Privacy Policy for Food For You
Effective date: 15 September 2026
Last updated: 17 October 2026
Food For You (“the app”) helps you decide where to eat by finding restaurants near you. This policy explains what the app does with your information.
The short version: the app has no accounts, stores your saved spots on your own device, and does not know who you are. Its only server passes your search to Google and keeps no record of you. The only things it counts are how many searches, typed-address lookups and place-detail lookups everyone made today, so it can pause them if there are too many.
1. Who is responsible
Parody Gaming Studio (“we”, “us”) publishes the app.
Questions or requests about this policy: support@foodforyou.app
2. What the app collects, and why
Location
What: your device’s approximate or precise location (latitude and longitude), or an address you type, only while the app is open and in the foreground.
When: your device’s location is read only after you grant location permission, and only when you:
- set your location on the location screen,
- open the app when location access is already allowed, in which case the app reads your location as it opens so your first pick is ready,
- tap the Food For You widget or a home-screen shortcut while the app is still open in the background and the location it read is 10 minutes old or more, in which case it reads it again (with permission already given; it never asks), or
- open the in-app directions screen, which follows your position while you travel so the map can keep up with you and re-route if you leave the route.
An address you type, or a spot you pick on the map, is used whether or not you allow location access.
Why: to find restaurants near you, to show your distance to them, and to give you turn-by-turn directions to a place you have chosen.
Where it goes: your phone’s own location service (on Android, Google’s)
turns the address you type, the pin you drop or your current position into coordinates or a
street name. That happens when you set your location and, if location is already allowed,
each time the app reads your location as described above (to name where you are); the app
sends it nothing else. If you allowed only your approximate location, the app doesn’t look up
a street name for it at all and calls it “Approximate location”. If location access is off, or
your phone can’t place an address you typed, the app sends that address (and nothing else
about you) to our server, which passes it to Google’s Geocoding API and returns its
coordinates and the town and province it is in. Our server doesn’t store or log the
address. Your
coordinates reach our server at api.foodforyou.app only when a search or a route
runs (Find Me Food, Surprise me, Spin Again, Show me 3, Filters counting nearby spots, or
directions), not merely because the app opened. Our server passes them straight to Google’s
Places API and Routes API and returns Google’s answer. It does not store or log your
coordinates and shares them with no one else. It also uses your IP address for a moment, to
limit how many requests one device can make per minute, and does not keep that either. Our
server keeps three numbers: the total of searches everyone made today, the total of typed
addresses it looked up today, and the total of places whose details it looked up today, with
nothing about who made them or where, so it can pause them if
there are too many. They’re replaced each day.
The map itself is drawn by Google’s Maps SDK, which receives the area on screen directly from
the app.
The app does not track your location in the background, and it never stores your location or your distance from any place. If you’ve already allowed location access, the app reads your location when it opens so your first pick is ready. It’s held in memory only, never saved, and is gone when the app closes. Distances are worked out live from that current location whenever the app shows one, and are left out when no location is set. If you haven’t allowed it, the app asks nothing and starts without a location.
The app does keep a short list of the places it picked for you, with the time of each (Recent picks, described below), on your device (and in its own backup, if that’s on). That list holds the places’ Google place IDs and the times, not your location or your distance from them.
Saved spots and settings
What: the restaurants you save, your last 20 picks (Recent picks) and the places you hide from your picks. Saved spots, recent picks and hidden places are stored on your phone as Google place IDs, with your notes, your “Been there” marks and the dates you picked or hid them (and, for a hidden place, whether you marked it closed). A place’s details (name, hours, rating) are fetched fresh from Google Maps when shown and are not kept: they are held in the app’s memory for at most 10 minutes, and its photos are held in memory only; neither is written to your phone’s storage. Nothing else from Google is stored. A saved spot holds no location of yours and no distance from you. Up to 500 places can be hidden, and each stays hidden until you unhide it; each recent pick is dropped once it’s over 30 days old, the next time the app opens. Also your preferences — cuisine choices, price, rating and place-type filters, search radius, light/dark theme, and your sound and haptic switches — and a few counters the app keeps for itself (how often you’ve opened it, when you first opened it, how many picks you’ve made, which days you made a pick, and when it last asked for a rating) to pace ads and the rating card.
Distances. The distance you see beside a saved spot or a recent pick is worked out on the spot from your current location, and it’s left out when no location is set. Versions of the app before 1.10.0 stored a distance with each saved spot; the app removes it the first time it saves after you update, and from then on saves without it. Versions before 1.12.0 stored a saved spot’s or recent pick’s name, address, hours and rating; the first time the app saves after you update to 1.12.0 or later, it keeps only the place ID and deletes the older copy.
Where it goes: nowhere we can see. These are stored on your device, using your device’s local app storage, and in your device’s own backup if that’s switched on (see the exception below). There is no account, no sync, and no copy on any server we control. You can unhide a place in Settings → Hidden places and clear your last picks in Saved → Recent.
