Mallards flushing over a fall wetland

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Privacy Policy

Plain talk about what we collect, what stays on your phone, and how wildlife data may be used to help conservation — without selling your personal information.

Effective date: November 14, 2026.

The short version

We do not sell your personal information. Your hunt log stays on your phone unless you share a hunt or account backup is on. Exact locations stay private unless you switch on Include exact location for a share with specific friends — that switch is off by default. Photos have location data stripped before they leave your phone.

Account backup is on by default for signed-in accounts. You can turn it off any time in Settings → Your data. When account backup is on, de-identified animal and condition data from every backed-up hunt is used automatically for conservation and research. That includes species, counts, drake and hen counts, dates, weather, moon, success, and a location rounded to about one mile — with no name, email, photo, or exact pin. There is no separate opt-out switch. The only way to keep a hunt out of this use, or to stop new hunts from being used this way, is to turn backup off or delete your account backup before or after those hunts are backed up. Turning backup off or deleting the backup stops future hunts from being used; wildlife records already created stay anonymous. Hunts that stay only on your phone are not used. A hunt you share is stored on our servers and may also be used in the same de-identified way. We may publish totals by state or flyway. We do not sell this data.

1. Who we are

The Spread is a hunting log and community app operated by The Spread L.L.C, an Alabama limited liability company, 8409 McKee Rd N, Irvington, AL 36544. In this policy, “we,” “us,” and “The Spread” mean The Spread L.L.C.

This policy describes how we handle information when you use usethespread.com and the The Spread app. Our Terms of Use also apply.

2. We do not sell your personal information

We do not sell your personal information. We do not rent it, and we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers. There are no ads and no analytics trackers in the app or on the home page.

Personal information means information that identifies you or can reasonably be linked to you — for example your name, email, phone number, birthday, city, screen name, account, messages, photos of you, exact hunt pins, and the private details in your hunt log.

Wildlife information that has been de-identified, as described in section 6, is not personal information. We may use and share that wildlife information for conservation. We still do not sell it.

3. What stays on your device

Your hunt log is built to live on your phone or computer first. Unless you share a hunt or turn on Back up my hunts to my account, your hunts, saved spots (including exact map pins), field comments, and hunt photos stay in storage on that device. They work offline. We cannot see a hunt that exists only on your device.

Also stored on your device, not on our servers:

Moon phase is calculated on your device. We do not use advertising cookies. The storage above is there so the app can work, not so we can track you across the web.

4. Your account and profile

If you sign in, you create an account with your email. We send a sign-in link or a one-time code to that email. We do not use a password. Your sign-in email is never shown to other hunters.

You can add a screen name, optional chat photo, home state, a short About me (including optional answers such as hunt types, experience, and whether you hunt with a dog), an Intro (home area and favorite species), and a cover photo. You choose who can see each Intro item: everyone on The Spread, friends only, or only you. Personal info is never shown, whatever you pick.

In Settings you may also save personal info that only you can see: full name, email, optional phone, optional birthday, home state, and city. It is never shown on your profile, to friends, or in chat.

Friends can see an optional “online” dot if you leave that setting on. They see that you are online right now, not a last-seen time. You can turn the dot off.

5. Hunts, spots, photos, and sharing

A hunt you log can include the hunt type (for example waterfowl, deer, turkey, or upland), date and time, species, drake and hen counts and other counts, success, weather (temperature, wind, pressure, rain, clouds), moon phase, a map pin and saved spot name, field comments, and photos. Tide is not a field in the app today; if we add it later, it would be treated like other conditions.

Weather is filled in by asking Open-Meteo for conditions at a latitude, longitude, and date. We do not send your name or account with that request. You can edit the weather by hand; if you do, the app notes that it was edited. Map imagery comes from Esri or OpenTopoMap when you view a map, and those tile requests reflect the area you are looking at.

Photos. Before a photo leaves your phone, the app re-encodes it and strips metadata, including EXIF GPS. Location is not kept in the photo file we store or send. This applies to hunt photos, chat photos, and photos in direct messages.

Sharing is your call. Nothing from your log is shared unless you share it. A shared hunt card can include species, counts, date, time, weather, moon, a short caption, and a general area name you choose. Exact map pins, spot names, and field comments are not included in that card. Shared hunt photos, if you attach them, also have location metadata stripped.

Include exact location is off by default. If you switch it on for one share, your exact pin goes only to the friends you pick for that share. It never goes to state chat rooms or public posts. You can stop sharing, which removes the share and the exact pin from our servers for that share.

Account backup is on by default for signed-in accounts. You can turn it off any time in Settings → Your data. When it is on, we store a private copy of your hunts, spots (including exact pins), field comments, and hunt photos so you can restore them on another phone or browser. Only you can open that copy. Friends, chat rooms, and other users cannot see it. Your private backup, including exact pins, still stays visible only to you. We show a notice at sign-up or first sign-in, and we do not upload anything until that notice has been shown. Signed-out use does not upload hunts. When backup is on, de-identified animal and condition data from every backed-up hunt is used automatically for conservation and research, as described in section 6. There is no separate switch to opt out of that use. If you do not want those hunts used that way, turn backup off or use Delete my account backup. Turning backup off or deleting the backup stops future hunts from being used; wildlife records already created stay anonymous.

6. Wildlife data for conservation

Hunting logs can help conservation if the people are taken out of the picture. That is our aim.

This is automatic for every backed-up hunt. When account backup is on, you grant The Spread L.L.C the right to collect, create, keep, and use de-identified, aggregated hunt and animal data from every hunt included in that backup. There is no separate opt-out switch for wildlife data. The only way to stop new hunts from being used this way is to turn backup off or delete your account backup. Turning backup off or deleting the backup stops future hunts from being used; wildlife records already created stay anonymous. Hunts that you keep only on your phone, and that you never backed up or shared, are not used.

