Privacy Policy

Last updated 31 August 2026

Whato gives a WhatsApp group its own public marketplace. This page explains what information the service holds, why, and what you can do about it.

Information you give us

When someone posts a listing, we store what the listing needs in order to work:

• The seller’s display name and phone number, so buyers can reach them on WhatsApp.
• An optional neighbourhood or area, which the seller types themselves.
• The listing itself — title, description, price, condition, category, and photos.

A marketplace owner also gives us an email address, used to sign in to the admin panel and for nothing else. We do not send marketing email.

Listings are public. A marketplace page can be opened by anyone with the link, and is indexed by search engines. The seller name, area, and phone number on a listing are visible to everyone who opens it. Please do not put anything in a listing that you would not want shown publicly.

Information collected automatically

We count page views for each marketplace and listing so owners can see what is being looked at. This is recorded on our server and stores no cookie, no advertising identifier, and nothing that identifies you personally.

Our hosting provider also keeps standard server logs, including IP addresses, for security and troubleshooting.

Cookies we set

Whato sets only two cookies, both strictly necessary to keep you signed in:

• whato_seller_<code> — set after a seller enters the group PIN, so they can manage their own listings without entering it on every page.
• whato_admin — set after a marketplace owner signs in to the admin panel.

Both are signed, expire on their own, and hold no advertising data. We use no analytics cookies of our own.

Advertising

Whato shows ads supplied by Google AdSense, which is how the service stays free to use.

• Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this and other websites.
• Google’s use of advertising cookies lets it and its partners serve ads to you based on your visit to Whato and other sites on the internet.
• You can opt out of personalised advertising in Google Ads Settings, or opt out of third-party vendors’ use of cookies at aboutads.info.
• Google’s own description of how it uses this data is at How Google uses information from sites that use its services.

If you are in the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland

Before any advertising or personalisation cookie is set, you are shown a consent message where you can consent, refuse, or choose your own settings. Refusing is a single click on the first screen, and you can change your mind at any time by reopening the settings from that message. Refusing consent does not restrict any part of Whato — you may see non-personalised ads instead.

You also have the right to ask for a copy of your data, correct it, or have it deleted. Use the contact address below.

Who else handles this data

• Supabase — database and listing-photo storage.
• Vercel — hosting and delivery.
• Google AdSense — advertising and the consent message.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for anyone else’s marketing.

How long we keep it

Listings and seller records are kept while the marketplace exists. Sign-in cookies expire on their own. To have a listing or a seller record removed, ask the owner of that marketplace, or contact us at the address below.

Children

Whato is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child has posted a listing, contact us and we will remove it.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that matters, we will update the date at the top of this page.

Contact

Questions about privacy, or a request to access or delete data: xionthrive@gmail.com.