One exception you should know about: if you have your operating system’s own backup turned on (Android Auto Backup, or iCloud Backup on iOS), your device’s OS may include the app’s local storage in your device backup, so your saved spots, Plus notes and “Been there” marks, hidden places, recent picks and your Plus status return when you reinstall the app or set up a new device. That backup holds place IDs and your own data only, not Google’s place details. It is made by, and governed by, Google or Apple — not by us. We cannot read it. You can turn it off in your device’s system settings.
Advertising
The app shows ads through Google AdMob: small banner ads, and a full-screen ad now and then between restaurant picks. To do this, the AdMob software in the app collects information itself: your device’s advertising identifier and app set ID, your IP address (which Google can use to estimate your general location), how you interact with the ads, and general device information. Google’s ads software also measures how the app is used, such as when it opens, taps and ad views, and how it performs, such as how long it takes to start. Google uses all of this for advertising, analytics and fraud prevention. This starts when the app starts Google’s ads software: soon after the app opens or, where a consent form applies, after your choice. It happens inside Google’s software; we do not receive this data.
Your choice. If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, the app asks for your consent before any ad is requested, using Google’s User Messaging Platform. You can consent, decline, or choose individual purposes under “Manage options”. Declining does not stop you using the app; you may still see ads, but non-personalised ones.
Changing your mind. Where this choice applies to you, the app keeps a permanent way back to it: open Settings → Ad privacy options to reopen the form and change or withdraw your consent at any time. A withdrawal takes effect immediately, not at the next launch.
If you are outside those regions, no consent form is shown, because the rules it exists to satisfy do not apply to you.
- Google’s policy: policies.google.com/technologies/ads
- You can reset or delete your advertising ID in your device settings (Android: Settings → Privacy → Ads, or Settings → Google → Ads on some phones. iOS: Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking).
Purchases
Food For You Plus is optional: a yearly subscription or a one-time lifetime purchase, sold and processed by Google Play. Your payment details go to Google, not to us. The app only learns whether this Google account has Plus (an active subscription or a lifetime purchase), and keeps that answer on your phone (and in your phone’s own backup if that’s on). We don’t receive your name, email or payment information.
Plus notes and “Been there” marks are stored on your phone, like your saved spots, and never reach us. If your phone’s own backup is on, they are in that backup too, so they can come back when you reinstall the app or set up a new phone (see “One exception you should know about” above).
The app may ask Google Play to show its rating card. Any rating or review you leave goes to Google Play, not to us.
What the app does NOT collect
To be explicit, the app has none of the following:
- No account, sign-up, email address, name, phone number, or password.
- No analytics or usage-tracking software of our own. Google’s ads software measures how the app is used, for Google, as described under Advertising.
- No crash-reporting software.
- No access to your contacts, photos, camera, microphone, files, or calendar.
- No server of ours that stores any of your data. Our one server only passes requests to Google, as described above, and keeps no record of them, apart from today’s total number of searches, of typed-address lookups and of place details looked up.
- No sale of personal information to anyone.
3. Who your information is shared with
We do not sell or share your information, and we keep none of it. These companies receive data when you use the app:
| Who | What they receive | Why | Their policy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google (Places API, Routes API, Geocoding API, Maps SDK, device geocoding) | Your coordinates, your search radius, the destination you picked, and the IDs of places whose details the app asks for (Places and Routes through our server; the map directly from the app). When you set your location, or the app reads it with location already allowed, your address or coordinates are processed by the phone’s own geocoding service (on Android, Google’s). An address you type goes through our server to Google’s Geocoding API when location access is off or the phone can’t place it | To return nearby restaurants, the current details of places you saved, picked or hid, their photos, map tiles, and a route; to convert addresses or coordinates to place names or vice versa | policies.google.com/privacy |
| Cloudflare (hosts our server) | Each request to our server, including your coordinates (or an address you typed) and IP address | To run the server that passes requests to Google. We do not store them. We keep only daily totals of searches, of typed-address lookups and of place details looked up. | cloudflare.com/privacypolicy |
| Google AdMob | Advertising identifier and app set ID, IP address (from which Google can estimate your general location), how you use the app and its ads, app performance and device information | To show and measure ads, for Google’s analytics, and to prevent fraud | policies.google.com/technologies/ads |
| Google Play (Billing) | Your purchase and payment details (handled by Google Play) | To sell Plus and manage the subscription | policies.google.com/privacy |
Your device’s operating system may also send the app’s local storage to your Google or Apple account as part of your own device backup, as described above.
4. How long information is kept
- Location: not retained, by the app or by our server. It exists only while the app is open and is discarded when the app closes.
- Saved spots and settings: kept on your device (as place IDs, with your own notes, marks and dates) until you delete them in the app, clear the app’s storage, or uninstall the app. Hidden places stay until you unhide them; Recent picks are dropped after 30 days, or when you clear them.
