Privacy

Cooklist is run by Sergeant Services, in Arkansas, USA. In data-protection terms, that is the “controller” of what this page describes. Anything about your information goes to privacy@cooklist.me.

• From Google, when you sign in: your name, email address, profile picture and Google account ID. We ask Google only for these basics. We store the sign-in tokens Google issues so you stay signed in, and we don’t use them to read anything else in your Google account.
• What you and your household enter: your setup answers and household guidance (which may include dietary needs, if you choose to write them), kitchen equipment, meals, the recipes you ask for and what you asked, ratings, favorites, notes, the shopping list and what’s already at home, product choices, and the email addresses you invite.
• A record of each AI request: what was asked, when, and how much it cost. It’s used for fair-use limits and to keep costs in check.
• Cook mode progress: which steps are done and any running timers, so the phones and screens in your household stay in step.
• Account records: when you accepted the terms, your AI credits and each change to them (the credits you started with, any added, bought or refunded, and what each AI request used), each purchase of credits (the date, the amount, the tax and Stripe’s reference numbers for the payment; never your card or billing address, which only Stripe has), whether the account is suspended, and short notes an administrator may write about an account (why credits were added, say). If an AI request of yours fails, or you report a problem with a recipe, the site’s administrators see a notice of it with your account’s name. You can ask for a copy of these like anything else.
• If you’re waiting for a place, or were invited: only your email address and the date. That is the address you typed into the waiting-list form, or one an administrator listed so that you could sign up. It’s used to let you in and to tell you there’s a place, and for nothing else. It’s deleted when your account is made, and before that whenever you ask at privacy@cooklist.me.
• Server logs: like every website, the server records each request with its time, the page, your browser’s description and your IP address. These logs are kept for about 14 days and are only looked at to keep the site running and secure.

• To run the service you signed up for: your account, your household’s meals, recipes, lists and settings, and Cook mode progress. Without these there is nothing to show you.
• To keep the site safe, fair and affordable (our legitimate interest): the AI request record, server logs, account records and administrator notes, the ability to limit or suspend an account, and the fingerprint kept for a while after an account is deleted (see below).

Nothing here is kept for marketing. We don’t send newsletters or promotional email, and we don’t profile you. Dietary needs you write into your guidance are used only to plan your meals.

A sign-in cookie keeps you signed in. The browser also remembers three settings for that device only: light or dark theme, the timer voice, and whether Cook mode speaks. There are no analytics, no advertising, no tracking pixels and no third-party cookies, which is why there is no cookie banner.

• Your household shares meals, the shopping list, guidance, equipment and product choices. Your ratings, favorites and notes are yours alone.
• Other people using Cooklist can see recipes in the shared library, but not who asked for them or what they asked. That stays within your household.
• Cooklist’s administrators can see accounts, AI usage and costs, and what was asked of the AI, in order to run the service and manage limits.

We don’t sell your information or share it for advertising. We would hand information to the authorities only if the law required it.

• Anthropic (the Claude AI) writes recipes and plans meals. When you ask for one, it receives your request, your household’s guidance and equipment, and the names of recipes in the library with how you’ve rated them. It does not receive your name or email address. Anthropic handles this under its commercial API terms: it doesn’t train its models on what we send, and it deletes requests from its systems within 30 days.
• Google handles sign-in.
• Stripe takes the payment if you buy credits, through its Link service, as the seller of record. You give it your card, name and billing address on its own page; we send it your email address, to fill in the form, and a reference to your account, so the credits reach you. It keeps the records of the sale under its own privacy policy, and sends your receipt.
• Amazon Web Services hosts Cooklist and its nightly backups, in the United States.
• Walmart: if you shop with the Walmart option, Cooklist opens walmart.com with the products on your list. What happens there is covered by Walmart’s own privacy policy. Cooklist never sees your Walmart account.

Everything is stored and processed in the United States. If you use Cooklist from somewhere else, including the EU or the UK, your information is transferred there, and the protections on this page are what apply to it wherever you are.

Your information is kept while your account exists. In Settings → Your account you can download a copy of your data as one file, and delete your account yourself, at once. If you’d rather we did it, email privacy@cooklist.me and we’ll act within 30 days. When an account is deleted:

• Your account, sign-in tokens, ratings, favorites, notes and administrator notes are removed. If you were the last person in your household, the household goes too: its meals, lists, guidance and settings.
• Recipes you asked for stay in the shared library, without your name or your request on them.
• The AI request record keeps its counts and costs, so our accounts still add up, but what you typed and the link to you are removed.
• Any credits you have left are removed with the account. A record of each purchase is kept (date, amounts and Stripe’s reference numbers), because we have to account for the money, but the link to you is removed. Stripe keeps its own record of the sale.
• One thing is kept for 180 days: a scrambled fingerprint of your Google account, with the date. It can’t be turned back into your name or email address, and it’s used for one thing: if the same Google account signs up again in that time, the new account starts without the free credits, which are once per person. After 180 days it’s deleted.
• Deleted data drops out of the nightly backups within about three months (100 days at most), and out of the server logs within about 14 days.

Wherever you live, you can ask us to:

• tell you what we hold about you, and give you a copy in a form you can take elsewhere (the download in Settings is that copy)
• correct anything that’s wrong (most of it you can change yourself in Settings)
• delete your account and its data, as described above
• stop using some of it, or object to a use, and we’ll say what that would mean for your account

Ask at privacy@cooklist.me. We may need to check that the request really comes from you. If you think we’ve handled your information badly and we haven’t put it right, you can also complain to the data-protection authority where you live.

Cooklist is served only over HTTPS, every page with your data requires signing in, and access to the server and backups is limited to the people who run it. If a security failure ever exposes your information, we’ll tell you, and the authorities where the law requires it.

Cooklist isn’t meant for children under 13, or under the age where you live at which someone can agree to a service like this on their own, and we don’t knowingly keep their information.

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes too, and we’ll mention anything significant in the app. Questions: privacy@cooklist.me.