Privacy Policy

At TradFlakes, we respect your privacy and are committed to protecting the personal information you share with us. This Privacy Policy explains what data we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have regarding your information. By using the TradFlakes website, you agree to the practices described in this policy.

1. Information We Collect

We collect information you provide directly and information generated as you use our service. The types of information we collect include:

• Google account data — when you sign in using Google OAuth, we receive your name, email address, and profile picture from Google as part of the authentication process.
• Email address — provided when you sign in with Google or subscribe to our newsletter or market-insights updates.
• Content you submit — star ratings and written reviews of brokers and prop firms, and comments on articles. Your display name and profile picture are shown alongside content you post publicly (see Section 3).
• Activity & personalization data — articles and insights you like or save, your reading history, course enrolments and lesson progress, and gamification data such as points, streaks and badges. This is tied to your account so your experience carries across sessions and devices.
• Usage & analytics data — with your consent, we log page views and engagement events (for example reads, scroll depth, shares, sign-ups, outbound affiliate-link clicks and coupon-code copies) to understand how the site is used and improve it. Some of this is stored locally in your browser and is not tied to your identity.
• Campaign source — if you reach TradFlakes through a link that carries campaign labels (for example from one of our ads or social posts), we remember those labels and, if you then create an account, record them on it, so we know which campaigns bring people to the site. These are labels such as "instagram" or "ad1", not information about you.

We do not collect or store payment-card details or bank information. Sign-in is handled entirely by Google — we never see or store your Google password.

2. How We Use Your Information

The information we collect is used for the following purposes:

• Authentication — to verify your identity and manage your login session on the TradFlakes platform.
• Email updates — to send you new-article notifications, the weekly digest and new market-insights updates, only if you have asked for them. Creating an account does not subscribe you to anything: we ask separately, you can say no, and saying no changes nothing about your account. You can also subscribe without an account using the form on the site. Every email includes a one-click unsubscribe link, and you can turn individual updates on or off from your profile at any time; withdrawing your consent is as easy as giving it. Service messages about something you have bought — receipts, licence keys and refund confirmations — are not marketing and are sent regardless.
• Publishing your content — to display the reviews and comments you choose to post, along with your name and profile picture.
• Personalization — to remember what you like, save and read, track your course progress, and power features such as streaks, badges and recommendations.
• Analytics — to understand which content is most valuable to our readers and improve the site experience.
• Measuring our advertising — with your consent, to learn which of our ads and campaigns lead to sign-ups, so we spend on the ones that are useful.
• Communication — to respond to queries or support requests you submit to us.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to any third party for marketing purposes.

3. Content You Post Publicly

When you submit a broker or prop-firm review, a rating, or a comment, that content is publicly visible to other visitors once approved, together with your display name and Google profile picture. Reviews and comments are moderated before they appear. Please do not include personal or sensitive information in content you post. You can remove your reviews and comments yourself, and deleting your account removes them with it (see Section 9). If someone else's post here concerns you — because it is defamatory, infringes your rights or impersonates you — report it through our Grievance Redressal page.

4. Cookies, Analytics & Your Consent Choices

TradFlakes uses a single functional session cookie named tradflakes_session to maintain your authenticated state after signing in. This cookie is:

• Set as HttpOnly — not accessible to JavaScript on the page.
• Set with SameSite=Lax — to help protect against cross-site request forgery.
• Valid for 7 days from the time of login, after which you will need to sign in again.

This session cookie is strictly necessary for signed-in features (such as liking, saving, reviews and course progress) and is only set after you sign in.

Separately, we use Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to understand how the site is used, in aggregate. GA4 analytics cookies are disabled by default: we use Google Consent Mode, so no analytics cookies are set until you agree. On your first visit you will see a cookie banner where you can Accept or Decline analytics. If you decline, GA4 does not store analytics cookies on your device.

With the same consent we load the Meta Pixel (Meta Platforms, which runs Facebook and Instagram), so we can measure whether our ads on those platforms lead people to visit TradFlakes and create an account. It records page views and the fact that an account was created; it does not receive your email address or anything you do inside our extensions. If you decline, the Meta Pixel is never loaded.

If you arrive through a link carrying campaign labels, we set a first-party cookie named tf_src for 30 days holding only those labels, and after a new account is created a cookie named tf_new for up to 10 minutes so the sign-up is counted once.

You can change your choice at any time using the “Cookie Settings” link in the site footer. We do not sell your data.

We also store some non-cookie preferences (such as your like/save state and reading history) in your browser's local storage to make the site work; you can clear these through your browser at any time.

5. Data Storage & Security

Your account information, subscriber records, reviews, comments and activity data are stored in a MongoDB database that TradFlakes controls. Access is restricted and protected by authentication. Session cookies are signed, and passwords are never stored because authentication is delegated to Google.

We take reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your data. However, no method of transmission or electronic storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. We encourage you to sign out of TradFlakes when using shared devices.

