Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

PickRivalry ("we," "our," or "us") operates a college football confidence pick'em platform at pickrivalry.com. This policy describes exactly what information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and how long we keep it. We wrote it to match what the product actually does — nothing here is boilerplate for features we don't have.

2. Information We Collect

Information you provide

• Account details: email address, username, first and last name, and a password (we store only a cryptographic hash of your password — never the password itself)
• Profile details you choose to add: avatar image, favorite team
• Your picks and confidence points, and the leagues you create or join
• Messages, reactions, and GIFs you post in league chat
• Communication preferences (for example, pick-reminder emails)

Information generated by using the Service

• Standings, results, and pick history computed from your picks
• Dues status within a league (marked by your league's commissioner)
• The date and policy version you accepted at signup

Information collected automatically

• IP address, used for security and rate limiting, and retained briefly in server logs
• Basic request information (browser type, pages requested) in server logs
• Pick activity: when you save, change, clear, or try to save picks, or leave picks unsaved on the picks page, we record that action with the time, your IP address, and your browser type so we can resolve disputes about picks
• Essential cookies and on-device storage (see section 6)

3. How We Use Your Information

• Operate the Service: process picks, calculate standings, run your leagues
• Send transactional email: account verification, password resets, pick reminders and league notices (reminders can be turned off in your settings)
• Keep the Service secure: authentication, rate limiting, abuse prevention
• Operational monitoring, so we know when something breaks
• Respond to your requests and support questions
• Comply with legal obligations

We do not send marketing email today. If that ever changes, it will be opt-in.

4. What Other Users Can See

PickRivalry is a competitive league game, and some visibility is the point:

• Your username, display name, avatar, badges, and standings are visible to members of your leagues and on your profile
• Your picks for a game become visible to your league only after that game kicks off — before kickoff other members see only how many picks you've made
• Chat messages are visible to your league
• Your league's commissioner can see the email address you registered with, on the league roster

5. Service Providers We Share Data With

We run PickRivalry on our own servers in the United States. A small number of outside services help us operate, and each receives only what its job requires:

• Email delivery provider — receives your email address and the content of transactional emails we send you
• Slack — our internal operations channel receives limited account events (for example, your username and email address when you sign up) so we can run the Service; this information is visible only to PickRivalry operators
• Giphy — when you search for a GIF in league chat, your search terms are sent to Giphy to return results
• Cloudflare — network traffic to the Service, including your IP address, passes through Cloudflare for security and delivery
• College Football Data (CFBD) — supplies the game schedules, scores, and statistics you see; no personal information is ever sent to CFBD

If we add service providers in the future, we will update this policy before or at the time your data begins flowing to them, and material changes will be announced under section 12.

We may also disclose information if required by law, to protect the rights and safety of our users or others, or as part of a business transfer (in which case this policy continues to apply to your data until you are notified otherwise).

6. Cookies and On-Device Storage

We use only what the Service needs to function — there are no advertising or cross-site tracking cookies:

• Session cookies that keep you signed in
• A signed-in marker cookie so the app knows to route you to your dashboard
• Browser storage (localStorage) for device-level display preferences, such as view choices — this never leaves your device

7. Artificial Intelligence

PickRivalry does not currently use artificial intelligence or machine-learning systems to process personal information, generate content shown to you, or make decisions about you. If we introduce features that use AI in the future, we will update this policy to describe what data those features use before they launch, and material changes will be announced under section 12.

8. Data Retention

• Active accounts: we retain your information for as long as your account exists, so your leagues, history, and rivalries keep working season over season
• Account deletion: on a verified deletion request, we remove your personal information from our live systems within 30 days
• Backups: deleted data may persist in our encrypted backups for up to 90 days after deletion, after which it is purged in the normal backup rotation
• League records: league results and standings are part of every member's shared history; where we retain them after an account deletion, they are de-identified rather than attributed to you
• Server logs: rotated on a short schedule measured in days to weeks
• Pick activity records: kept for the life of your account and removed with it when your account is deleted

9. Your Rights

You can, at any time:

• Access — request a copy of the personal information we hold about you
• Correct — fix your details directly in your profile, or ask us to
• Delete — request deletion of your account and personal information (see retention above)
• Export — request your information in a portable format; commissioners can also export league data as CSV in-app
• Opt out — turn off pick-reminder emails in your settings

To exercise any of these, email us at the address in section 13. We will verify that the request comes from the account holder before acting on it.

10. Security

• All traffic is encrypted in transit (HTTPS/TLS)
• Passwords are hashed with a modern memory-hard algorithm (Argon2id) — we cannot read them
• Access to production systems is restricted and authenticated
• Backups are taken on an automated, monitored schedule and restoration is tested

No internet service can guarantee absolute security. If we learn of a breach affecting your personal information, we will notify affected users without undue delay.

11. Age Requirements

PickRivalry is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them — if you believe a child under 13 has an account, contact us and we will delete it. Participation in leagues with prize pools or dues is limited to users 18 or older (or the age of majority where you live). PickRivalry never processes league payments; see the Terms of Service.

12. Changes to This Policy

When we make material changes, we will update the version and date at the top of this page and notify you by email or a prominent in-app notice before the changes take effect. Continued use of the Service after notice constitutes acceptance.

13. Contact