RankTheBar Live discovery for nights that matter

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Privacy Policy

How RankTheBar handles account data, location searches, uploads, analytics, legal requests, and operational logs.

Last updated July 23, 2026

RankTheBar is a 21+ informational social discovery network where adults can share bar experiences, reviews, photos, check-ins, and recommendations. RankTheBar does not sell alcohol, arrange alcohol service, provide transportation, or encourage underage drinking, overconsumption, impaired driving, or unsafe behavior. Please drink responsibly, obey all laws and venue rules, and verify venue details directly with the bar before relying on them. Buzzed driving is drunk driving. Do not drink and drive. Use a designated driver, rideshare, taxi, or public transportation. If there is an immediate health or safety emergency, contact local emergency services.

Data We Collect

  • Account data: public RankTheBar name, public city, optional public profile image and description, private email address, private real name, private phone, password hash, verification status, terms acceptance timestamps, and session records.
  • Community data: reviews, ratings, check-ins, live updates, photos, reports, bar submissions, and moderation history.
  • Location data: only when you allow browser location access or enter a location search. The app uses it to find nearby bars and stores the last search in your browser localStorage.
  • Operational data: rate-limit buckets, hashed IP values, user agent strings, request logs, analytics events, backup records, and error information.

How We Use Data

  • To operate accounts, reviews, check-ins, bar discovery, directions, moderation, abuse prevention, backups, and security monitoring.
  • To verify user-submitted bars, improve bar data quality, understand product usage, and respond to privacy, safety, copyright, or takedown requests.
  • RankTheBar does not need precise background tracking. Browser location is requested only while using the site feature that asks for it.

Advertising, Google, And Cookies

  • RankTheBar uses a Google AdSense publisher-account tag and an ads.txt authorization record. Google-served display ads remain disabled in the application until the site operator has completed the required consent and advertising-readiness gate.
  • If Google-served ads are enabled, Google and other third-party vendors may use cookies or similar technologies to serve, measure, limit, and personalize ads based on a user's visits to RankTheBar or other sites. Google's advertising cookies may enable Google and its partners to serve ads based on those visits.
  • Users can manage personalized Google advertising at https://adssettings.google.com/ and can learn about other industry opt-outs at https://www.aboutads.info/choices/. Google's own privacy practices are described at https://policies.google.com/privacy.
  • For users in the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, and Switzerland, Google-served ads will not be enabled until the required Google-certified consent-management setup is active. Consent choices must be passed to Google before personalized advertising is requested.
  • RankTheBar does not place display ads on error pages, login-only screens, user-profile pages, thin imported venue records, or social-post utility pages. Sponsored venue placements are separately labeled and are not the same as Google-served ads.

Retention And Service Providers

  • RankTheBar keeps account, moderation, security, backup, and legal-request records only as long as reasonably needed for the product, safety, dispute resolution, or legal obligations.
  • Service providers may process limited data for hosting, storage, email delivery, abuse prevention, image moderation, payments, analytics, or advertising. They are permitted to use data only for the contracted service or as their published terms and applicable law allow.
  • RankTheBar does not sell precise location history. Location searches are used to return nearby results, and the last search may remain in the user's own browser storage.

Your Choices

  • You can deny browser location access and search by city, ZIP, neighborhood, or address instead.
  • You can clear RankTheBar browser storage, cookies, saved bars, and night-out lists through your browser controls.
  • Where applicable, you may ask to access, correct, delete, or restrict personal information, or object to certain processing.
  • You can report content from bar pages or submit privacy/account requests through the report and takedown form.
  • For account deletion, correction, or access requests, submit a legal request with the email tied to the account.