Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 2026

1. Introduction and Scope

This Privacy Policy explains how DCHappyHours.com (“DCHappyHours.com,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) collects, uses, shares, and protects information when you visit our website, create an account, or otherwise interact with our services (collectively, the “Service”). DCHappyHours.com is a directory of happy hour specials at bars and restaurants in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.

The Service is operated from the United States and is intended for a United States audience. By using the Service, you agree to the practices described in this Policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service. This Policy should be read together with our Terms of Service.

2. Information We Collect

(a) Information you provide to us

  • Account details. When you register, we collect your first and last name, email address, and a password (which we store only as a one-way bcrypt hash, never in plain text). You may optionally provide a street address, city, state, and 5-digit ZIP code. We also record that you have attested to being 21 years of age or older.
  • Submissions and contributions. If you submit a new listing, propose a correction to an existing listing, claim a business, or contact us, we collect the information you include, which may consist of a name, email address, phone number, business details, and free-text content.
  • Reviews and other user-generated content. Reviews (a star rating and up to roughly 2,000 characters of text) and similar contributions are associated with your account.
  • Uploads. Images and files you upload, such as logos, rewards photos, bartender shift posts, and advertiser creatives.
  • Advertiser and contact details. If you apply to advertise, we collect your company name, contact email, phone number, and website.
  • Email digest signups. If you subscribe to an email digest, we collect your email address (see the “Your Email Choices” section regarding double opt-in).

(b) Information we collect automatically

Our servers maintain first-party logs of activity on the Service. This may include:

  • Your IP address, recorded at registration and on subsequent visits;
  • Your device and browser type (User-Agent string);
  • Technical characteristics of your browser, collected once per visit by a small script so we can design the site for the devices people actually use: screen and window size, pixel density, light/dark and reduced-motion preferences, pointer type, language, time zone, connection type, whether the site is running as an installed app, and (in browsers that provide it) the operating system version and device model;
  • Pages and URLs you view, the referring page, the time of your visit, your user ID if you are logged in, and flags indicating whether traffic appears to be from a bot or from an installed app (see Cookies, below);
  • Search activity, including the text of your search query, parsed filters (such as day or area), the number of results returned, and the associated IP address;
  • Aggregate popularity counters for individual establishments.

Approximate location from IP. When the “Near Me” feature is used and precise browser location is not available, we may determine an approximate, city-level location from your IP address using a third-party geolocation service (ipapi.co).

(c) Precise location (with your permission)

Certain features request access to your device’s precise location through your browser. We only collect precise location when you grant permission:

  • Check-ins. Check-ins are location-gated. When you check in, we store your GPS coordinates, the reported GPS accuracy (in meters), the distance our server computes between you and the establishment, and your IP address. We use this to verify that you are actually at the venue.
  • Near Me. The “Near Me” feature uses your browser’s geolocation to find nearby establishments. If you decline or geolocation is unavailable, we fall back to the approximate IP-based location described above.

3. Cookies and Similar Technologies

We use a small number of cookies and similar technologies:

  • Essential session cookie. When you log in, our authentication system (Auth.js) sets an HTTP-only, Secure, SameSite=Lax session cookie. It typically lasts up to 30 days, or about two hours if you do not select “Remember me.” This cookie is necessary for you to stay signed in.
  • PWA cookie. A small “pwa” cookie helps us recognize traffic from the installed app version of the site.
  • Local preferences. Your theme preference (such as dark mode) is stored locally in your browser.
  • Analytics cookies. If we have enabled Google Analytics, that provider may set its own cookies. See “How We Share Information” for details on our analytics options.

You can control cookies through your browser settings, but disabling the essential session cookie will prevent you from staying logged in.

4. How We Use Information

  • To operate and maintain your account, favorites, reviews, rewards, and other features;
  • To send transactional and service emails, such as email verification, password resets, and email digests you have requested;
  • To protect the Service against fraud, abuse, and spam, including through rate limiting, input validation, an IP blocklist, and reCAPTCHA;
  • To understand usage, measure performance, and improve the Service;
  • To respond to your inquiries and requests;
  • To comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Service.

5. How We Share Information

We do not sell your personal information (see Section 6). We share information only as described below. Many of the third-party services listed here are optional and are engaged only when the corresponding feature is enabled and configured. When a service is engaged, the data described is handled according to that provider’s own privacy policy.

