Your data, purchases, recommendations, and support requests should feel protected.

Information We Collect

We collect information you provide directly and information generated while you use the marketplace.

• Account details such as name, email, username, password hash, user role, and profile image.
• Seller and buyer activity such as product listings, purchases, downloads, ratings, carts, wishlist actions, and service chats.
• Support and contact details such as message content, subject, email address, and response history.
• Technical information such as browser, device, IP-derived metadata, cookies, session state, and security logs.

How We Use Data

We use information to run the marketplace, protect users, process payments, and improve product discovery.

• Authenticate users, maintain sessions, and route buyers/sellers to the correct dashboard.
• Process purchases, downloads, seller payouts, order confirmations, support requests, and service chats.
• Improve search, recommendations, chatbot answers, product ranking, and marketplace usability.
• Detect abuse, debug errors, enforce policies, and comply with legal or payment-processing obligations.

Recommendations and AI Features

When personalization is enabled, VORTEX AI may use logged-in activity to recommend books, courses, webinars, services, and general products.

• Signals can include product views, card clicks, search terms, carts, purchases, ratings, wishlist actions, chatbot intent, and product links shown or clicked.
• Recommendation history can be cleared and preferences can be reset from Settings.
• If personalization is disabled, the marketplace should rely on general, trending, or new-product discovery instead of personalized activity.
• AI/vector providers may be used when configured, but local marketplace scoring remains the fallback.

How We Share Information

We do not sell personal information. We share only what is needed to operate the service.

• With Stripe and payment services for checkout, registration payments, Connect onboarding, fraud prevention, and payouts.
• With sellers when needed to fulfill an order or service chat.
• With infrastructure, email, analytics, AI, and security providers that support the platform.
• When required by law, legal process, safety obligations, or business transfer requirements.

Security and Retention

We use reasonable technical and organizational safeguards, including secure password hashing, CSRF protections, access controls, and encrypted transport where configured.

We keep information only as long as needed for marketplace operation, payment/accounting records, legal obligations, support, security, and product access. Some order/payment records may need to be retained even if personalization history is cleared.

Your Privacy Rights

Depending on your location, you may request access, correction, deletion, portability, restriction, objection, or consent withdrawal. You can also manage personalization from Settings.

Contact Us

For privacy questions or data requests, contact us through the support page or email the VORTEX AI team.