Privacy Policy

Effective October 20, 2026

Tongs turns recipe links into paced cooking lessons. It is not a data business. This page says what it keeps about you, why, and how to have it removed.

Who runs Tongs

Tongs is operated by Tongs, based in the United States. Questions about this policy go to tongs-support@googlegroups.com.

What Tongs collects

• Your account. When you sign in with Google, Google tells Tongs your email address, your name and a stable account ID so you are recognised next time. Tongs never sees your Google password.
• Your recipes. The links you add, and the title, ingredients, steps and image pulled from each page, along with the edits, favorites and meal labels you give them.
• Lesson feedback. The thumbs up or down and short notes you leave on a step, used to make the lessons better.
• Feed posts. If you share “I cooked this”, the post, your first name and last initial, and the hearts on it are shown to other Tongs users. Your email address is never shown.
• Push subscriptions. If you turn on the locked-screen chime, your browser gives Tongs a push subscription so a notification can be sent when a timer ends. Turning the chime off removes it.
• Technical records. The server keeps short-lived logs of requests, including IP addresses, to spot abuse and fix problems. Import and sign-in attempts are rate-limited by IP address.
• Payments, later. When the paid tier launches, Stripe will handle payment. Tongs will keep your Stripe customer ID and subscription status, never your full card number.

Why

To run the app: sign you in, keep your recipes in sync across your devices, ring timers, improve lessons, prevent abuse, and bill subscriptions once they exist. Nothing is collected for any other reason.

Where it lives

Tongs runs on Fly.io servers in the United States. Your data sits in a SQLite database on an encrypted Fly volume. A backup is taken daily and kept for 14 days, then discarded. Everything travels over HTTPS.

Who else sees it

• Google handles sign-in and learns that you signed in to Tongs.
• Anthropic receives the text of a recipe you import, so its Claude model can turn it into a lesson with timers. It does not receive your name or email. This use is covered by Anthropic’s commercial API terms.
• Recipe websites. When you add a link, the Tongs server fetches that page on your behalf, as your browser would. The site sees a request from Tongs, not from you.
• Push services run by Apple, Google and Mozilla deliver the chime and see the notification text, such as the timer’s name.
• Fly.io hosts the server and storage.
• Stripe, once subscriptions launch, processes payments under its own privacy policy.

Tongs does not sell your data, does not show ads, and does not share anything with advertisers or data brokers. Data is disclosed beyond the services above only if the law requires it.

Your choices

• Delete any recipe or feed post from inside the app.
• Turn the locked-screen chime off in Settings to remove the push subscription.
• Sign out on any device to end the session there.
• To delete your account and everything in it, email tongs-support@googlegroups.com from the address you signed in with. Deletion happens within 30 days, and the backups that held your data roll off within 14 days after that.

You can also ask for a copy of your data at the same address.

Children

Tongs is not meant for children under 13, and does not knowingly collect their data.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version is posted here with a new date. A change that matters is also mentioned in the app.