Privacy Policy
Last updated: October 6, 2026
Overview
GroceryPulse.ca ("we", "our", "the site") publishes Canadian grocery-price research, consumer comparison tools, and licensed institutional data products. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, and your choices.
Information We Collect
We collect only the information needed to provide the feature or service you request:
- Email subscriptions and list updates: your email address, language, consent date and wording version, signup source, and, for list updates, the list you asked about (city, items and quantities, chosen stores and usual store) with the last comparison we emailed you.
- Institutional evaluations: your work email, organization, role, stated use case, requested scope and delivery method, evaluation objective, target timing, and procurement needs.
- Accounts and paid services: your account email and name, Stripe customer and subscription identifiers, access credentials, and service usage described below.
We do not sell personal information.
Shopping Lists, Shared Links and Outcome Counts
The list comparison works without an account. If you choose Save on this device, your list (city, items, quantities, chosen stores and usual store) and the comparison you last saw are kept in your browser's local storage. They are not sent to us. You can remove them with Forget saved list or by clearing this site's data.
When you choose Share this list, our server prepares a link that contains your city, items, quantities, chosen stores, usual store, and the date and store totals of the prices you saw, signed so they cannot be altered. The link contains no personal information, and anyone who has it can open it. We do not store the list. Your browser keeps a short, non-reversible fingerprint of the links you create, so that opening your own link is not counted as someone else using it.
We count, per day, how many comparisons, saved lists, shared links, shared lists opened and update requests occur. Each count is broken down only by the page the visit started from, a one-word discovery channel (for example search, social or direct) and language. The counts contain no identifier, no IP address, no list contents and no web addresses. To label the discovery channel, your browser keeps that one word in session storage until the tab is closed.
Email Subscriptions and List Updates
When you explicitly opt in, we use your email to send the updates you asked for: changes to one shopping list after a weekly price update, and, only if you tick it separately, the free Thursday Grocery Pulse. We keep the signup source, consent wording version and time as a record of consent. The list you asked about is used only to calculate its updates, and each update links back to that list.
Every commercial email will identify GroceryPulse and provide a working unsubscribe mechanism. You may also withdraw consent by writing to privacy@grocerypulse.ca. If you unsubscribe, we retain the minimum suppression record needed to honour that choice and stop active list updates. We do not add evaluation contacts to this list unless they separately opt in.
Institutional Evaluation Requests
Evaluation information is used to assess fit, prepare a relevant sample, respond to your request and, if both parties proceed, support contracting and onboarding. It is not sold or used to enrol you in consumer email campaigns. Access is restricted to authorized GroceryPulse administrators.
Analytics and Cookies
If you accept optional cookies, Google Analytics 4 collects usage information such as pages visited, referral source, approximate location, browser, and device category. We use it to understand and improve the site, including which list-tool actions are used (never the contents of a list). You can decline optional analytics in the cookie prompt.
Essential cookies store your consent preference, city selection, and signed-in session. They are used to provide requested site functions rather than advertising.
Service Providers and Affiliate Links
- Google Analytics provides consent-gated traffic analysis.
- Stripe provides checkout, invoicing, and billing management. Stripe receives payment and billing details directly; GroceryPulse does not store complete card numbers.
- Infrastructure providers host the site and database in Canada and the EU.
- Google AdSense may show advertising on some consumer pages if you accept optional cookies. Ads are separate from comparisons: no paid relationship affects prices, rankings or methodology.
Details about providers and processing locations are available from privacy@grocerypulse.ca.
Commercial Customers
If you subscribe to Team Data or the Commercial API, we may retain:
- Account and billing data: contact name, organization, email, billing identifiers, and, where applicable, billing address.
- API credentials: hashed access tokens and related entitlement data.
- Usage logs: request timestamps, endpoint paths, and response status codes, retained for rate limits, service support, and abuse detection. We do not log response payloads.
Retention and Safeguards
We retain personal information only as long as needed for the stated purpose, contractual or legal requirements, security, and consent-suppression records. Access is limited, browser clients cannot write directly to lead or subscriber tables, and paid API credentials are not stored in recoverable plain text.
Your Choices and Rights
You may:
- Ask what personal information we hold and how it has been used
- Request access to or correction of your personal information
- Withdraw email consent and stop list updates
- Decline optional analytics cookies
- Request deletion, subject to legal, security, billing, and suppression-record requirements
Children's Privacy
The site is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information.
Contact and Changes
Privacy questions, access requests, corrections, deletion requests, and consent withdrawals can be sent to privacy@grocerypulse.ca. We may update this policy and will publish the new effective date here.