Privacy Policy

Last updated November 2, 2026. Written in plain language.

The short version

Browsing is open to everyone. A free HAPN account (just your email) lets you open every event and, if you choose, get a weekly email of what's happening near you. Everything else you type stays in your own browser, except the email you give us if you sign up for venue alerts (see below). Your location stays on your phone: we never save or track it. Privacy-friendly analytics are on unless you tap Decline. HAPN is supported by advertising: we work with Google AdSense, so pages may show Google ads, and Google and other ad vendors may use cookies (see “Advertising and cookies” below).

Your location

  • If you tap “Near me”, HAPN first tells you what happens to your location, then your browser asks permission.
  • Your location stays on your phone. We never save or track it. It's used only on your device to find the closest city, sort events and places by distance, and center the map.
  • It's never sent to us or anyone else, never stored on a server, never written to your browser's storage, and never included in analytics. We only remember that you turned Near me on, and your browser asks for a fresh location the next time you tap it. You can turn location off at any time in your browser or phone settings.

Cookies and analytics: your choice

Analytics are on by default. The first time you visit, a small banner lets you accept or decline them; if you tap Decline, they stop right away. You can change your mind here or with “Cookie settings” at the bottom of every page.

Your choice: Not chosen yet (analytics on)

  • Essential (always on): your browser's local storage keeps the city you picked, your interests and settings, saved events and anything you add. HAPN needs this to work, and it never leaves your device. We also remember your cookie choice.
  • Site traffic (on unless you decline): Vercel Web Analytics counts page views. It doesn't use cookies and doesn't identify you; it sees things like the page, referring site, country, and browser or device type.
  • Listing activity (on unless you decline): to show local businesses how their listings perform, HAPN records anonymous actions on listings, such as a card being shown, a listing opened, or a tap on website, tickets, directions, call, add-to-calendar or save. Each record holds the listing, its category, the city, whether it was featured, and the time. No name, email, account or location is attached. Right now these records stay in your browser; if we later send them to a server, businesses will see totals only, never individual visitors.
  • Ads (Google AdSense): Google and other third-party ad vendors may set cookies to show and measure ads. See Advertising and cookies below for how this works and how to opt out.
  • Sign-in and free-view cookies (essential): if you sign in, a secure cookie (hapn_u) keeps you signed in for up to 90 days. If you aren't signed in, a small cookie and local storage entry (hapn_fv) list the last few events you opened, so we can count your 3 free event views per 30 days. Neither is used for ads or tracking.
  • If you decline: neither kind of analytics runs from then on, listing activity already stored on this device is deleted, and ads become non-personalized.

Advertising and cookies (Google AdSense)

HAPN uses Google AdSense to show ads. Ads help keep HAPN free. Ads never appear in the Featured row or on upgraded business profiles.

  • Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to HAPN or to other websites.
  • Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to HAPN and/or other sites on the internet.
  • Google and its partners may also use cookies, device identifiers and similar technologies to measure ads, limit how often you see the same ad, and prevent fraud. Learn how Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services and how Google uses cookies in advertising.
  • Opting out: you can turn off personalized advertising from Google in Google Ads Settings. You can also opt out of some other third-party vendors' use of cookies for personalized advertising at aboutads.info/choices (or youronlinechoices.eu in Europe).
  • If you tap Decline in our cookie banner, we also ask Google for non-personalized ads only. Non-personalized ads are based on things like the page you're reading and your general location (such as your city), not your browsing history; Google may still use cookies for frequency capping, fraud prevention and aggregate reporting.
  • In some places (for example the European Economic Area, the UK, Switzerland and some US states), Google's own consent message may ask for your choice about ad cookies. That choice is stored by Google and applies to the ads on HAPN.

What we store, and where

  • Your free HAPN account and the weekly email: anyone can browse HAPN, and you can open 3 events every 30 days without an account. To keep opening events you sign in with your email and a one-time code (no password). We keep your email, the home city you pick, whether you want the weekly email (and when you agreed), when you signed up and last signed in, and a record of which weeks we emailed you. If you leave the box ticked, HAPN emails you “Happening near you this week” on Monday mornings with events in and near your city, sent through our email provider, Resend. Every weekly email has a one-click unsubscribe link, and you can switch it off, change your city, sign out or delete your account on your account page. Deleting your account erases your email, settings and sign-in codes from our database. We never sell your email or share it with venues or advertisers.
  • Venue alerts (“Get notified about [venue]”): if you sign up on a venue or business page, we keep your email, which venue it is for, what you chose to hear about, the exact consent wording, the time you agreed, and a scrambled (hashed) form of your IP address used to stop abuse. We email you once to confirm (double opt-in); nothing else is sent until you confirm. After that, HAPN emails you (through our email provider, Resend) when that venue has new upcoming events. Your email is shared with the venue only if you also tick “Sign up to get info from [venue]”: then a venue with a paid HAPN business account can see and export your email and the date you opted in, and contact you directly. Every HAPN email has a one-click unsubscribe link; unsubscribing stops HAPN's emails and removes you from the venue's list on HAPN. If a venue already exported your email, opt out with them too.
  • In your browser only (localStorage): your city, My Feed profile (name, home town, radius, interests), places you follow, saved events, RSVPs, volunteer sign-ups, events you submit, business claims, listing edits and photos you add. We don't receive any of it.
  • Clearing your browser data, or using a different device or browser, removes or hides it. Uploaded videos preview for your current visit only.

What we don't do

  • No selling of personal information. The only ads are from Google AdSense, described above.
  • No passwords or payment details are collected anywhere on the site.

Services that load when you use the site

  • Our host (Vercel) serves the site and may keep standard server logs such as IP address and browser type for security and reliability. HAPN accounts, weekly email settings and venue alert sign-ups are stored with Neon (database) in the United States.
  • Map tiles and map data come from OpenStreetMap and its contributors. Your browser requests the tiles straight from the OpenStreetMap tile servers.
  • Google AdSense (ads) may load scripts and set cookies from Google domains such as googlesyndication.com and doubleclick.net. See “Advertising and cookies” above.
  • Links to organizers, ticket pages, calendars (Google, Outlook) and social profiles open their sites, which have their own privacy policies.

Kids

HAPN isn't directed to children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their information.

Changes

If we add accounts or new analytics, or change how venue alerts work, we'll update this policy before those changes go live.

Questions? Email hello@whatshapnapp.com.

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