Privacy and data

If you click a holdout.link link

holdout.link is our link shortener. Affiliate channels create these links from their <strong>Botize</strong> automations to share offers, and when you open one we record the click so the channel that posted it can see how it is doing.

What we record

• When you clicked, which link it was and where it sends you.
• Your country, which our hosting provider works out from your connection. Not your city, and not your IP address, which we never store.
• Your browser and type of device, as your browser announces them (its user agent), and your network: the provider you connect through, such as your mobile carrier.
• The page you came from, if your browser tells us.

We do not store your IP address, we set no cookies on you, and we never learn your name, your email or your Telegram account. We do not follow you after the click: once the shop opens, we see nothing more.

Who sees it

Only the channel that posted the link, and only for its own links: the time, country, device and origin of each click, and the totals. We do not sell or share it with anyone.

We do this because it is in the legitimate interest of the channel, and ours, to know how a link performs, and we record no more than that needs.

How long

The raw logs are deleted as soon as we have read them, within minutes. Each click is then kept for as long as the channel that posted the link has its account, and deleted when the channel is deleted.

If you have a Holdout account

What we keep

• Your email, which is your account. To log in we email you a six-digit code, and we keep only a scrambled copy of it, for ten minutes.
• A session cookie, so you stay logged in. It is the only cookie we set, it only works on this site and it is not used to track you.
• Your channels and your API key. Keys are stored encrypted: we can show them to you again, but they cannot be read from the database on its own.
• Your links and what your automations tell us about each offer. You create links from Botize, which connects to your account with its API key and sends us, with each link, the channel it goes to and what you choose: title, post text, price, original price, currency, category and the address of a picture. A price is a snapshot of that moment: we never follow it.
• The clicks on your links, as described above, and the products you try with Try a product, with what Holdout answered.
• The sales reports you upload, if you choose to. We keep the file exactly as you uploaded it, so we can read it again as Holdout improves, and we use it only to show you your figures. Delete a report and its file goes with it.

It is all yours. We use it only to show you your stats and to give you suggestions, and each channel learns only from its own history: we never mix your data with other accounts, never show it on a public page, and never share or sell it.

Try a product

If you run a channel with a Holdout account and use Try a product, we send the product you type and the titles of your channel’s past offers, with how each one did (among your best, average or among your weakest), to TypeSafe, the company whose AI model compares them. Nothing else goes: not your email, not who clicked, not any single click. TypeSafe processes it on our behalf only to answer that question, and we use the answer only for your own suggestions.

Deleting it

You can delete any channel from its page, and everything in it goes with it. To delete your whole account, write to us and we will do it.

If you signed up for an alert

Channels can also publish alerts on holdout.deals: you ask to be told about one product, and when it happens we send you one message. This part is about that.

What we keep

The least we need to alert you about what you asked for, and nothing else:

• Your Telegram id, which is a number. We do not keep your name, your phone or your picture.
• Which alerts you asked for, which is all we need to know to be able to send them.
• Which channel you came from, if you came through one. That decides which link your alert carries.
• Nothing about your clicks. We count how many times the link on one of our pages is pressed, but that is a bare number belonging to the page: no IP address, no browser, no digest of either, and nothing tied to you.

Why we are allowed to

Because you asked us to: you write to the bot and press a button saying Yes, alert me, after reading that alerts carry sponsored links. That consent is the legal basis, and you can withdraw it whenever you like without explaining yourself.

How many messages we send you

One per product. You sign up for one particular product, and when the thing you were waiting for happens you get one alert. Once it is sent your request is done and closes: there is no list you stay subscribed to. If you want to keep waiting for that same product, you sign up again yourself.

There is no newsletter, no news, no reminders and no commercial messages from anyone. Sign up for three products and you will get at most three alerts.

