Privacy

1. About this policy

This policy explains how Bite handles personal information when you use the service. It is intended to describe Bite's current, limited data practices clearly. The Australian Privacy Principles encourage privacy policies to explain how personal information is managed openly and to remain up to date.

2. Information Bite collects

• Account information: your email address and authentication details needed to create and secure your account.
• Optional profile information: the name you choose to provide, colour theme, and text-size preference.
• Reading activity: stream subscriptions and your most recently viewed bite in each subscribed stream.
• Membership information: your Free, Enthusiast, or Fanatic membership level, Stripe customer and transaction references, subscription or payment status, billing period, and the service features associated with the membership. Complete card details are collected and processed by Stripe rather than Bite.
• Contact correspondence: the name, reply address, subject, message, and related correspondence you provide when using the contact form.
• Technical information: hosting and security systems may process IP addresses, browser details, timestamps, and diagnostic logs when you connect to Bite.
• Public sample activity: public samples can be viewed without an account and do not save a feed reading position. A request for a sample page may still create ordinary hosting, security, and diagnostic logs.
• Advertising information: on configured advertising pages in Discovery and public samples, Google AdSense and its advertising partners may process device, cookie, approximate location, page-content, and interaction information to select, deliver, limit, and measure ads.

Bite uses Google or a one-time email sign-in link to authenticate accounts, and may offer Facebook sign-in. Bite does not ask you to create or store a Bite password. Google and Meta process sign-in information under their own privacy terms when you choose those methods.

3. How information is used

Bite uses personal information to:

• create, authenticate, and secure your account;
• remember subscriptions, reading position, and display preferences;
• apply your membership level and determine whether membership invitations appear in your feed;
• operate, maintain, troubleshoot, and protect the service;
• display and measure advertising when advertising is enabled;
• deliver and respond to contact, support, privacy, and rights enquiries;
• exercise legal rights; and
• comply with applicable legal obligations.

Bite does not sell personal information.

4. Service providers and disclosure

Bite uses Supabase for database and authentication services, Stripe for payment checkout, recurring billing, receipts, and its customer billing portal, Google and, when offered, Meta for federated authentication when you choose those methods, Google AdSense and participating advertising partners for advertising when enabled, Purelymail for contact-form email delivery, and a hosting provider to deliver the website. These providers may process data to supply their respective infrastructure, security, email delivery, advertising, fraud-prevention, measurement, and support services. Contact-form data is sent through Purelymail to deliver the enquiry. Data from Bite advertising may be shared with Google for advertising-related purposes. You can read the Supabase Privacy Policy, Stripe Privacy Policy, Google Privacy Policy, Meta Privacy Policy, and Purelymail Privacy Policy.

Stripe processes the payment method, billing details, payment outcome, fraud signals, and related checkout information needed to provide paid membership. Bite retains Stripe customer, subscription, Checkout, and PaymentIntent references, membership and billing status, payment amount and currency, and records needed for support, accounting, refunds, fraud prevention, and legal compliance.

Information may also be disclosed where required by law, to protect the rights and safety of users or others, or as part of a business transfer. When you choose a social sharing button, the selected third-party service receives the information involved in opening that share link.

5. Overseas processing

Infrastructure providers may process information outside Australia. The locations involved depend on the selected hosting region and each provider's operations. Their privacy terms apply to their processing.

6. Cookies and sessions

Bite uses essential authentication storage, including cookies, to keep you signed in and protect account sessions. Blocking essential cookies may prevent authenticated features from working. Public samples do not require an account cookie.

When an AdSense placement is loaded in Discovery or a public sample, third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to Bite or other websites. Google's use of advertising cookies enables Google and its partners to serve ads based on visits to Bite and/or other sites on the Internet. Google and other certified third-party advertising vendors and networks may also use cookies, web beacons, IP addresses, or similar technologies for ad delivery, frequency control, personalisation where permitted, fraud prevention, and measurement. Those vendors' own privacy policies govern their processing.

Consent and privacy controls will be presented where required, including for users in regions where consent is required before advertising storage or personal-data processing. More information is available in Google's explanation of how it uses information from partner sites and advertising technology information.

7. Retention and security

Information is retained while it is needed to provide Bite, meet legal obligations, resolve disputes, and maintain security. Reasonable technical and organisational measures are used to protect information, but no internet service can guarantee absolute security.

8. Your choices and rights

You can change your optional name, theme, and text size on the profile page, manage Stream subscriptions in the library, and manage payment methods or cancel recurring membership through Stripe's billing portal. A cancelled Enthusiast membership remains available until the end of its paid billing period. You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of personal information by contacting the Bite operator. Identity verification may be required. Where an advertising consent control is available, you may use it to review or change your choices. You may opt out of personalised Google advertising and manage your Google advertising preferences through My Ad Center. Information about Australian privacy rights is available from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

9. Children

Bite is not directed to children under 13, and the operator does not knowingly collect their personal information. A parent or guardian who believes a child has provided personal information should contact the operator.

10. Changes and contact

This policy may change as Bite develops. Material changes will be communicated through the service where practical, and the effective date will be updated. Privacy enquiries, complaints, and access or deletion requests can be directed to the Bite operator using the support contact form available on the Contact page.