Privacy policy

Runtime Studio runs Marketplace at olx.runtimestudio.co and is responsible for the personal information described here. You can reach us at marketplace-support@googlegroups.com.

Your account. Your name, email address and password. We store the password only as a scrambled hash, never as you typed it. If you sign in with Google, we receive the name, email address and profile picture on your Google account.

Your ads. What you write and choose for each ad: its title, description, price, location (and a map pin, if you add one), photos, the contact name and number buyers see, and whether buyers may chat, call or WhatsApp you. If you mark an ad sold, we keep the price you got, which no one else sees.

Your photos. We save each photo again as a new file without the hidden details cameras add, such as the camera model and the place it was taken. We keep a fingerprint of each photo so we can spot one copied from another ad. The file you uploaded is kept out of sight for up to 48 hours, then deleted.

Your chats. The messages you send and receive, when each one was read, the chats you archive and the people you block. Messages can't be edited or deleted once sent.

Contact requests. When you reveal a seller's number or open WhatsApp from an ad, we record that you did, for which ad, and when.

Reports and decisions. Ads you report and why, and what our moderators decide about ads.

Purchases. The listing credits you buy, what you paid, and how you use them. Polar handles the payment itself.

Sessions and security. For each place you're signed in, the device's IP address and browser, and when the session ends. We also count how often some things are done, such as numbers revealed, against your account or, for some requests, your IP address, to stop misuse.

Your settings. Which emails you've chosen to get.

To run the site for you: signing you in, publishing your ads, search, chat, and the emails you need.

To keep the marketplace honest. We check every ad before it goes live. Our system looks for signs of trouble: a very new account, earlier ads taken down, reports from buyers, many ads posted at once, phone numbers or common scam phrases in the text, photos used in other ads, and copied text. Ads that look risky wait for one of our moderators, who decides whether they go live.

To stop misuse: limits on how often you can request codes, reveal numbers or send messages, and a record of each number revealed, so phone numbers can't be harvested.

To email you. We send:

• links to verify your email and reset your password;
• a note when a chat message has waited a couple of minutes unread, naming the ad but never quoting the message, and never between 10 pm and 8 am;
• news about your ads: when one goes live, isn't approved, is taken down, is about to expire, or has expired.

You can turn the chat and ad emails off in your notification settings. Emails about your account always go.

To take payments for listing credits, through Polar.

We don't sell your information, use it for advertising, or build profiles of you for anyone else.

If you sign in with Google, we use the name, email address and profile picture Google shares only to create your account and sign you in, and for nothing else.

On your ad: its title, description, photos, price and location (with the map pin, if you added one), the seller name (your business's name, the ad's contact name, or your account name), whether you're an owner or a business, and the year you joined.

The number on your ad: only to a signed-in buyer, when they ask for it on one of your ads. It never appears in a page, in search results, or in what search engines see.

In a chat: your name and your messages, to the person you're talking to. For a business's ads, the business's owners and admins can read its chats.

Your email address is never shown to other people.

We share information only with services that run part of the site for us, and only what each one needs:

• Hostinger, which rents us the server where the site, its database and its photos are kept.
• Polar, which sells listing credits to you as the merchant of record. We give Polar your name, email address and an account reference. What you enter at checkout is covered by Polar's privacy policy.
• Google, only if you choose to sign in with Google.

Our emails go out from our own mail server, straight to your email provider.

We may also share information if the law requires it, or to protect people from fraud or harm. If Marketplace is ever sold or merged, your information would pass to the new owner under this policy, and we'd tell you first.

We use only the cookies the site needs to work:

There are no advertising, analytics or tracking cookies.

• Your account, for as long as you have it.
• Sessions end 7 days after you last use the site.
• Codes and links: phone codes last 5 minutes; email verification and password reset links, an hour.
• Your ads stay in your account after they're sold, expire or are deleted. A sold or expired ad's page stays up for a while, saying it's no longer available.
• Chats stay as long as the accounts in them.
• Payment records, for as long as accounting and tax law requires.
• Server logs are replaced within days.

When you ask us to delete your account, we delete your information or remove what identifies you within 30 days, except what the law requires us to keep, such as payment records.

• Your ads: edit, pause or delete them in My ads.
• Emails: choose which you get in your notification settings.
• People: block someone in a chat, or report an ad.
• Your information: ask us for a copy of it, to correct it, or to delete your account, by writing to marketplace-support@googlegroups.com. We'll reply within 30 days.

Marketplace is for adults. We don't knowingly collect information from children under 13. If you believe a child has given us information, write to us and we'll delete it.

We store passwords only as hashes, send everything over encrypted connections, remove hidden details from photos, keep phone numbers out of pages, and limit who on our side can reach your information. No system is perfectly secure, so if you see something wrong, tell us.

When we change this policy, we'll update the date at the top. If a change matters to how we use your information, we'll tell you by email or on the site before it takes effect.