Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

What "sell or share" means under CCPA/CPRA

Under California law, "selling" personal information means exchanging it for money or other valuable consideration. "Sharing" means disclosing it to a third party for cross-context behavioral advertising. Both definitions are broader than what most people think of as "selling data."

We apply these definitions strictly. If any data transfer to a third party could qualify under either definition, we disclose it here and give you a way to opt out.

What data reaches third parties

When you click an affiliate link on a tool comparison page, the following data is transmitted to the affiliate network (Amazon Associates, CJ Affiliate, or Impact):

• Click event — the fact that someone clicked a link, the timestamp, and which product page it came from
• Sub-ID — an anonymous identifier encoded in the URL that tells us which comparison page generated the click (for example, "cordless-drill-best-3"). This contains no personal information.
• Standard HTTP headers — your browser's user agent, referrer URL, and IP address. These are sent automatically by your browser on every web request. We do not add to or enrich this data.

This data could qualify as "sharing" under CPRA because the affiliate networks use it to attribute purchases. That's why we give you the opt-out below.

What we do not share

The following data stays on our servers and is never transmitted to affiliate networks, retailers, ad platforms, or any other third party:

• Email address
• Name and profile information
• Tool inventory — what you own, lend, or have listed
• Group membership — which groups you belong to and who's in them
• Borrowing history — what you've borrowed, from whom, and when
• Messages — your conversations with other members
• Location data — if you've set a pickup location, it stays private
• Payment information — subscription billing is handled by Stripe and Apple/Google, not shared with affiliate networks

Affiliate networks know that someone clicked a link. They do not know who that person is on FriendsWithTools or anything about their account.

How to opt out

You have two ways to opt out of affiliate data sharing. Either one is sufficient.

1. Privacy settings toggle

If you have a FriendsWithTools account, go to your Privacy Settings and turn off affiliate tracking. The change takes effect immediately on your next click. No waiting period, no confirmation email, no form to fill out.

2. Global Privacy Control (GPC)

FriendsWithTools honors the Global Privacy Control signal. If your browser sends a GPC header (Sec-GPC: 1), we treat it as a Do Not Sell request. No additional action is required on your part.

GPC is built into Firefox, Brave, and DuckDuckGo browsers by default. For Chrome and other browsers, extensions like Privacy Badger or OptMeowt add GPC support.

What happens when you opt out

After opting out:

• No affiliate tracking cookies — we won't set the fwt_cid referral cookie on your device
• No sub-IDs in links — purchase links will point directly to the retailer without tracking parameters
• Purchase links still work — you can still click through to Amazon, Home Depot, and Lowe's. The links function the same way. We just don't earn a commission from your purchase.
• No changes to your account — tool sharing, borrowing, groups, and messages all work exactly the same

Essential cookies (login session, CSRF protection, theme preference) are not affected by the opt-out. Those are required for the site to function and are not used for tracking.

Verify your opt-out status

To confirm your opt-out is active:

• Check your settings — visit Privacy Settings. If the affiliate tracking toggle is off, you're opted out.
• Check your cookies — open your browser's developer tools (F12), go to the Application or Storage tab, and look under Cookies for friendswithtools.io. If there's no fwt_cid cookie, affiliate tracking is not active.
• Check a link — hover over any purchase link on a comparison page. If the URL goes directly to the retailer without a /api/affiliate-modules/r prefix, tracking parameters are not being added.

Scope of this opt-out

This opt-out covers affiliate tracking only. It does not affect:

• Essential cookies — login sessions and CSRF tokens are required for security and cannot be disabled through this page
• Supabase authentication — your auth session is between you and our infrastructure, not a third-party tracking mechanism
• Analytics — if you want to opt out of analytics separately, use the analytics toggle in your Privacy Settings

For a full overview of every cookie we use, see our Cookie Policy.

Contact us

If you have questions about this policy, need help opting out, or want to exercise other rights under CCPA/CPRA (access, deletion, correction), email us at privacy@friendswithtools.io.

We respond to verifiable consumer requests within 45 days, as required by California law. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your privacy rights. Opting out of affiliate tracking does not affect your access to any feature of FriendsWithTools.