Privacy Policy
Last updated July 24, 2026
Overview
This privacy policy explains how Meela (“we”, “us”, or “our”) collects and handles your personal information when you use our website, browser extension, and related services (the “Services”). We built Meela to help you earn cash back while you shop — and we believe you should understand exactly what data makes that possible.
How we make money: when you activate a cash back offer and complete a purchase, the merchant pays us an affiliate commission. We share part of that commission back with you as cash back. Meela is free to use.
We may update this policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we’ll let you know through our website or extension.
What We Collect
Account info
When you sign up, we collect your name and email address, and we assign you a Meela user ID. If you sign up through Google, we receive your basic profile info (name, email, profile photo) based on your Google permissions.
Desktop install link requests
If you ask us to email a desktop install link, we collect the email address you enter and your IP address. We use them only to deliver the requested link, prevent abuse, and troubleshoot email delivery—not for marketing.
Anonymous device ID
When you install the extension, we generate a random anonymous identifier (an “anon ID”) stored on your device. It lets cash back activation and analytics work before you create an account, and—if you sign up later—lets us credit cash back you earned while anonymous. It is not linked to your identity until you create an account.
Shopping & cash back activity
When you activate an offer, we record the click (the merchant, a timestamp, and your IP address) so the purchase can be attributed to you. When you make a qualifying purchase, we receive information about it from the affiliate network — the retailer name, order value, and whether the order was completed. When you redeem earnings, we record the payout and the IP address used to request it. This is how we track your cash back and detect fraud.
Referrals
If you refer a friend, we record that you referred them and that they signed up through your link, so we can credit your referral bonus. If you customize your referral code, we store the code you chose and a history of your changes to prevent abuse and to keep old links working. Your referral code is public by design — anyone with the link can see it, so don’t use personal information in it. We never tell the person you referred anything about your account, and we never tell you anything about their shopping or earnings.
Reviews & feedback
If you respond to a review or feedback prompt, we record your rating, which screen you were on when we asked, and when you answered. Responding is always optional.
Fraud-prevention records
We record the IP address used when you sign up and when you request a payout, so we can detect fraud and abuse. If you receive a signup bonus, we also store a one-way cryptographic hash of your email address — not the address itself — so the same person can’t claim the bonus repeatedly by deleting and re-creating an account. This hash is deliberately kept even if you delete your account, because deleting it would defeat its only purpose. It cannot be reversed to recover your email address, and we don’t use it for anything else.
Browsing data
We collect the domain of sites you visit to check if a cash back offer is available, and—on partner merchant pages—we read the page’s redirect chain to comply with affiliate-network stand-down rules (see Extension Permissions). We do not read page content, form inputs, passwords, or any personal content on pages.
Usage & analytics events
We collect product-analytics events about how you use Meela — for example when the extension is installed, when a cash back banner is shown, dismissed, or activated. These events include your anon ID (and your user ID once you sign in), a timestamp, and coarse location (country/city) derived from your IP.
Device & technical data
Standard technical info like your browser type, operating system, and IP address, including the browser identification string your browser sends with each cash back activation. This helps us keep the extension working properly and debug issues.
What we don’t collect
To be explicit about the things you might reasonably expect a shopping extension to do: we don’t read page content, form inputs, keystrokes, or passwords. We don’t collect your payment card or bank details — payouts are handled by our payments provider, and we never see those credentials. We don’t track whether you open or click our emails. We don’t build advertising or interest profiles about you, and we don’t infer characteristics about you from your shopping. We don’t buy personal information about you from data brokers.
How We Use It
- Provide the service: Track cash back, manage your earnings, credit referral bonuses, and process payouts.
- Improve the product: Understand what’s working, fix bugs, build better features.
- Communicate with you: Send requested install links, earnings updates, payout notifications, and important account info.
- Prevent fraud: Detect and block fraudulent or abusive activity.
- Legal compliance: Meet our legal obligations and enforce our terms.
