Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how German Buddy ("we", "us") handles your information when you use our website and app at germanbuddy.ai. By using German Buddy you agree to the practices described here. Questions? Email support@germanbuddy.ai.

What we collect

• Account information. When you sign in with Google, we receive your name and email address to create and identify your account. We do not receive your Google password.
• Trial & subscription records. We store the status of any free trial and any subscription (plan, region, interval, start/renewal dates) in our database to provide and gate access.
• Optional updates email. If you opt in to product updates, we store the email address you submit so we can send occasional announcements. This is optional and unrelated to using the app.
• Practice content. Text and answers you submit for feedback are processed to generate corrections and conversation responses.
• Payment data. Payments are handled entirely by our payment providers (Stripe, our merchant of record for international sales, and Razorpay for India), who receive the data needed to charge you. German Buddy never stores your card or bank details. We only retain a reference to your subscription so we can manage access.

Cookies & sessions

We use a small number of strictly necessary cookies to keep you signed in and maintain your session. We also use Google Analytics and Meta Pixel to understand visits, measure actions such as trial, checkout, and purchase steps, and evaluate our advertising. These services may use cookies or similar technologies and process information such as your device, browser, IP address, pages visited, and event activity.

So that Meta can recognise the same person across visits rather than counting one learner as several, advertising events also carry two identifiers: a random id we generate and store in your browser, which means nothing outside our site, and — once you are signed in — a SHA-256 hash of your email address. The hash is computed in your browser before it is sent; your actual email address is never passed to Meta, and it cannot be recovered from the hash. We do not send your name, payment details, or any of your practice content to these services. You can limit cookies in your browser settings, and clearing site data removes the random id.

Third parties we share data with

We rely on a few trusted services to run German Buddy:

• Google OAuth — to authenticate your sign-in.
• Google Analytics — to measure website usage and conversion events.
• Meta Pixel — to measure advertising performance and conversion events.
• Groq / LLM providers — to generate AI writing corrections and conversation responses from the text you submit.
• Stripe — merchant of record for international (USD) subscriptions; it is the seller for those transactions and handles payment, invoicing and sales tax/VAT.
• Razorpay — to process India (INR) subscription payments.
• Piper TTS — to generate text-to-speech audio for pronunciation practice.

We do not sell your personal data.

Data retention

We keep your account and subscription records for as long as your account is active and as needed to meet legal, tax, and accounting obligations. If you delete your account, we remove your personal data except where we are required to retain limited records (for example, payment receipts).

Your rights

You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal data at any time by emailing support@germanbuddy.ai from the email associated with your account. We will respond within a reasonable time.

Children

German Buddy is not intended for children under 13 (or under 16 where a higher age applies). We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has provided us data, contact us and we will delete it.

Governing law

This policy and any disputes relating to it are governed by the laws of India.

Contact

German Buddy · germanbuddy.ai · support@germanbuddy.ai