Privacy Policy

Overview

HootRated ("we," "our," or "us") helps families and schools find books that match a child's reading level and content readiness. This policy explains what we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have. HootRated has two zones with different rules: a Family Zone (parent accounts, which may include affiliate links) and a School Zone (teacher and student accounts, which are ad-free and affiliate-free).

What We Collect

Anonymous Visitors (No Account)

• Session ID (hw_sid) — A random ID used to limit AI-powered searches per day. Expires in 24 hours. Contains no personal information.
• Search queries — We log search terms to improve the service. They are not linked to any identity.
• We do not run third-party web analytics or advertising trackers, and we set no cookies for analytics or advertising.

Parent / Guardian Accounts (Family Zone)

• Parent email — For account creation, sign-in, and optional newsletter.
• Display name — Optional, for your dashboard.
• Child first name — For your dashboard ("Emma's Reading List"). First name only.
• Child birth year — For age-based recommendations. Year only, not full date of birth.
• Child reading preferences — Grade level, interests, and content sensitivities you set.
• Child avatar photo (optional) — If you choose to upload one, it is stored in our cloud storage and is served from a publicly reachable URL. Uploading a photo is entirely optional; you can remove it at any time, and we recommend using a non-identifying image.
• Reading history & ratings — Books a child marks as read, ratings, and short notes.
• Custom book lists — Lists you create and optionally share.
• Subscription status — If you subscribe to a paid plan, we store your entitlement and status (billing itself is handled by the app store or payment processor, not by us).

Teacher & Student Accounts (School Zone)

• Teacher account — Email, display name, and the classrooms and reading lists a teacher creates.
• Student sign-in — A teacher or a parent may provision a student login so a child can sign in directly. A student login consists of a generated username (based on the child's first name) and a numeric PIN, mapped to an internal, non-deliverable email address. Students do not provide an email address.
• Student activity — Books a student marks want/reading/finished, ratings and notes, book requests sent to a parent, and questions a student sends to their teacher.

Feedback & Newsletter

• If you submit feedback or sign up for the newsletter, we collect the email address and message you provide.

How We Use Your Data

• Personalized recommendations — A child's profile (age, grade, interests, reading history) helps us suggest better books.
• Running the service — Accounts, classrooms, reading lists, book requests, and student↔teacher questions all require storing the data above.
• Newsletter — If you opt in, we send book picks segmented by your child's reading grade.
• Service improvement — Aggregated, de-identified data helps us identify popular books and improve ratings.
• AI-powered search and recommendations — When you search our catalog, the text you type is sent to OpenAI, which turns it into a text embedding we use to match books. When a search reads like a question or a description (a natural-language search), and whenever you send a search to AI Search (for example with the "Try AI Search" button), the query is also sent to Anthropic, together with the candidate books, to rank the matches and explain them; if you are searching for one of your children, Anthropic also receives these profile details you entered for that child: age, school grade, reading level, preferred language, interests, topics to avoid and content-intensity limit. When you ask for a child's personalized reading profile, Anthropic receives the child's age, school grade, reading level, favorite genres, topics to avoid and content-intensity limit, plus a summary of the child's reading history and ratings (books loved or disliked, favorite themes and series, reading levels); OpenAI receives only a short search phrase built from the child's favorite themes, categories and genres (and whether they prefer fiction or nonfiction). We never send your child's name, your email address, password or account ID to either service.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not use children's data for behavioral advertising. In the School Zone we show no ads and no affiliate links.

Third-Party Services (Subprocessors)

Children's Privacy (COPPA)

HootRated collects limited personal information from children under 13. In the Family Zone, this happens under a parent's direct control and consent. In the School Zone, a school or teacher provisions student access on the school's authority; the School Zone is ad-free and affiliate-free, and student data is used only for the educational reading experience, never for commercial purposes.

• What we collect from a child: first name, birth year, reading preferences and history, ratings/notes, an optional avatar photo (Family Zone), and — for a provisioned student login — a generated username and PIN. Students never provide an email address.
• Direct interaction: children with a provisioned login can sign in and use the Kid Zone (browse and track books, request a book from a parent, ask their teacher a question). All of this stays within HootRated.
• Consent: a child's data becomes usable for the commercial Family Zone only when a verified parent/guardian has granted consent. Teacher-provisioned school accounts do not by themselves grant commercial consent.
• No behavioral advertising to children, and no sale of children's data.
• Parent rights: a parent may review, export, or delete their child's data at any time by contacting us or using account controls. Schools may request deletion of student records.

Your Rights (GDPR / CCPA)

• Access — Request a copy of your data.
• Deletion — Delete your account and associated data permanently.
• Correction — Update information in your dashboard.
• Opt-out — Unsubscribe from newsletters at any time. We do not sell personal information.

Data Retention & Location

• Account & child data: retained until you delete your account (or a school requests deletion).
• Search logs: de-identified/aggregated over time.
• Session IDs: expire after 24 hours.
• Our data is processed and stored on U.S.-based cloud infrastructure. If you access HootRated from outside the United States, your information is transferred to and processed in the U.S.

Contact

For privacy questions or data requests, contact us at privacy@hootrated.com.