Extension Permissions
The Meela browser extension requests the following permissions. We request the minimum needed to earn you cash back and to comply with affiliate-network rules:
- Access to websites you visit (
<all_urls>): Required to (1) detect when you’re on a partner store so we can show the cash back offer, and (2) read the redirect chain that led you to a store so we can honor affiliate-network stand-down rules — if another service already referred you to a store, we must not override that referral. Affiliate redirects pass through many networks and merchant domains that can’t be listed in advance, which is why broad host access is needed. We do not read page content, keystrokes, or form data. - Tabs & navigation history (
tabs,webNavigation,webRequest): Used to read the URL of your active tab (to detect partner stores), open and close short-lived Meela activation and sign-in windows, detect when sign-in reaches Meela’s completion page, and observe redirect chains for stand-down compliance.webRequestis observational only — we watch requests, we never block or modify them. - Storage (
storage): Saves your session, the list of supported stores, and cached data on your device. - Cookies (
cookies): Used only as a signal that your sign-in state on joinmeela.com changed, so the extension can re-sync your session. The extension does not read or parse cookie values — only our website does. - Alarms (
alarms): Schedules a periodic (every ~24 hours) check-in so we know the extension is active.
Data Security
We use encryption, access controls, and industry-standard security practices to protect your information. No system is 100% secure, but we take this seriously and are continuously improving our safeguards.
Data Retention
We keep your data for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the Services. In particular:
- Anonymous clicks: Click records that are never linked to an account are kept only for purchase attribution and fraud prevention, and are automatically deleted after 7 days.
- Account data, earnings & redemptions: Retained while your account is active, and after that as needed for financial, tax, and legal recordkeeping.
- Raw affiliate payloads: Diagnostic transaction payloads from our affiliate aggregator are kept for troubleshooting and fraud investigation, and are automatically deleted after 90 days.
- Desktop install requests: The IP-address request ledger used to enforce install-link abuse limits is automatically deleted after 7 days. Email delivery audit records may be kept longer for security and troubleshooting.
If you delete your account, we’ll remove your personal information, with two exceptions. First, where we need to retain records for legal, tax, or compliance reasons. Second, if you received a signup bonus, we keep the one-way hash of your email address described above — it can’t be reversed to recover your address, and without it the bonus could be claimed repeatedly. Your cash back and payout history is retained in a form keyed to an internal identifier rather than your name or email, so the financial record survives without continuing to identify you.
Your Choices
- Uninstall anytime: Remove the extension from your browser to stop all data collection.
- Delete your account: Email us and we’ll delete your personal information.
- Email preferences: Unsubscribe from marketing emails anytime. We’ll still send important account-related messages.
Your Privacy Rights
California residents have specific rights under the CCPA/CPRA. Several other states grant similar rights, and rather than treat people differently based on where they live, we extend all of the rights below to every Meela user in the United States.
- Know and access: Ask what personal information we’ve collected about you, where it came from, why we collected it, who we disclosed it to, and get a copy.
- Delete: Ask us to delete your personal information, subject to the two exceptions described in Data Retention.
- Correct: Ask us to fix personal information you believe is inaccurate.
- Opt out of sale or sharing: We don’t sell your personal information and we don’t share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of. We’d have to update this policy before that could change.
- Limit sensitive information: We don’t collect sensitive personal information as the CCPA defines it — no government IDs, no precise geolocation, no payment card or bank credentials, no health, biometric, or account login data from other services.
- No retaliation: We won’t deny you service, change your cash back rate, or give you a worse experience for exercising any of these rights.
How to exercise them: email privacy@joinmeela.com from the address on your Meela account. If we can’t match the request to an account we may ask for a little more information to verify it’s really you — we use that only to check identity and delete it afterward. We respond within 45 days and will tell you if we need more time. An authorized agent may submit a request on your behalf with written permission. If we deny a request, you can ask us to reconsider by replying to our response.
Minors
Meela is for adults (18+). We don’t knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us and we’ll remove it.
Contact Us
Questions about your privacy? Reach us at privacy@joinmeela.com