SurgeCast Privacy Policy

SurgeCast (the website at surgecast.app and the SurgeCast apps) is a product of MortonApps LLC ("we", "us").

The short version: you can use SurgeCast's forecasts without an account. SurgeCast Pro, the paid part, uses an account so your dive plans and alerts follow you. We have no ads, no analytics or tracking tools, and we don't sell your information or share it for advertising.

On your device: your view choices (such as Cards or List), whether you've agreed to our terms, and a copy of the latest forecast are stored on your phone or in your browser, and in your phone's own backup if you have one turned on. We don't receive them. Your favorites are stored on your device, and if you have SurgeCast Pro, also with your SurgeCast account so they appear on your other devices and on surgecast.app. If you use Pro, your sign-in is also kept on your device so you stay signed in. Deleting the app, or clearing the site's data in your browser, removes all of this from that device; favorites saved with your account stay with it until you change them or delete your account.

When you load SurgeCast: like any website or app, your device sends standard request information, such as its IP address and browser or app type, to our hosting provider, Cloudflare, which processes it for us to deliver SurgeCast and block abuse. Cloudflare may set a short-lived security cookie if it needs to check for bots. We don't keep logs of these requests or use this information to build profiles of people; the only exception is the short-term abuse protection for Pro sign-ins described under "How long we keep it". Cloudflare's own handling of it is covered by its privacy policy: https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/

SurgeCast Pro

Starting Pro: Pro is sold only in the SurgeCast apps, through Google Play on Android and the App Store on iPhone. When you start a Pro trial or subscription in the app, we create an account with no name or email, only a random account number and a random purchase ID tied to your Google Play or App Store purchase. The store tells us about the purchase, including its status, plan, and start, renewal and end dates. The store handles your payment and billing details under its own privacy policy. We never receive your card details or your Google or Apple account email.

Saving Pro to an email or Google (optional): you can save your Pro so it works on a new phone and on surgecast.app, where you sign in with the same account.

• With an email: we send a one-time code from noreply@surgecast.app and keep the address on your account.
• With "Continue with Google": Google sends us your email address, your Google account ID and, from the app, your name and profile photo link. We keep only the email and account ID, use them only to sign you in and save your Pro, and never sell or share them. We don't receive your Google password or contacts.
• If the email or Google account already has a SurgeCast account, we combine the two into one.

What we keep for Pro:

• your account number, the random purchase IDs, and your email or Google account ID if you saved Pro to one;
• your subscriptions' status, plan and dates (from Google Play or the App Store);
• a record of your agreement to the subscription's terms: the terms version and the renewal wording you were shown, the plan, the time, and the store you were buying through;
• your dive plans: dates, sites, time windows, the conditions you want alerts for, and any note you add;
• your dive history (Pro): the dives you planned or added, with the date, the site, the time of day, the forecast rating at the time, any note you write, and your rating of how conditions were, which we may also use, without your name or email, to check and improve SurgeCast's forecasts;
• your favorite sites, in the order you keep them, if you have Pro;
• your notification choices: whether your plan alerts come by app notification and by email;
• your device's or browser's time zone, to send alerts within your alert hours (the hours you choose in Settings to get alerts);
• the alerts we've sent you about your plans;
• the devices you're signed in on: a device name (such as "Pixel 8" or "Web browser"), when you signed in and when you last used it;
• if you turn on notifications in the app, on Android or iPhone: a notification ID from Google's Firebase so we can send alerts to that phone;
• if you saved Pro to an email or Google account, a scrambled code (a hash) of that email, made with a secret key when you have a subscription, so each person gets one free trial. We can't read your email from it, but it would match if the same email were entered again. We keep it for 3 years after your last subscription ends or changes, even if you delete your account, and use it only to decide whether the app offers you a free trial. Google Play and the App Store separately decide, under their own rules, whether your Google account or Apple ID can get a trial.

You can see your email and signed-in devices on the Account page and sign devices out there, and you can see, change or delete your dive plans in SurgeCast. To change your email, write to support@surgecast.app.

Emails we send: sign-in codes, subscription confirmations and reminders, and dive-plan alerts by email, through Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES). Alert emails are on by default if you haven't set up app notifications on a phone, and you can turn them off in SurgeCast under Settings, Notifications.

