Privacy Policy

Chef Stack

Effective Date: September 4, 2026

Chef Stack ("MyChefStack", "we," "our," or "us") operates the Chef Stack website and services accessible at mychefstack.com, mychefstack.ai, and related applications (collectively, the "Service"). This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, share, and protect your personal information when you use our Service.

By using the Service, you agree to the collection and use of information as described in this policy. If you do not agree, please discontinue use of the Service.

1. Information We Collect

1.1 Information You Provide Directly

• Account registration: name, email address, password (hashed), and optional profile details.
• Social login: If you sign in with "Continue with Google," we receive your name, email address, and profile photo from your Google Account, limited to the standard email and profile OAuth scopes. We do not request or receive access to your Gmail, Google Drive, contacts, or any other Google service. See Section 3.7 for how this data is used and how to revoke access.
• Recipes and content: Recipes you create, import, fork, or annotate; images and photos you upload; comments, ratings, and reviews.
• Dietary preferences and restrictions: Health conditions, allergens, religious or lifestyle dietary requirements you choose to provide.
• Health and fitness data: Calorie intake, exercise, weight, and related metrics if you connect third-party health applications (e.g., MyFitnessPal, Apple Health, Google Fit).
• Pantry and grocery data: Ingredient inventories, shopping lists, and expiration tracking data you enter.
• Meal plans: Planned meals and calendar entries you create.
• Communications: Messages, feedback, or support requests you send us.

1.2 Information Collected Automatically

• Usage data: Pages visited, features used, search queries, recipes viewed or saved, interactions with content, session duration, and referring URLs.
• Device data: Browser type and version, operating system, device type, IP address, and approximate geographic location (city/region level).
• Cookies and similar technologies: Session cookies, preference cookies, and analytics identifiers set by Google Analytics (GA4), including a pseudonymous GA4 client ID and, when present in the link that brought you to the Service, marketing click identifiers such as Google Ads' gclid. See Section 7 for details.
• Log data: Server logs including access times, error reports, and performance data.

1.3 Information from Third Parties

• Social login providers (Google, and others we may add): Basic profile data as described above.
• Health and fitness apps: Data you authorize us to receive from connected applications.
• Analytics partners: Aggregated or pseudonymized usage data from Google Analytics (GA4).

2. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

• Provide, operate, and improve the Service, including personalizing recipe recommendations.
• Operate our AI-powered features, including the AI sous chef assistant, recipe suggestions, meal plan generation, and dietary modification guidance.
• Match and display nutrition information from USDA databases based on ingredients you use.
• Enable social and community features: user profiles, recipe sharing, following, voting, comments, and challenges.
• Support our gamification system: awarding points, badges, and leaderboard rankings for community activity.
• Send you notifications you have opted into, including cooking timers, social activity alerts, and meal plan reminders.
• Send multi-factor authentication (MFA) codes via email, SMS, or push notification.
• Process and moderate user-generated content through automated AI review and, where needed, human moderator review.
• Build and maintain user trust scores that influence content visibility and moderation decisions.
• Generate grocery shopping lists and, where you opt in, surface local grocer promotions relevant to your ingredients.
• Measure Service usage and the performance of our marketing campaigns using Google Analytics (GA4), including which channel or campaign brought you to the Service.
• Respond to your support requests and communications.
• Monitor for fraud, abuse, and security threats.
• Comply with legal obligations.
• If you have given explicit consent, send marketing communications. You may opt out at any time.

3. Sharing of Your Information

We do not sell your personal information for money. As described in Section 3.7, our use of Google Analytics and, for the ad-supported free tier, third-party advertising cookies (Section 7) may constitute "sharing" for cross-context behavioral advertising under California law — see Section 6.3 for how to opt out. We may share your information as follows:

3.1 With Other Users

Content you post publicly — including recipes, profile information, comments, reviews, ratings, and gamification rankings — is visible to other users of the Service. You control the visibility of your content through your privacy settings where applicable.

3.2 With Service Providers

We share information with third-party vendors who perform services on our behalf, including cloud hosting, database services, email delivery, SMS messaging, push notification services, analytics, and AI API providers. These providers are contractually required to use your data only to perform services for us.

3.3 With Health and Fitness Integrations

If you connect a third-party health or fitness app, we exchange only the data necessary for that integration. You may disconnect these integrations at any time from your account settings.

3.4 With Social Media Platforms

If you use our sharing features to post content to external platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, Pinterest), information is shared with those platforms subject to their own privacy policies. We store OAuth tokens necessary to facilitate sharing on your behalf, which you may revoke at any time from your account settings.

3.5 For Legal Reasons

We may disclose information if required to do so by law or in good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with legal obligations, protect our rights or property, prevent fraud or abuse, or protect the safety of our users or the public.

3.6 Business Transfers

If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or a portion of our assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you of any such change by posting a notice on the Service or by email.

3.7 With Google (Sign-In and Analytics)

Google Sign-In. If you choose "Continue with Google," we receive your name, email address, and profile photo from Google, limited to the standard email and profile OAuth scopes. We do not request or receive access to your Gmail, Google Drive, contacts, or any other Google service. Our use of information received via Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements: we use this data solely to create and operate your Chef Stack account, and we do not use it to serve advertising, sell it, or transfer it to third parties except as necessary to operate the Service, comply with law, or as part of a business transfer described in Section 3.6. You can revoke Chef Stack's access to your Google Account at any time at myaccount.google.com/permissions, or by deleting your Chef Stack account as described in Section 6.1.

Google Analytics. We use Google Analytics (GA4), a web analytics service provided by Google LLC, to understand how visitors use the Service and how they arrived here (for example, a search engine, an ad, or a link). Google Analytics uses cookies and similar identifiers — including a pseudonymous GA4 client ID and, when present, advertising click identifiers such as Google Ads' gclid — to do this. For account sign-up events, we also send a server-to-server conversion event to GA4 containing only the client ID and campaign attribution data (source, medium, campaign); it does not include your name, email address, or any other directly identifying information. Google processes this data under its own privacy policy, available at policies.google.com/privacy, and may use it as described at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites. You can opt out of Google Analytics using the Your Privacy Choices control linked from the footer of every page, the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, or the cookie and advertising controls described in Section 7. Opting out also stops the server-to-server conversion event described above.

4. User-Generated Content and Intellectual Property

Recipes, as collections of instructions and ingredient lists, are generally not protected by copyright under U.S. law. However, other content you submit to the Service — including photographs, images, written stories, original creative descriptions, and videos — may be protected by intellectual property rights.

By submitting content to the Service, you represent and warrant that you own or have the necessary rights to that content. You grant Chef Stack a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use, display, reproduce, distribute, and create derivative works from your submitted content for purposes of operating and promoting the Service, including commercial uses. This license continues even if you later delete specific content, to the extent copies have been distributed or incorporated into Service infrastructure, subject to reasonable technical limitations.

We do not claim ownership of your content. You retain all rights not expressly granted here.

5. Data Retention

We retain your personal information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the Service. If you delete your account, your personal information is permanently erased seven (7) days after you request deletion, except where we are required or permitted to retain it for legal, tax, fraud prevention, or safety purposes. Section 6.2 describes exactly what is erased and what remains on the Service.

Enforcement records. If your account was subject to moderation or enforcement action — for example a content restriction, suspension, or ban — we retain a limited record after deletion, and we retain it indefinitely, solely to prevent evasion of that enforcement action. That record consists only of (a) a one-way cryptographic hash of your email address, which cannot be reversed to recover the address itself, and (b) a summary of the enforcement action taken. It contains no other personal information, no content you created, and no contact details, and it is never used for any purpose other than enforcement. Accounts with no moderation or enforcement history leave no such record behind.

Anonymized or aggregated data that cannot reasonably identify you may be retained indefinitely for analytics and product improvement purposes.

6. Your Rights and Choices

6.1 Access, Correction, and Deletion

You may review and update your account information at any time through your account settings.

You may delete your account yourself at any time from Settings → Account. Deletion is not immediate. Your account first enters a seven (7) day grace period, during which you can still sign in and restore it in one click. We email you as soon as deletion is requested, stating the exact date on which it takes effect. If you take no action, your personal information is permanently erased on that date and cannot be recovered.

If you cannot access your account settings, or you have questions about deletion, you may contact us at privacy@mychefstack.com.

6.2 What Account Deletion Removes and What Remains

When the grace period ends, we permanently remove:

• Your profile, email address, password, and sign-in credentials, including any connected social login.
• Your chat history with the AI Sous Chef.
• Your saved and favorited recipes, your grocery lists, and your dietary preferences.
• Recipes you created but never published, together with any photos you uploaded to them.
• The analytics and attribution identifiers associated with your account.