Nothing watches on your behalf

Even if “watching” is the word everyone reaches for, it does not describe what happens here. We do not read any store’s website: no crawling, no automated price lookups. We do follow a channel’s link through its redirects, to find out which shop it ends up at; the page itself we neither open nor read. And we do not observe your behaviour either: not which pages you see, not where from, not what you do next. The only thing we know about you is what you told us when you signed up.

We do keep a count of how many times each page is opened and how many times the link on it is pressed, so we can tell whoever published an alert how much attention it is getting. It is a number and nothing else: no who, no where from, no what with. It counts times, not people: telling them apart would mean putting a fingerprint or a cookie on you, and we do not.

What exists is a note from you: you want to know if a given product drops. When somebody who was already looking at that store tells us it has, we check it by hand and send you the alert. There is no process watching anything on your behalf.

The channel does not know who you are

Whoever wrote that alert cannot see you. They do not know you signed up, they never get your name or your Telegram handle, and they cannot message you. When they decide it is time they tell us, and we are the ones who send it. All they ever learn is how many people signed up and how many were messaged: a number, never a list.

Of the link you are sent we know nothing

The link you get on Telegram is the channel’s own, unchanged: it does not route through us and carries nothing of ours. It is not a holdout.link link. It is the same address we showed you before you accepted, and sending you a different one would have contradicted that. So of that link we do not know whether you clicked it, or when, or whether you bought.

On our own pages we do count how many times it is pressed, so we can tell the channel how much attention its offer is getting. The address does not change there either: you go straight to the shop, through the link you can see. What is kept is a number belonging to the page: no who, no where from, no cookie of any kind.

What we do not do

• We do not profile you. There are no automated decisions about you, no segments and no scores.
• We do not combine your data with anything. What we know about you is what you told us here; we do not fill it out from other sources.
• We do not sell or hand over data. Affiliate channels are given no list: they know how many people are waiting for a product, never who.
• We use no tracking cookies or third-party analytics, and nobody has a pixel on these pages.

How to stop the alerts

Send /stop to the bot. Every pending alert of yours is closed and anything already queued is cancelled, so nothing reaches you after you asked us to stop writing. It is immediate and there is nothing to confirm.

The sponsored links

When you open a product link from one of our pages, it may carry an affiliate code. If you buy, whoever placed it earns a commission and it costs you no more. It is always labelled, and that is the whole business model: we charge you nothing and never will.

How long

Only while you wait. Your Telegram identifier and which product you were waiting for are kept until the alert is sent, and sending it deletes them. Same if you send /stop: your alerts are closed and your identifier is deleted. If you were waiting for several products, it goes when none are left.

Nothing of yours is left: not the number, not which channel you came from. What is kept is how many people got each alert: a figure, with no names behind it. That is what lets us account for what we do without keeping anyone.

For everyone

The waitlist

If you join the waitlist on the pricing page, we keep your email and the date, and write to you once, when the paid plan opens. To be taken off it, write to us.

Who handles data for us

A few companies handle data on our behalf, only to run the service: Amazon Web Services hosts holdout.link, holds its click logs until we read them and sends our emails; Botize runs the automations that send alerts and emails; Telegram delivers alerts to people who signed up there; and TypeSafe compares products for Try a product. Nobody else gets it.

Who is responsible

Juan Salvador Sánchez Bonnín, at Senju, Adachi-ku, Tokyo 120-0034, Japan. For anything to do with your data: info@botize.com.

Sole trader established in Japan.

The address is given at neighbourhood level because it is a private home, not an office. The exact number is provided without delay to anyone who asks by email.

Your rights

You can ask for access to what we hold about you, have it corrected, have it deleted, or take it with you. For alerts, /stop deletes it at once. For an account, you can delete your channels yourself, and we delete the rest when you ask. A click on a holdout.link link is not tied to your name, so to find it we would need to know which link and when. Write to info@botize.com.

If you think we are getting it wrong, you can complain to the data protection authority of your country. In Spain that is the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos.