Privacy, in plain English.

Side Street is a Pittsburgh local-offers service. This page explains what the current version uses.

Offers submitted by businesses

When a business submits an offer, Side Street stores the business name, area, optional address, offer details, dates, recurring schedule, optional website link, contact email, and a privacy-protected abuse-prevention token. The operator may also record a business contact name, phone number, and verification notes from a call or official source. Contact information, internal notes, and abuse-prevention tokens are not shown on public listings. Submissions stay pending until reviewed; only approved, current offers appear on the public feed.

Browsing and saved offers

Search filters are used to find published offers. You can browse without an account. Guest saves stay in your browser. If you register, Google Firebase Authentication manages your email/password credentials and sends verification and password-reset emails. Side Street stores your Firebase user identifier, verified email, display name, and the offers you save in its existing database. Account saves are private to your account and sync across devices. We do not ask for precise location.

Local activity analytics

Side Street records aggregate business and deal card views, detail opens, website and directions clicks, and successful save actions to understand which listings are useful. A random session identifier in session storage prevents repeat counts; it is not linked to your Firebase account. The server stores protected event hashes that are deleted after 35 days during subsequent analytics activity and daily totals without session identifiers. A short-lived protected network token limits abuse; raw network addresses, search text, precise location, and email addresses are not stored in these analytics tables. The owner dashboard also shows aggregate counts of current account saves, without identifying who saved them. Signed-in admin browsing and browsers with Do Not Track enabled are excluded. Google Analytics is not enabled.

Account security and recovery

The Firebase SDK keeps your sign-in state in browser storage and refreshes short-lived identity tokens. Side Street verifies those tokens on its server and checks the Firebase account’s current status before granting account access. Verify your email before activating saved-deal syncing. Firebase handles password changes and recovery; previous Side Street recovery keys no longer work. Legacy account records and saved deals are retained for migration. After you verify the same email, the existing saved deals are linked to your Firebase identity and the old password hash and recovery key are removed. You can delete your Firebase sign-in, local account, and saved deals from account settings. Guest saves can be cleared in your browser. Firebase is used for authentication only; Google Analytics is not enabled by this integration.

Map view and optional location

The map uses Leaflet and map tiles from OpenStreetMap. The tile provider receives your network address and requests for the map areas you view. Device location is requested only when you select “Use my location”. Coordinates stay in page memory; Side Street does not store them or send them to its own servers. Moving the map to your location requests tiles for that area, which can reveal an approximate viewing location to the tile provider. You can browse the map without granting location access. Business pins are approximate address locations, stored once per business.

How information is used

Submission information is used to review an offer, contact the submitting business, prevent spam, and operate the service. Side Street does not sell submission contact information. Please do not include sensitive personal information in an offer.

Offer reports

If you report an outdated offer, we store the offer reference, your report, its date, and a protected abuse-prevention token. Reports are visible only to the administrator. Please do not include sensitive or personal information.

Requests and changes

Use the form below to request a correction or removal. The request and associated offer details are visible only to the Side Street operator. Offers may be taken down if they expire, are inaccurate, or can no longer be verified.

This operating notice describes the current MVP. The business’s data practices should be reviewed before broader commercial launch.