Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 16, 2026

Glug is built on a simple idea: knowing wine is just about knowing what you like. The more you log, the more we learn about you and the better we get at recommending the right bottles. This policy outlines what we collect.

Who we are

Glug is operated by Glug, located at 140 Riverside Blvd, New York, NY. If you have questions about this policy, reach us at privacy@glug-wine.com.

What we collect

When you create a Glug account and use the app, we collect the following:

• Phone number and name — used to create and identify your account. Your sign-in code is delivered by SMS.
• Email address and password — only if you choose email sign-in instead of your phone number.
• Wine ratings and taste preferences — the core of your Glug profile, used to generate personalised recommendations. This includes your logs: ratings, tasting notes, food pairings, and prices you record.
• Profile and social activity — your display name, whether your profile is public, the people you follow and who follow you, follow requests, likes, comments, blocks, the reports you send, the milestones Glug records from your shared logs, whether Glug suggests your profile to others, and the notifications Glug creates for you.
• Profile photo — optional. If you choose one, it is shown to other Glug users (see What other Glug users can see below).
• Photos of wine lists and bottle labels — the camera is used when you scan. Photos are uploaded to a private storage area that only your account can access (see Data retention below).
• App usage data — how you interact with the app, such as scan activity, stored in our own database and used to improve the experience. We do not use third-party analytics or advertising SDKs.

We do not collect your precise location, contacts, or payment information.

Waitlist

If you join the waitlist on glug-wine.com, we collect your name, mobile number, email address, whether you use an iPhone or Android phone, your Google account email (only if you use Android, so we can invite you to the Google Play test), your neighborhood, how often you order wine at restaurants, and, if you tell us, who told you about Glug. We use this only to invite you to Glug and to contact you about Glug. We do not sell it or share it with advertisers. You can ask us to delete it at any time by emailing privacy@glug-wine.com.

How we use your data

• Create and maintain your Glug account
• Generate personalised wine recommendations based on your taste profile
• Improve the app's accuracy and performance over time
• Send you important account-related messages (not marketing, unless you opt in)
• Show your profile, shared logs, likes and comments to other Glug users, as described below
• Review reports and keep Glug respectful

What other Glug users can see

Glug lets you follow people, see what they log, and like and comment on their logs. This is who sees what.

• New profiles are public. Anyone signed in to Glug can find you by your display name and follow you, and Glug may suggest your profile to other users. Profiles created before these features arrived are not made public automatically. You can switch between public and private at any time in Profile → Settings → Privacy.
• A public profile shows other Glug users your display name, the month you joined, your taste sentence, how many logs you share, your followers and the people you follow, your taste match with them, and your shared logs.
• A private profile does not appear in search. Someone with your profile link sees your display name and the month you joined and can ask to follow you. Only the people you accept see the rest.
• A shared log shows the wine, your rating, the tasting words you chose and the date. Your notes, prices, occasion, food pairings, where you drank and any photos of the wine are never shared. Each log has its own sharing switch; a log with sharing off is seen only by you.
• Glug may add a milestone to one of your shared logs, such as your first wine from a new region. Anyone who can see that log can see the milestone. Milestones come only from shared logs.
• Likes and comments carry your name. Anyone who can see a log can see who liked it and who commented on it. Comments cannot be edited. You can delete your own comments, and any comment on your own logs.
• If you add a profile photo, it is shown wherever your name is shown, to anyone signed in to Glug, including when your profile is private.
• Your display name is not private. Even with a private profile, other Glug users can see it through your profile link, on your comments and likes, on follow requests you send, in the follower lists of the people you follow, and in the blocked list of anyone who blocks you.
• Taste match: Glug compares your taste profile with another person's on its servers. Each of you sees a match score and one line about a single taste, such as “Body · you Full, they Medium”. Your underlying taste numbers are never shown.
• Glug notifies you in the app when someone follows you, asks to follow you, accepts your request, likes your log or comments on it.
• The page a shared profile link opens on glug-wine.com shows nothing about you. It only offers to open the app.

Keeping Glug respectful

Comments that contain offensive words are blocked before they are posted. You can report any profile, log or comment. Reports go to the Glug team, and the person you report is not told who reported them. We review reports within 24 hours and remove content, and suspend or delete accounts, that break our Terms of Use. You can also block anyone. A block removes follows and follow requests between you and hides each of you from the other in Glug. The person you block is not told.

AI processing

Glug uses Anthropic's Claude API to read the wine lists and bottle labels you photograph. When you scan, your photo is sent to Anthropic's API to identify the wines on it; your name, phone number and taste profile are not included in these requests. Your recommendations are generated by Glug's own matching system.

We do not use your data to train AI models. Data sent to Anthropic is processed under Anthropic's API terms — see Anthropic's privacy policy.

Third-party services

Glug uses the following third-party services, each with their own privacy policy:

• Anthropic — AI processing of the wine list and bottle label photos you scan
• Supabase — secure database, sign-in, and photo storage (private for the photos you scan; profile photos are served from a link)
• Twilio — delivers the SMS verification codes used to sign in
• Apple — iOS app distribution (App Store and TestFlight) and device-level permissions
• Google — Android app distribution (Google Play) and device-level permissions
• Google Workspace — internal dashboards we use to operate Glug receive aggregate usage statistics and display names, never phone numbers or email addresses

We do not sell your data to any third party and do not share it with advertisers.

Data retention

We retain your account data for as long as your account is active. Photos you scan are stored in private storage and are not automatically deleted while your account is active; deleting a menu scan from your scan history also deletes its photos, and all of your scanned photos are deleted when you delete your account. Your profile photo is not private: it is stored with Supabase and served from a link that anyone who has it can open. It is deleted when you remove or replace it, or when you delete your account. Your taste profile and ratings are stored as long as your account exists. Reports you send are deleted when you delete your account. A report someone else sends about you or your content is kept as a record of moderation after that content or your account is deleted. It keeps no copy of what was reported, only the reason and any note the reporter wrote.

Your rights

You can, at any time:

• Access the personal data we hold about you
• Request correction of inaccurate data
• Request deletion of your account and all associated data
• Withdraw consent for data collection

To delete your account, go to Profile → Settings → Delete account within the app. This immediately and permanently removes your account and its personal data, including your profile, logs, preferences, scan history, scanned photos, profile photo, follows and follow requests, likes, comments (including those on other people's logs), blocks, notifications and the reports you sent. You can also email us to request deletion directly.

Age

Glug is an alcohol-related app intended for users aged 21 and over in the United States, or the legal drinking age in your country. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone below the legal drinking age. If you believe an underage user has created an account, contact us at privacy@glug-wine.com and we will delete it promptly.

Changes to this policy

We are in early development. Our data practices may evolve as the app grows. We will update this policy and notify users of any material changes before they take effect. The date at the top of this page reflects the most recent update.

Contact

Questions, requests, or concerns: privacy@glug-wine.com