- Daily totals (our server): three numbers for today (searches, typed-address lookups, and place details looked up), replaced each day. They hold nothing about who searched.
- Data held by Google: governed by Google’s own retention policies, linked above.
5. Your choices and rights
- Refuse or revoke location access at any time in your device settings. The app still works — you can type an address or pick a spot on the map instead, and everything except distance-based results continues to function.
- Delete what the app has stored. Deleting a saved spot in the app removes that spot (and its note), and nothing else. To clear the rest: unhide places in Settings → Hidden places, and clear your last picks with Saved → Recent → Clear recent picks. The app’s own counters and preferences are removed only by clearing the app’s storage or uninstalling it, which also removes everything else on your device. Because nothing is stored on any server of ours, uninstalling removes all of it. Note that if device backup is on, a copy may remain in your Google or Apple backup until you delete it there.
- Reset your advertising identifier in your device settings, as above.
- If you are in a region with data-protection rights such as the GDPR or CCPA and want to make a request, contact us at support@foodforyou.app. In practice we hold no data about you to produce, correct, or delete — the data is on your device and with Google, and Google’s own tools are linked above.
6. Deleting your data
Food For You, published by Parody Gaming Studio, has no accounts, and its one server keeps no record of you. There is no account to close and no request you need to send us in order to have your data removed — you can delete everything yourself, from the device, at any time.
How to delete your data
- Delete individual saved spots — open Saved Spots in the app and remove any entry you no longer want. Unhide places in Settings → Hidden places, and clear your last picks in Saved → Recent → Clear recent picks.
- Delete everything the app has stored — on Android, open Settings → Apps → Food For You → Storage and choose Clear storage. This erases your saved spots, hidden places, recent picks and all app preferences immediately.
- Uninstall the app — uninstalling removes all app data from your device. Because nothing is held on a server of ours, this leaves us holding nothing.
- Reset or delete your advertising ID — this identifier belongs to Google, not to us. Reset or delete it in Settings → Privacy → Ads on your device, or Settings → Google → Ads on some phones.
What is deleted, and what is kept
- Saved spots and app preferences (filters, categories, theme) — stored only on your device. Deleted immediately when you clear the app’s storage or uninstall it. We never receive them and keep no copy. No retention period applies, because we never hold them.
- Plus notes and “Been there” marks — stored on your device with your saved spots. Deleted from the device immediately when you clear the app’s storage or uninstall it (a device backup can still hold a copy; see “Device backups” below).
- Hidden places, Recent picks and the app’s own counters (how often you’ve opened it, when you first opened it, how many picks you’ve made, which days you made a pick, when it last asked for a rating) — stored on your device. Deleted from it immediately when you clear the app’s storage or uninstall it. Deleting a saved spot does not delete any of these. You can unhide a place one by one in Settings → Hidden places (hidden places keep the place’s ID until you do) and clear Recent picks in Saved → Recent → Clear recent picks (they are also dropped after 30 days). The counters can’t be cleared separately: clear the app’s storage or uninstall.
- Location — never stored at all, by us or on your device. Your coordinates are held in memory only while the app is open (read as it opens if location is already allowed, and used to ask Google for nearby restaurants or directions, passing through our server, which keeps no copy) and are discarded when the app closes. There is nothing to delete.
- Daily totals — three numbers held by our server for the current day (searches, typed-address lookups, and place details looked up), replaced the next day. They are not about you, so there is nothing to delete.
- Advertising ID, ad interaction and app-usage data — collected by Google’s AdMob, not by us. Kept by Google under Google’s own retention policies, which are linked in section 4. Clearing the app or uninstalling it does not erase Google’s copy; use the advertising ID controls in your device settings for that.
- Device backups — if device backup is switched on, a copy of the app’s data (saved spots as place IDs, notes, “Been there” marks, hidden places, recent picks, preferences and the Plus status) may remain in your Google account backup until you delete it there, and it comes back if you reinstall the app while that backup exists.
If you are in a region with data-protection rights such as the GDPR or CCPA and want to make a formal request, contact us at support@foodforyou.app. In practice we hold no data about you to produce, correct, or delete.
7. Children
The app is not directed at children under 13 (or the equivalent minimum age in your country), and we do not knowingly collect information from them.
This matches the target audience declared in Google Play Console: 13–15, 16–17 and 18 and over. No under-13 age group is declared, so the app is not a child-directed service.
8. Security
Your saved spots stay in your device’s own app storage, which your operating system protects from other apps. All network requests the app makes use encrypted HTTPS connections. No system is perfectly secure, but because the app holds no account credentials and no personal profile, there is very little about you for anyone to obtain.
9. Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the updated version will be posted at this address and the “Last updated” date above will change. Significant changes will be noted in the app’s release notes.
10. Contact
If you use Send feedback in the app’s Settings, it opens your own email app with a message to us. The subject is filled in with the app’s version (for example “Food For You feedback, 1.10.0 (15)”). What you send reaches us as an ordinary email, so we receive your email address as well as what you write.