Privacy Notice
zetoask.com is in early preview. This notice describes what the software does today. Where a feature is not switched on, we say so, and we will update this notice (and ask you to accept it again) before we start using your data in a new way.
In short
- You can browse the directory and use the chat without an account. An account (sign-in with an emailed one-time code) is needed to send an enquiry, report a listing or list a business.
- We store your email address only as a keyed one-way hash. The sign-in code email is sent once; we do not keep a readable copy of your address.
- We do not run advertising or third-party tracking, and we do not sell your data.
- You can download your data, withdraw consent, raise a grievance and ask for erasure from Your account, or by writing to hostwhale@gmail.com.
- This notice is written to follow India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act). It has not been certified or audited by anyone.
Who is responsible
zetoask.com (the website, the chat assistant and the business directory) decides why and how your personal data is processed, so it acts as the "Data Fiduciary" under the DPDP Act.
Operator legal name: to be added by the site owner
Contact and grievance email: hostwhale@gmail.com. We do not publish a telephone number or postal address on this page.
Notice version: 2026-10-v3. Everything in this notice applies to the pages linked from the footer of zetoask.com.
What we collect and why
We collect only what is needed for the purpose shown. "Until you erase" means until you ask us to erase your account (see Your rights).
| Data | Why | Kept for |
|---|---|---|
| Email address you sign in with. After sign-in it is stored only as a keyed one-way hash. | Signing you in and keeping your account secure | Until you erase |
| One-time sign-in codes (stored as hashes) and sign-in session records | Security of your account | Codes: deleted 24 hours after they are created. Sessions: deleted 30 days after they expire (a session lasts 7 days). |
| Your consent records: which purpose, which notice version, granted or withdrawn, and when | Showing that you agreed, and honouring withdrawal | Kept as a record of consent (ids and times only, no other personal details) |
| Enquiries you send to a business, and the one reply contact (a phone number or an email address) you type into that enquiry. These are stored as plain text in our database, not encrypted at field level. They are shown only to that business. Your sign-in email is never shown to the business. | Passing your enquiry to the business you chose so it can reply | Until you erase |
| Reports you file about a listing | Keeping the directory trustworthy | Until you erase |
| Chat messages to the assistant. We keep only a short structured summary (such as place, dates and number of guests) for the current conversation. The message text is not stored by zetoask.com. | Answering you in the moment | About 30 minutes (pending actions about 10 minutes) |
| Business owners only: business details, public contact channels, and verification documents if document upload is available | Listing and verifying your business | Business details until you erase. Verification documents: deleted 90 days after the verification decision. Document upload is switched off at present, so none are held. |
| Anonymous usage counts: which public step was reached (for example a business page or enquiry form was opened, an enquiry was sent, a listing was published), the day, and which business it concerned. These are first-party counts. We do not store your IP address, browser or device details, account, name, email, phone, messages, sign-in codes or payment details with them, and we cannot tell whether two counts came from the same person. Requests that send Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track, and automated crawlers, are not counted. | Knowing whether the directory works, and fixing it where it does not | Up to 400 days (see the note under the table) |
| Abuse-protection counters, keyed by a short one-way hash of your network address (not the address itself) | Limiting spam and automated abuse | Short-lived counters (minutes to hours). They are not tied to your account. |
| Audit and security logs (ids and actions, no personal details) | Security, fraud prevention and legal compliance | Kept; our design target is 3 years, but automatic deletion is not built yet |
| Booking and payment records, once billing exists (it is not active today) | Legal and tax obligations | Our design target is 8 financial years; automatic deletion is not built yet. After erasure they keep no guest details. |
We do not store card numbers, and no payment is taken on zetoask.com today. Optional marketing messages are off unless you turn them on in your account; zetoask.com does not send any today.
Honest note on automatic deletion. Deleting old codes, sessions, chat state, analytics counts, documents and erased accounts is done by a scheduled retention job in the software. That job is registered to run on the live deployment: it is triggered every 5 minutes and does its work at most once an hour. It was first observed running on 23 October 2026. It does not cover audit logs, consent records or financial records, and automatic deletion for those is not built yet (see the table above). If the job fails or the site is misconfigured, expired data can stay longer than the periods above until a later run succeeds.
Cookies and browser storage
- Sign-in cookie
nx_session: set only after you sign in. It is HttpOnly (page scripts cannot read it), Secure, SameSite=Strict, and lasts 7 days or until you sign out. It is needed for sign-in, so it cannot be switched off while you are signed in. - Chat history in
sessionStorage: your recent chat titles are kept in your browser tab only and disappear when the tab is closed. They are not sent to us. - Install hint in
localStorage: if you dismiss the "add to home screen" hint, a flag namedzetoask.installHint.dismissedis stored on your device so we do not show it again. No personal data is in it. - Service worker cache: when you use the installable web app, your browser keeps copies of the public site shell (the home page, its styles and scripts, the offline page and the icon) so the app opens quickly and can show an offline page. Directory data, sign-in, account, owner and admin pages and API responses are never cached.
