Privacy Policy

Who We Are

MakerManifest (makermanifest.co) is a gear list platform operated by VARO Industries. We help content creators build and share product recommendation lists with affiliate links.

What We Collect

• •Account information: email address, username, display name, and password (stored as a secure hash — we never store your plain-text password)
• •Profile information you choose to add: bio, avatar, social media links
• •Gear list content: kit titles, descriptions, and product URLs you add
• •Usage data: page view counts on your public gear lists, and click counts on affiliate links
• •Session data: a secure authentication token stored in a cookie to keep you logged in
• •Activity logs: records of actions taken within the platform (such as creating, editing, or deleting lists and items) for troubleshooting and quality assurance purposes
• •IP address: logged temporarily in connection with certain security events (failed login attempts, account lockouts) and short link error logs
• •Subscription and billing metadata: Stripe customer ID, subscription status, plan type, billing period dates, and whether a retention offer was used. We do not store payment card numbers.

What We Do NOT Collect

• •We do not sell your data to third parties
• •We do not run advertising or ad tracking on this site
• •We do not store payment card numbers, expiration dates, or security codes — all card data is handled exclusively by Stripe
• •We do not use analytics to track you across other websites

Payment Processing

Paid subscriptions on MakerManifest are processed by Stripe, Inc. (stripe.com). When you subscribe to a paid plan, your payment card details are entered directly into Stripe's secure payment form — we never see or store your card number, expiration date, or CVV. We store only the metadata Stripe returns: a customer ID, subscription ID, subscription status, plan type, and current billing period dates. This data is used to determine your account's feature access and to manage billing.

Affiliate Links & Amazon Associates

MakerManifest automatically applies affiliate tags to product links when a creator has configured their affiliate programs. When a visitor clicks an affiliate link and makes a purchase, the creator may earn a commission at no additional cost to the buyer. MakerManifest.co is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program. When no creator affiliate rule is configured for a given store, MakerManifest may apply its own affiliate tag — this is disclosed in the Terms of Service and the relevant FAQ entry.

Cookies

We use a single session cookie to keep you logged in to your account. This cookie is strictly necessary for the site to function and is not used for tracking or advertising. No third-party tracking cookies are set by this site. MakerManifest uses Google Analytics in cookieless mode — no analytics cookies are written to your browser. Stripe may set cookies during the checkout process in accordance with their own privacy policy.

Analytics

MakerManifest uses Google Analytics 4 (GA4) in cookieless mode to understand how visitors use the site — for example, which pages are visited and where traffic comes from. IP addresses are anonymized before being sent to Google. No analytics cookies are written to your browser and no persistent client identifiers are stored. This data is used solely to improve the service. We do not use it to identify individual users or to track users across other websites.

Creator-Configured Analytics

Premium creators may connect their own Google Analytics 4 property to MakerManifest. When a creator does this, MakerManifest injects their GA4 measurement tag on their public profile pages, gear list pages, and affiliate link pages. This means that if you visit a creator's public page on MakerManifest, a GA4 tag belonging to that creator may load and collect data in accordance with Google's privacy policy. MakerManifest does not control or have access to the data collected by creator-configured GA4 properties. Short link redirects (mkr.ms/… and other platform domains) are HTTP redirects with no page load and are not tracked by GA4.

Third-Party Data Processors

We use the following third-party services to operate MakerManifest. Each processes data in accordance with their own privacy policies:

• •Stripe (stripe.com) — payment processing and subscription management
• •Google Analytics (analytics.google.com) — site usage analytics
• •Cloudflare (cloudflare.com) — DNS, CDN, DDoS protection, and Turnstile CAPTCHA; all traffic passes through Cloudflare
• •Hetzner (hetzner.com) — infrastructure hosting
• •Resend (resend.com) — transactional email delivery (account verification, password reset, subscription notices)

Data Retention

Your account data is retained for as long as your account is active. If your paid subscription ends — by cancellation, non-payment, or downgrade — your gear lists, items, affiliate rules, analytics history, and user-created short links are retained for 12 months from the date of downgrade. If you resubscribe within that window, all data is restored. After 12 months without an active paid subscription, that data is permanently deleted. Your account shell (username, email address, bio, avatar, and social links) is retained indefinitely until you delete your account. You may request deletion of your account and all associated data at any time from Dashboard → Settings → Danger Zone, or by contacting us.

Activity & Error Logs

We maintain internal logs of security and account events — such as login attempts, password resets, and account lockouts — as well as error logs that record invalid or broken link attempts (including the attempted URL path, referring page if available, and IP address). These logs are used solely for security monitoring, troubleshooting, and quality assurance. They are not shared with third parties and are retained only as long as operationally necessary.

Your Rights

You have the right to access, correct, or delete the personal data we hold about you. You may update most profile information directly from your dashboard. To request account deletion or a copy of your data, contact us using the link below. If you are located in the European Economic Area, you may have additional rights under GDPR, including the right to data portability and the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority.

Third-Party Links

Gear lists on MakerManifest link to external product pages on Amazon and other retailers. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those third-party sites.

Contact

For privacy questions or data deletion requests, please contact us here.