Privacy Policy

Short the Ask · effective September 17, 2026

The short version

Short the Ask is a forecasting game about home asking prices, run by Xuberent Technologies. It uses one in-game currency, tokens, which has no monetary value, cannot be bought, and cannot be withdrawn. We collect what the game needs and little else: an email address to sign you in, the forecasts and trades you make, the houses and photos you choose to submit, a record of which screens you use so we can improve the app, and, if you turn notifications on, a device token so we can send them. We do not sell data, we do not run ads, and we do not track you across other companies' apps or websites.

What we collect

  • Account. Your email address and a password (stored only as a hash by our sign-in provider), or, if you sign in with Google or Apple, the email and name your Google or Apple account shares with us. Apple lets you hide your email, in which case we receive a relay address instead. We use these to sign you in and identify your account. The name, or the part of your email before the @ when there is no name, is your display name.
  • Activity in the game. The forecasts you make and the tokens you stake on them, the trades you place on live markets, the daily tokens you claim, your resulting positions and balances, and the accuracy and reputation scores computed from them. This is the game's record and what the leaderboard ranks.
  • Things you submit. If you request a market on a listing, we record which listing and the strike you suggested. If you add a house, we record the address, ZIP code, asking price, the link you gave as the source, any note you wrote, and the photos you chose to upload from your photo library. We only receive the photos you pick, never your library.
  • How you use the app. Product analytics: which screens you open, when you open the app, and actions such as making a forecast, placing a trade, claiming tokens, sharing a listing, or turning notifications on. Each record carries the platform (iPhone or web), the app version, and which software update the app is running. We use this to see what people use and whether updates reach phones. Nothing is recorded until you sign in, and a visitor who only browses sends nothing.
  • Notifications. If you turn them on, a push token issued by Apple and Expo for your device. It is used only to send you the notifications the game generates: a market you forecast opening, a market you hold a position in moving, or a market resolving. Turn notifications off in iPhone Settings or delete the app and it stops; a token that stops working is deleted.
  • Technical. Standard server logs (IP address, browser or device type, request time) kept briefly by our hosting providers for security and debugging.

We do not collect your precise location, contacts, health data, financial account details, or payment information. There is nothing to pay for. The map on a property page shows the listing's location, not yours.

What we do not do

  • No advertising, and no data shared with advertisers or data brokers.
  • No tracking across other companies' apps or websites, and no advertising identifiers.
  • No selling of personal data, and no sharing it for anyone else's marketing.
  • No real money. Tokens are a game score. Nothing in the app is a financial product or an appraisal.

What other people can see

Your display name, accuracy and rank appear on the leaderboard and beside your standing in a segment. Your email address is never shown to other users. Houses you add are reviewed by our team before they appear, and when one does it shows the address, price, and the photos you uploaded, but not your name. A market's odds reflect everyone's forecasts and trades together; nobody can see how you individually voted.

Who we share it with

Only the services that run the app, each processing data on our behalf under its own privacy terms:

  • Supabase: our database, sign-in, and photo storage, hosted in the United States.
  • Vercel hosts shorttheask.com and Cloudflare provides its DNS; both see the usual server logs.
  • Expo delivers push notifications and software updates to the app, so Expo's servers see your device's push token and the IP address the app updates from.
  • Google and Apple, if you sign in with them, and Apple for TestFlight and the App Store.
  • Esri serves the aerial map tiles on a property page, so it sees the IP address that loads them, as does the website that hosts a listing's photos when the app shows them.

We will disclose data if the law requires it, to protect the safety of a person, or as part of a sale or reorganisation of the business, in which case this policy continues to apply to it.

Where and how it is kept

Our servers are in the United States. Data travels encrypted between the app and our servers, our database only lets your own account read your own records, and the app can never read anyone's analytics. No system is perfectly secure, so if we learn of a breach affecting your data we will tell you.

How long we keep it

For as long as you have an account. Forecast and trade history is part of the game's record and is kept while your account exists so that resolved markets and reputation stay accurate. Photos you upload stay with the house you submitted; email us if you want a photo taken down and we will remove it.

Your choices and rights

  • See or correct it. Your Portfolio and Profile show your forecasts, trades, balances and scores. Email us for a copy of everything we hold about you or to correct something.
  • Notifications. Turn them off any time in iPhone Settings.
  • Delete it. See the next section.
  • California and other places with privacy laws. You may have rights to know, access, correct, delete, and to not be discriminated against for using them. We do not sell or share personal data as those laws define it. Email us and we will honour any request the law gives you, whichever state or country you live in.

Delete your account

In the app, open the Profile tab and tap Delete account; your account is deleted right away. If you no longer have the app, email xuberenttechnologies@gmail.com from the address on your account with the subject “Delete my account” and we do it within 30 days. Either way we remove your account, forecasts, positions, unpublished submissions and their photos, push tokens, and reputation, and we take your account off your analytics records. Ledger history is anonymised rather than deleted so the game's accounting remains auditable, houses you submitted that were published stay without your name, and markets that already resolved keep their outcome. The full list is on the deletion page.

Children

Short the Ask is for adults. It is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect data from them; if you believe a child has created an account, email us and we will delete it.

Cookies and local storage

The website keeps your sign-in session in your browser's local storage so you stay signed in. It sets no advertising or analytics cookies. Signing out clears the session.

Changes

If this policy changes materially we will update the effective date above and tell you in the app. Questions: xuberenttechnologies@gmail.com.