  • Google Maps and Google Places. Used to display maps and to look up place data. Establishment coordinates and place lookups are sent to Google.
  • Google reCAPTCHA (v3). Used for bot protection on forms such as registration, listing submissions, contact, corrections, sharing, digest signup, feedback, rewards, and voting. reCAPTCHA sends your IP address and interaction signals to Google.
  • Analytics (where enabled). We may use Plausible Analytics (a cookieless, privacy-friendly service) and/or Google Analytics 4 (configured with IP anonymization). These load only in production and only when configured.
  • Anthropic (Claude API), where enabled. We may use the Claude API for backend and administrative automation, such as extracting happy-hour details from business websites, normalizing specials text, suggesting feature tags, parsing natural-language search queries, and performing an automated pre-check on submitted reviews. What may be sent: business website content, specials and review text, and search query text. What is not sent: your email address, password, or full account profile.
  • Email delivery. Transactional and digest emails are sent via an SMTP email service. Where configured, an optional copy of outbound mail may be saved to a Sent mailbox via IMAP.
  • Yelp Fusion API (where enabled). Used to help verify canonical listings and open status; business name, address, and coordinates may be sent.
  • Other optional integrations. Where enabled, we may use push-notification services (such as web push or Pusher) for users who opt in, in which case a push subscription endpoint and keys are stored; Pushover for administrator-only alerts; X/Twitter for administrator marketing posts; and Google AdSense for advertising.
  • Legal and safety. We may disclose information if required by law, subpoena, or legal process, or where we believe disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of DCHappyHours.com, our users, or the public.
  • Business transfers. If DCHappyHours.com is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to this Policy.

6. We Do Not Sell Your Personal Information

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising in exchange for money or other valuable consideration. We may publish or share aggregate or de-identified information that cannot reasonably be used to identify you, such as the total number of users or popular neighborhoods.

7. Your Email Choices

  • Double opt-in for digests. Standalone email digest subscriptions require double opt-in: you must click a verification link before any digest is sent to you.
  • Unsubscribe. Every marketing or digest email includes an unsubscribe link.
  • Account preferences. If you have an account, you can control digest and favorites emails, and set a global “no email” opt-out, from your profile.

We may still send essential transactional messages (such as password resets and security notices) even if you opt out of marketing email.

8. Data Security

We take reasonable measures to protect your information. Passwords are stored as one-way bcrypt hashes, all traffic is encrypted in transit via HTTPS, and we use rate limiting, input validation, reCAPTCHA, and an IP blocklist to defend against abuse. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, however, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

9. Data Retention

We retain personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to provide the Service, to fulfill the purposes described in this Policy, and to comply with our legal obligations. Reviews and similar content that are soft-deleted are purged after a retention window of approximately 30 days. Higher-level request and usage logs may be retained for as long as needed for security, fraud prevention, and analytics.

10. Your Choices and Rights

You can review, update, or delete much of your account information at any time from your profile settings. Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, or delete the personal information we hold about you.

We offer self-service account deletion. To confirm a deletion request, you re-enter your password and confirm your email address. When you delete your account:

  • Your user record and directly identifying data are permanently (hard) deleted;
  • Public contributions, such as reviews, plans, rewards, and crawls, are anonymized to a sentinel “deleted” user rather than removed, so the public record remains intact;
  • The IP address, browser details and any location your device reported when you checked in are erased from your activity records, and rewards photos you uploaded are deleted;
  • Certain audit logs are de-linked from your identity (the user reference is set to null).

You can also ask us for a copy of the personal information associated with your account using the contact options below.

To exercise a privacy right or make a request we cannot complete through your profile, please contact us or email admin@dchappyhours.com. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights. As noted above, we do not sell your personal information.

11. Children and Age

Because the Service relates to alcohol, it is intended only for adults who are 21 years of age or older, and account registration requires you to attest that you are at least 21. The Service is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under the age of 21 (and in no case from anyone under 13). If you believe we have collected information from a minor, please contact us so we can remove it.

12. Third-Party Sites

The Service may contain links to third-party websites and services that we do not control, including establishment websites and the providers listed above. This Policy does not apply to those sites, and we are not responsible for their content or privacy practices. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party sites you visit.

13. Users Outside the United States

The Service is operated from the United States and is intended for users in the United States. If you access the Service from another country, you understand that your information will be processed in the United States, where data protection laws may differ from those in your jurisdiction, and you consent to that processing.

14. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the “Last updated” date at the top of this page. Your continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Policy.

15. Contact Us and Legal Notices

If you have questions about this Policy or your information, please contact us or email admin@dchappyhours.com. You can also reach us on Facebook and on X (@dchappyhours).

For formal legal notices, including requests under applicable privacy laws, please use the following contact information: HH Works, LLC, email admin@dchappyhours.com.