The following remains on the Service after your account is deleted:

• Recipes you published. Other cooks may have saved, forked, or built upon them, so published recipes remain available and are reattributed to a Chef Stack-operated account named "Chef Stack Community." Your name and account association are removed from them and they are no longer connected to you. The license permitting this is described in Section 4.2 of our Terms of Use.
• Anonymized or aggregated data that cannot reasonably identify you, as described in Section 5.
• The limited enforcement record described in Section 5, and only if your account was subject to moderation or enforcement action.

6.3 California Residents (CCPA/CPRA)

If you are a California resident, you have additional rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CCPA/CPRA), including the right to:

• Know what personal information we collect, use, disclose, sell, or share.
• Request deletion of your personal information, subject to certain exceptions.
• Correct inaccurate personal information.
• Opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information. We do not sell personal information for money. Our use of Google Analytics and, for the ad-supported free tier, third-party advertising cookies (Section 7) may constitute "sharing" under the CPRA because it can involve cross-context behavioral advertising. You can opt out at any time using the Your Privacy Choices control, linked from the footer of every page. If you are signed in we save the choice to your account so it applies on every device you sign in on; if you are not, we remember it in that browser. You may also use the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on and the DAA opt-out tool described in Section 7, or contact us at privacy@mychefstack.com.
• Limit the use of sensitive personal information (such as health and dietary information you choose to provide) to purposes necessary to provide the Service.
• Non-discrimination for exercising your CCPA/CPRA rights.

Global Privacy Control. We honor the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal. If your browser or a browser extension sends a GPC signal, we treat it as a valid request to opt out of the sharing of your personal information and stop loading analytics and advertising technologies for you automatically, without any action on your part. You can still use the Your Privacy Choices control to allow sharing on a particular browser if you prefer.

To exercise these rights, contact us at privacy@mychefstack.com. We will respond within the timeframe required by law.

6.4 Data Portability

You may request an export of your recipes, meal plans, and account preferences in standard formats. Contact us at privacy@mychefstack.com to request a data export.

6.5 Communication Preferences

You may unsubscribe from marketing emails using the link in any marketing email or through your account settings. You may manage push notification preferences through your device settings or our app. Note that transactional communications (MFA codes, account security alerts) cannot be disabled while your account is active.

6.6 Health Data

If you have connected health or fitness applications, you may disconnect them at any time from your account settings, which will stop further data collection from those sources. To request deletion of previously collected health data, contact us at privacy@mychefstack.com.

7. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

We use cookies and similar tracking technologies to operate the Service and improve your experience. The types of cookies we use include:

• Strictly necessary cookies: Required for login sessions and core Service functionality. These cannot be disabled.
• Functional cookies: Remember your preferences, such as language settings and dietary filters.
• Analytics cookies: We use Google Analytics (GA4) to understand how users interact with the Service (e.g., pages visited, features used, and which marketing channel brought you here). This includes a pseudonymous GA4 client identifier and, when present in the link that brought you here, click identifiers such as Google's gclid. We use this data in aggregated or pseudonymized form. See Section 3.7 for more detail. You can turn these off using the Your Privacy Choices control, or with the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.
• Advertising cookies: We may use third-party advertising technologies in connection with our ad-supported free tier. These may collect information about your interests to serve relevant ads. You may opt out through the Your Privacy Choices control, or through the DAA opt-out tool at optout.aboutads.info.

You can control cookies through your browser settings. Disabling certain cookies may affect Service functionality. We also honor the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal: if your browser sends one, we treat it as an opt-out of sharing and do not load analytics or advertising technologies for you. See Section 6.3.

8. Children's Privacy

The Service is not directed to children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a child under 13 without verifiable parental consent, we will delete that information promptly. If you believe we have collected such information, please contact us at privacy@mychefstack.com.

9. Security

We implement industry-standard technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information, including encrypted data storage, secure HTTPS transmission, and access controls. No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security, but we are committed to promptly addressing any breach in accordance with applicable law.

10. Third-Party Links

The Service may contain links to third-party websites, including external recipe sources, social media platforms, and health apps. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these third parties. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party services you access.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will post the updated policy on the Service and update the effective date. For significant changes, we may also notify you by email. Your continued use of the Service after such changes constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy.

12. Contact Us

If you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please contact us:

Chef Stack
Email: privacy@mychefstack.com
Website: mychefstack.com
State of Formation: Texas