policy

This policy explains what personal information Plutocracy ("we", "us") collects, why, where it is kept, who we share it with, and the choices you have. It covers our website (plutocracy.io, including the developer docs at /docs), and our Shopify apps Mercury, Juno and Cupid.

Who we are

Plutocracy is based in Moonee Ponds, Victoria, Australia. [PLACEHOLDER: James to confirm the legal entity name and ABN.] For privacy questions or requests, email [PLACEHOLDER: James to confirm the privacy contact address; the site uses both hello@plutocracy.io and hello@plutocracy.com].

We handle personal information under the Australian Privacy Act 1988 and, for people in the EU, UK and similar jurisdictions, the GDPR and equivalent laws.

Two kinds of data, two roles

• Merchants: when you install one of our apps, we collect information about your store so the app can work. For this data we are the controller.
• Shoppers: when people browse a store that uses our apps, the apps process some information about their visit on the merchant's behalf. For this data the merchant is the controller and we are the processor. Shoppers should also read the privacy policy of the store they are visiting.

Our website

• Analytics: we use Google Analytics to understand how the site is used (pages viewed, approximate location, device and browser). It loads after you first interact with the page.
• Chat: we use Intercom for the chat on the site. If you start a conversation, Intercom stores what you send us and sets its own cookies.
• Hosting: the site is hosted by Vercel, which keeps standard request logs (such as IP address and user agent) for security and operations.
• Email: if you email us, we keep the correspondence to reply and support you.
• The email sign-up form on the site does not currently submit or store anything.

Merchant information (our Shopify apps)

When you install Mercury, we store:

• your store's myshopify domain, the access tokens Shopify issues to the app, and your Shopify session;
• your app settings and configuration;
• billing records (plan, price, charge status and dates). Payments are handled by Shopify's billing system; we never see card details.

We read your store's products, collections, inventory, content, discounts, metaobjects, themes and markets through Shopify's APIs to provide search, merchandising and recommendations, and keep a copy of your catalogue to serve it quickly. The app shows your store's owner details from Shopify in its admin screens but does not store them. When you open the app admin, Intercom receives your store domain so we can support you. We are notified internally when a store installs the app.

[PLACEHOLDER: James to confirm order and customer-event data. The app requests access to orders and customer events, but we found no feature that uses them. Either describe the use here or remove those permissions and this note.]

Juno: [PLACEHOLDER: James to confirm what Juno stores about merchants and shoppers]. Cupid: [PLACEHOLDER: James to confirm what Cupid stores, for example wishlists, shopper emails and shares].

Shopper information (on stores using our apps)

• Search and browsing: when a shopper searches, opens a collection or sees a recommendation, we record the store, the search term or collection, the filters and paging used, and the time. We use this to show merchants what their customers search for and to improve results. This is not linked to a named person; shoppers are recorded as "guest". A storefront can turn this off by sending tracking=none.
• Cart recommendations: to show cart-based recommendations, the shopper's cart (items, quantities, cart token, and any line-item notes such as gift messages) is sent to our servers to choose the products. We do not store it. If a request fails, its contents may appear in our error logs.
• Browser storage: our storefront widgets do not set cookies. They keep a few values in the shopper's browser storage: a copy of the cart, a gift-note key, product and variant details cached for speed, and a random identifier.
• [PLACEHOLDER: James to confirm whether any order data is stored. The code has a table for full Shopify orders, which include customer names, emails and addresses, but we found nothing that writes to it.]

Where information is stored

Our main systems run on Amazon Web Services in Sydney, Australia. To keep the apps fast worldwide, the storefront API also runs in AWS regions in the United States (Virginia and California) and the European Union (Frankfurt), and some caches are kept in the US. Search analytics are stored in ClickHouse Cloud on AWS in Sydney. [PLACEHOLDER: James to confirm the database (RDS) region and the uploads bucket region.] Where information leaves your country, we rely on these providers' contractual and security commitments.

Who we share information with

We don't sell personal information. We share it only with the providers that run our service:

We may also disclose information if the law requires it.

How long we keep it

• Raw search and browsing events: up to 24 hours, then moved into our analytics store, which keeps them for [PLACEHOLDER: James to confirm the analytics retention period].
• Merchant store data: [PLACEHOLDER: James to confirm. Today store records and tokens are kept after uninstalling; set a deletion period, such as within 48 hours of Shopify's shop-redact request, implement it, then state it here].
• Server logs: [PLACEHOLDER: James to confirm log retention; some log groups are kept for 7 days, others have no expiry set].

Your rights and requests

You can ask us for access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal information, and you can complain to us or to your privacy regulator (in Australia, the OAIC). Shoppers should usually contact the store first, as the store controls their data. [PLACEHOLDER: James to confirm how requests are handled and how quickly. Shopify's customer data request, customer redact and shop redact requests are currently received but not acted on; implement them before stating a response time here.]

Security

Data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS). Access to our systems is restricted, and API tokens we issue for AI and agent tools are stored only as one-way hashes. [PLACEHOLDER: James to confirm encryption at rest and other controls before listing them.]

Children

Our website and apps are for businesses and are not directed at children.

Changes

We'll update this page when our practices change, and change the date at the top.