- There are no advertising cookies, no third-party analytics scripts and no social-media tracking pixels.
Consent and your choices
- Notice and consent. Before an account is created or you are signed in, you must tick the box confirming that you have read this notice. We record the notice version you accepted. Without it, sign-in does not complete.
- Purposes. There are two: concierge service (required to use zetoask.com with an account) and marketing (optional; off by default; nothing is sent today).
- Withdrawing consent. In Your account you can withdraw a consent at any time. Withdrawing the concierge-service consent signs you out everywhere and you are asked again at your next sign-in. Withdrawal does not undo processing already done, and stopping the required consent means you cannot use features that need an account.
- New versions. If this notice changes in a way that matters, its version changes and you are asked to accept it again at your next sign-in. This version replaces the earlier draft (2026-10-v1).
Who receives your data
- The business you enquire with receives only what you put in your enquiry and the reply contact you chose.
- Cloudflare hosts zetoask.com, delivers its pages and stores its database. It processes data on our behalf and sees technical request information (such as your IP address) in order to deliver and protect the service. We have not restricted storage or processing to India, so data may be handled on Cloudflare's network outside India.
- An email delivery provider is used only to send you the sign-in code, and only once one is configured. At the time of this version none is active, so sign-in emails are not being sent. The software is set up for Resend; if we use it, the email address you sign in with is passed to it for that one email. We will update this notice if that changes.
- Authorities. We may disclose data where the law requires it.
- Not in use today: no AI model provider is connected to the chat assistant; no payment provider, WhatsApp service or analytics vendor is active. If we connect any of them, we will name it here and ask you to accept the new version before it touches your data.
- We do not sell your data and we do not share it for advertising.
How long we keep it
The table above shows the period for each kind of data. What the software enforces when the retention job runs: sign-in codes 24 hours after creation; sessions 30 days after expiry; chat state when it expires (about 30 or 10 minutes); verification documents 90 days after the decision; analytics counts after 400 days; erased accounts after the waiting period described below. Audit logs, consent records and financial records are not deleted automatically yet; they hold identifiers rather than your contact details. See the note under the table about the scheduled job and what it does not cover.
Your rights
Under the DPDP Act you can ask us to:
- Access and export: see and download the data we hold about you (account, consents, requests, enquiries you sent, reports you filed, businesses you own) from Your account.
- Correct or update your data, or raise a grievance, from Your account or by email.
- Withdraw consent, as described above.
- Erase your account. Erasure starts a 7-day waiting period in which you can cancel. After that your personal data is removed from our systems, except records the law requires us to keep, which are kept without your personal details. Erasure is blocked for administrator accounts and for owners of a business with a live paid subscription until that is resolved.
- Nominate another person to exercise your rights if you die or become unable to: there is no self-service form yet; write to us at hostwhale@gmail.com.
We aim to respond to requests within 30 days (our internal target; we have not yet had a lawyer confirm the legal period). We may need to check that a request really comes from you.
Children
zetoask.com is meant for people aged 18 or over. It has no verified parental-consent process, so please do not create an account if you are under 18. If you believe a child has signed in, write to us and we will erase the account.
Security
Pages and the API are served over HTTPS. Email addresses are stored as keyed hashes, sign-in codes as hashes, and the sign-in cookie is HttpOnly. Access to other users' data is restricted by account. No system is perfectly secure. If a personal data breach affects you, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires. Enquiry text and reply contacts are stored unencrypted at field level, as stated above.
Grievance officer and complaints
To raise a privacy concern, exercise a right or complain, write to hostwhale@gmail.com with the subject "Grievance". The Grievance Officer's name will be added with the operator's legal name (see Who is responsible); until then this address reaches the operator directly. We aim to reply within 30 days. If we have not resolved your complaint you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India as the law provides.
IT Act intermediary notice
The business directory contains information supplied by businesses and enquiry and report text supplied by users. zetoask.com acts as an intermediary under the Information Technology Act, 2000 for that content. We do not create it, and we act on it when we are told of a problem. To report unlawful, misleading or infringing content, or a listing you believe is false, use the report option on the listing if it is shown, or email hostwhale@gmail.com with the page address and what is wrong. We review reports and may unpublish or suspend a listing. See also the Terms of Use and the Disclaimer.
Changes to this notice
When the notice changes in a way that matters, the version number and the "last updated" date change and you are asked to accept it again at your next sign-in. Version 2026-10-v3 (23 October 2026) replaces 2026-10-v2 of the same day: it now says the scheduled retention job is registered on the live deployment, and keeps saying that automatic deletion of audit and financial records is not built. Version 2026-10-v2 had replaced the earlier draft and removed its placeholders.