1. Introduction
Welcome to HotHabesha ("we," "us," "our," or "the Platform"). We operate the website hothabesha.com, a subscription-based companion directory serving adults in Ethiopia and Eritrea. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, share, and protect your personal information when you visit or use our Platform.
By accessing or using HotHabesha, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with this Policy, you must immediately stop using the Platform.
This Platform is strictly for adults aged 18 years and older. If you are under 18, you are prohibited from accessing or using this Platform in any capacity.
2. Information We Collect
2.1 Information You Provide Directly
When you create an account or interact with the Platform, we collect the information you voluntarily provide, including:
- Account information: username, password (stored in encrypted form), phone number, and any other information you submit during registration.
- Profile information: city, preferences, and any personal details you choose to add to your profile.
- Payment information: when you submit a subscription payment, we collect the amount paid, the plan selected, and the receipt image you upload as proof of payment. We do not collect or store credit card numbers, bank account numbers, or any sensitive financial instrument data directly, as all payments are processed manually through bank transfer and receipt verification.
- Communications: messages you send through our in-platform messaging system, booking requests and details, support requests, and any other content you submit to us.
- Reviews and ratings: content you submit when reviewing a companion after a completed booking.
2.2 Information Collected Automatically
When you visit or use the Platform, we automatically collect certain technical information, including:
- Log data and IP addresses: your IP address, the pages you visit on our Platform, the time and date of each visit, how long you spend on each page, the URL you came from before visiting our Platform (referrer), and your browser and device type.
- Session data: information about your login sessions, including when you logged in, when you were last active, your session duration, how many pages you visited in each session, and the device and country associated with each session.
- Visitor tracking: even if you are not logged in, we record your IP address and the pages you visit for security and analytics purposes. If you later create an account, we may link your prior anonymous visits to your account.
- Device information: operating system, browser version, screen resolution, language settings, and general device type (mobile, desktop, or tablet).
- Country and location data: we derive your approximate country from your IP address. We do not collect precise GPS-level location data.
- Online status: we track whether you are currently active on the Platform based on periodic activity signals sent from your browser while you are logged in.
2.3 Information from Third Parties
If you choose to register or log in using Google OAuth, we receive your name, email address, and Google profile identifier from Google. We do not receive your Google password or payment information.
3. How We Use Your Information
We use the information we collect for the following purposes:
- To provide and operate the Platform: processing your account registration, verifying your subscription payment, giving you access to companion profiles according to your plan tier, enabling booking requests, and facilitating in-platform messaging.
- To manage subscriptions and payments: reviewing receipt uploads, approving or rejecting subscription payments, activating or deactivating your plan, and maintaining your payment history.
- To personalize your experience: displaying relevant companion profiles based on your location and preferences, showing your booking history and favourites, and remembering your settings.
- To maintain security and prevent fraud: monitoring IP addresses for suspicious activity, detecting unauthorized access attempts, enforcing our age restriction policy, and investigating potential violations of our Terms of Service.
- To track platform analytics: understanding how users navigate the Platform, which pages receive the most traffic, how long users stay on the Platform, and other aggregate usage patterns to improve our service.
- To enforce our policies: taking action against accounts that violate our Terms of Service, banning users who engage in prohibited conduct, and responding to legal requests.
- To communicate with you: responding to support requests and administrative communications related to your account.
4. Legal Basis for Processing
We process your personal data on the following legal grounds:
- Performance of a contract: processing is necessary to provide you with the services you have requested, including account creation, subscription activation, and booking functionality.
- Legitimate interests: we process certain data, such as IP addresses and session logs, based on our legitimate interest in keeping the Platform secure, preventing fraud, and understanding usage patterns.
- Consent: where required by applicable law, we obtain your consent before processing your data, such as when you register and accept this Privacy Policy.
- Legal obligation: we may process data to comply with applicable laws, regulations, or court orders.
5. How We Store Your Data
Your personal data is stored using the following infrastructure:
- Database: your account information, session records, booking history, payment records, messaging content, and activity logs are stored in our Database, a cloud infrastructure provider.
- File storage: photos uploaded by companion profiles and receipt images you upload as payment proof are stored in a cloud object storage service provided by Cloudflare, Inc.
- Session management: your login session tokens are stored in our database and transmitted to your browser as secure, HTTP-only cookies.
All data is transmitted over encrypted HTTPS connections. Passwords are hashed using bcrypt and are never stored in plain text. Receipt images are stored in private storage and are only accessible to authorized administrators.
6. Data Retention
We retain your personal data for the following periods:
- Account data: retained for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account, we will delete your personal information within 30 days, except where retention is required by law or for legitimate fraud prevention purposes.
- Visitor logs and IP records: retained for a maximum of 90 days from the date of collection. Older records are automatically deleted on a rolling basis.
- Payment records: retained for a minimum of 5 years from the date of the transaction for legal and financial compliance purposes, even if your account is deleted.
- Booking and messaging data: retained for 12 months after the relevant booking is completed or cancelled, then deleted unless you maintain an active account.
- Session logs: retained for 60 days after a session ends.
9. Your Rights and Choices
Depending on your location and applicable law, you may have the following rights regarding your personal data:
- Right to access: you may request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
- Right to correction: you may update or correct inaccurate information in your account settings or by contacting us.
- Right to deletion: you may request deletion of your account and personal data, subject to our retention obligations described in Section 6.
- Right to restrict processing: you may request that we limit how we use your data in certain circumstances.
- Right to data portability: you may request a copy of your data in a structured, machine-readable format.
- Right to object: you may object to certain types of processing, such as processing based on our legitimate interests.
To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at the address provided in Section 13. We will respond to your request within 30 days.
10. Children's Privacy
HotHabesha is strictly for adults aged 18 years and older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a minor, we will immediately delete that information and terminate the associated account. If you believe a minor has created an account on our Platform, please contact us immediately.
11. Security
We implement reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. These measures include encrypted data transmission (HTTPS), password hashing, private file storage with access controls, and session token security.
However, no method of data transmission or storage is completely secure. While we take your privacy seriously and apply industry-standard practices, we cannot guarantee the absolute security of your data. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials.
12. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, legal requirements, or service features. We will post the updated Policy on this page with a revised effective date. Your continued use of the Platform after any changes constitutes your acceptance of the updated Policy. If changes are material, we will provide notice on the Platform.
13. Contact Us
If you have questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or how we handle your data, please contact us at:
HotHabesha
Email: privacy@hothabesha.com
Website: hothabesha.com