6. Third-Party Services

TradFlakes relies on the following third-party services, each with their own privacy practices:

• Google OAuth (Sign-In) — used for authentication. When you log in, Google processes your credentials and shares basic profile data (name, email, picture) with us. See Google's Privacy Policy.
• Google Analytics 4 — used to measure site usage and engagement in aggregate, only after you consent. Governed by Google's Privacy Policy. Not used for advertising.
• Meta Pixel — used to measure the results of our ads on Facebook and Instagram, only after you consent. Governed by Meta's Privacy Policy.
• Google Fonts — fonts are loaded from Google's servers, which may log your browser's requests in accordance with their privacy policy.
• Email delivery — subscription and notification emails are sent from our own @tradflakes.com address through a third-party SMTP email provider that processes the recipient email address solely to deliver the message.

Apart from the consent-based Meta Pixel described above, we do not integrate with advertising networks, and we do not sell your personal data.

7. Browser Extensions

We publish browser extensions, such as TradeMap, through the Chrome Web Store. They are covered by this policy, and by our Licence Terms.

The chart never leaves your browser. Our extensions read what is already on screen and do the analysis on your own device. Chart data, symbols, prices and the readings produced from them are held in memory and are never transmitted to us or to anyone else. The extension makes no network requests of its own.

An extension stores the following locally in your browser, and nothing here is sent to us except where stated:

• Your signed licence — a token issued by TradFlakes that says which tier your account is entitled to. It is verified on your device, so the extension works offline.
• A random identifier for that browser — invented by the extension, not derived from your machine or hardware. It is sent to tradflakes.com, and only when tradflakes.com asks, so that one licence can be limited to three browsers. Two profiles on the same computer count as two browsers.
• Convenience settings — the last symbol and timeframe you looked at, the panel's position and size, and whether you have seen the welcome.

Signing in identifies you so a licence can follow you between browsers. It does not send us your trading activity, your positions, or which charts you open.

You can remove everything an extension has stored by uninstalling it. Removing the extension does not delete your TradFlakes account or your licence — see section 9 for how to request that.

8. Affiliate Links & Disclosure

Some links to brokers and prop firms on TradFlakes are affiliate links. If you open an account or make a purchase through them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. This never influences our rankings, ratings or editorial reviews. With your analytics consent, we record when an affiliate link is clicked or a coupon code is copied so we can measure which content is useful — this is aggregate engagement data, not a profile of you.

9. Your Rights & Choices

You have the following rights regarding your personal data held by TradFlakes:

• Access — download everything we hold about you, as a JSON file, from Your data in your profile. No request, no waiting.
• Deletion — delete your account yourself from Your data in your profile. This removes your account, reviews, comments, ratings, saves, likes, reading history, course progress, notifications, newsletter subscription, extension licences and registered browsers, and signs you out everywhere. It is immediate and cannot be undone. See section 10 for the one thing that is kept.
• Correction — change your display name and photo in your profile, or ask us to correct anything else.
• Withdraw consent — turn off any or all marketing emails in your profile, or use the unsubscribe link in any email. Withdrawal takes effect immediately.
• Withdraw cookie consent — change or withdraw your analytics-cookie consent anytime via “Cookie Settings” in the footer.
• Grievance — raise a complaint about how we handle your personal data through our Grievance Redressal page. We acknowledge immediately with a reference number and respond within 15 days.
• Nominate someone — under section 14 of the DPDP Act you may nominate a person to exercise these rights on your behalf if you die or become incapacitated. Write to our Grievance Officer to do so.

Depending on where you live (for example, the EU/UK under GDPR, or India under the DPDP Act), you may have additional rights, including the right to object to or restrict certain processing. Under the DPDP Act you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India — but you must raise the matter with us first (section 13(3)), which the Grievance Redressal page is there for.

10. Data Retention

We retain account data for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide our services. Session tokens expire automatically after 7 days. Subscriber records are kept until you unsubscribe or delete your account.

What survives an account deletion. Two things, and nothing else:

• Payment records. If you have bought an extension or a Pro licence, we must keep a record of the transaction for statutory accounting and tax periods — we are not permitted to delete evidence that a sale happened. We keep the amount, currency, date, plan and payment-gateway reference, and we remove your name and email from it. What is left cannot identify you.
• A record that a deletion happened. A one-way hash, the date, and counts of what was removed — enough to confirm we actioned your request, with no way back to you.

Complaints made through the Grievance Redressal page are kept as a record of the complaint and its outcome, as the Intermediary Guidelines require. Content removed following a complaint or an order is retained for 180 days, or longer if required for an investigation.

Aggregated, anonymized usage statistics may be retained indefinitely as they cannot be used to identify you.

11. Children's Privacy

TradFlakes provides trading education and is intended for adults. It is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe a minor has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will delete it.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or applicable law. When we make material changes, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. Your continued use of TradFlakes after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

13. Contact

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests related to your privacy or this policy, please reach out to us:

Email: support@tradflakes.com

Data-protection grievances: our Grievance Officer, whose current contact details are published on the Grievance Redressal page. That page is also the way to report unlawful or infringing content posted by another member.

TradFlakes is the Data Fiduciary for the personal data described in this policy, within the meaning of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.