Sharing a dive plan: when you share a plan, we make a link with no name or email in it. Someone who opens it in the SurgeCast app can follow that dive: they see its sites, date, window and forecast, never your note, name or email, and get its alerts on their phone. The link's web page only offers the app, but its page title and a messaging app's preview of the link show the plan's sites, the day and window, and the forecast rating. If a phone has no SurgeCast account yet, choosing to add a shared dive in the app makes one with no name or email, only a random account number and the phone's device name; just opening a shared dive makes nothing. When a buddy follows a dive, we keep a record that their account follows it, and send its alerts to the notification ID their app registered, if they turned notifications on. You see only how many buddies follow and when each joined ("Buddy 1", "Buddy 2"), never who they are, and you can remove them; they never see who you are. The follow record goes when the plan is over or deleted, when you stop sharing or remove them, when they leave, or when your Pro ends (its alerts stop at once and the record is removed soon after). The alerts a buddy received stay in their app's alert list, and their account and notification ID stay, until they delete their account. We don't collect buddies' email addresses for shared dives. If someone installs SurgeCast from a shared dive's link, Google Play passes the app the link's code so the app can open that dive on its first launch.

How long we keep it: dive plans are deleted after their dive day. Your account, subscription records and alert history stay until you delete your account. Your favorites and notification choices stay until you change them or delete your account. Your dive history stays until you delete an entry or your account. After a planned dive day we keep the plan's details (the date, sites, time of day and forecast rating), with each SurgeCast Pro member the plan was shared with too, to ask "Did you dive?". They're kept until you answer it, and removed within about 8 days if you don't. An account with no email, purchase or notification ID (for example one made to start a trial or to follow a shared dive) is deleted after about a week. A sign-in on a device stops working after about 90 days without use. To limit abuse, we keep your IP address for about an hour when you sign in, start a trial or restore a purchase, and an email address that was sent wrong sign-in codes for about a day. Records of your agreement to the subscription's terms are kept for 3 years, or 1 year after your subscription ends if that's later. When our staff change an account (for example to give someone free Pro), we keep a record of the change for one year, with the account number and the email's scrambled code, not the email itself.

Deleting your account: in the app or on surgecast.app, go to Account, then Delete my account. If a subscription is still set to renew, we'll ask you to cancel it first (see the Terms). If you can't sign in on the website, email support@surgecast.app with the account number shown on the app's Account screen and we'll delete it for you. Deleting removes your account, plans, alerts, favorites, dive history and any waiting "Did you dive?" question, notification choices, devices and notification IDs from SurgeCast, usually right away. We keep only: the free-trial code described above (3 years); records of your purchases and of your agreement to the subscription's terms, which the law requires us to keep (3 years, or 1 year after your subscription ends if later); records of staff changes to accounts (1 year); and anything we must keep for a legal claim or obligation. Google Play and the App Store keep their own records of your purchases under their own policies.

Who else handles your information:

• Service providers that process information for us: Cloudflare (hosting and storage) and Amazon SES (email), and Google Firebase Cloud Messaging (app notifications; on iPhone, Firebase passes them to Apple's push service).
• Apple (push notifications on iPhone): receives the device push token and the alert's text to deliver it.
• Companies you deal with directly, under their own privacy policies: Google (Google Play purchases and Continue with Google, https://policies.google.com/privacy) and Apple (App Store purchases, https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/).

Cookies: we don't use tracking or advertising cookies. When you choose "Continue with Google" on the website, we set one short-lived cookie (for up to 10 minutes) that protects that sign-in from misuse.

If you email us: we get your email address and whatever you send, and we use it to reply. We keep support emails only as long as we need them for support and our records, and you can ask us to delete yours. Please don't send sensitive personal information.

Security: every connection to SurgeCast is encrypted (HTTPS).

When we might disclose information: if the law requires it, to protect SurgeCast or its users from abuse, or as part of a sale or transfer of SurgeCast, in which case this policy continues to apply to that information.

Do Not Track: we don't track you over time or across other sites and don't let others do so on SurgeCast, so browser Do Not Track signals don't change how SurgeCast works.

Links: SurgeCast links to other sites (live cams, maps, the National Weather Service and others). We don't control those sites; their own privacy policies apply.

Children: SurgeCast is meant for adults and is not directed to children under 13. If you're under 13, please don't send us personal information.

Where: SurgeCast is run from the United States.

Changes: we may update this policy and will post the new version here with a new effective date.

Contact: MortonApps LLC, support@surgecast.app