A hunt you share is also stored on our servers, and we may create the same kind of de-identified wildlife record from a shared hunt.

A wildlife record may include:

That wildlife record does not include your name, email, phone, birthday, city, screen name, account, photos, messages, field comments, or exact coordinates. It is not tied back to you.

We use this wildlife data for conservation, wildlife research, and to help understand environmental or disaster impacts. We may share it with researchers or agencies in this de-identified form only. We may also publish or share aggregated statistics, for example totals or trends by state or flyway. We do not sell this wildlife data, and we do not sell the personal information we kept out of it.

Who owns the wildlife data. Your hunt logs, photos, comments, and posts stay yours. The de-identified wildlife and harvest records we create from backed-up and shared hunts, the totals and statistics made from them, our owner dashboard, and any compilations, databases, or reports derived from them are the exclusive property of The Spread L.L.C. By backing up or sharing a hunt, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free right to create those records, and you agree that the records and totals belong to The Spread L.L.C. They contain no personal information. We may use and keep them, and share them in aggregate or de-identified form, for conservation and research. We never sell your personal information.

Because a de-identified wildlife record cannot be tied back to you, we keep it even if you later delete that hunt from your log, delete a hunt you shared, delete your account, turn backup off, or delete your account backup. Editing a backed-up hunt updates its wildlife record. Turning backup off or deleting your account backup stops future hunts from being added; deleting a hunt, a share, a backup, or your account does not remove wildlife records already created.

Hunts already in your account backup count too. When we start creating wildlife records, we will create them from every hunt already backed up at that time, as well as from hunts backed up or shared afterward.

How this works: account backup stores a private copy of your hunts for you, including exact pins, visible only to you. From each backed-up or shared hunt we create a separate de-identified wildlife record that has no account, name, email, screen name, photo, spot name, comment, caption, or exact pin in it. For a backed-up hunt with a pin, the pin is used only to work out the state and is then rounded to the center of a grid square about one mile across; only that rounded point is kept. Shared hunt cards carry the state only, with no map point. Species typed by hand are stored as “Other.” To avoid counting the same hunt twice, each record carries a one-way scrambled code made with a secret key that only our database holds; it is not your account number and is never shown in the app. Wildlife records are visible only to The Spread L.L.C, and we publish only totals for groups of at least five hunts.

7. Chat, messages, and friends

If you use Social, we store your screen name, messages, optional photos, likes, and comments in state Duck Tales rooms, the Testers room, and in direct messages with people you message. Friend requests and friend connections are stored so you can find each other and share hunts.

If you delete your account, messages you sent in direct messages and in shared rooms stay visible to the other person or people in that thread, attributed to “Deleted user” — not your name or photo. The message text you wrote stays; photos and exact locations are removed. People cannot message the deleted account or add it as a friend.

You can block someone from a message, post, or conversation, or manage the list in Settings → Blocked users. If you block someone, you will not see their posts or comments, and they cannot send you direct messages or friend requests. You can unblock them later.

You can report a message, comment, post, or direct message in the app, and you may include a short reason. We keep the report so we can review it. Reporting a direct message shares that one message with us for review. Official posts from The Spread may also appear in rooms or on the feed. Our Terms of Use explain our rules, how we review reports, and when we may remove content or ban an account.

8. Alerts and notifications

Alerts are off until you turn them on. If you turn on alerts in Settings → Notifications, we store a push subscription for that device and your preferences (messages and friend requests). An alert only says who it is from, such as “New message from DemoDrake.” It never includes the message itself, a photo, a hunt, or a location.

You can turn alerts off for this device in Settings → Notifications, or turn off just messages or just friend requests. You can also turn off notifications for The Spread in your phone or browser settings. To deliver an alert, we use the push service that comes with your browser or phone (for example Apple, Google, or Mozilla).

9. Services we use to run the app

We do not invent a list of marketing vendors. These are the services the app actually uses:

These companies process information only as needed to provide those functions. The home page does not load a third-party script until you choose to sign in.

10. Your choices and deletion

You can:

Delete my account backup in Settings → Your data only deletes the private cloud copy of your hunts, spots, and hunt photos. It does not close your account, and it does not delete your profile, messages, or other account information. Hunts stored on your phone are kept.

You can delete your account in the app: go to Settings → Account and choose Delete account. You will be asked to type DELETE to confirm. That removes your account, personal info, profile, friends list, posts of yours that are not kept for the other person, photos, backups, and push subscriptions. Messages you sent in private chats and in shared threads stay visible to the other person, attributed to “Deleted user” — not your name or photo. The message text you wrote stays; photos and exact locations are removed. The other person cannot message you or add you as a friend. You can also email brandon@usethespread.com and tell us the email on the account; we will complete an email request within 30 days. We may keep something for a short time to complete a deletion, prevent abuse, or meet a legal duty. Anonymous wildlife records, as described in section 6, are kept after your account is deleted, because they cannot be linked to you.

We will also honor a request to say what personal information we have about you, or to correct it, at the same email, within 30 days.

11. Children

The Spread is for hunters age 18 and older. The app is not for anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. Accounts found to belong to users under 18 may be removed. If you believe an account belongs to someone under 18, email us and we will delete the account. You are also responsible for following the hunting age and licensing laws that apply to you.

12. Changes and how to contact us

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top of this page. If a change is material, we may also note it in the app or by email. Continued use after an update means you accept the revised policy. If you do not agree, stop using the app and request deletion of your account.

Questions, support, privacy requests, or complaints: brandon@usethespread.com
The Spread L.L.C
8409 McKee Rd N
Irvington, AL 36544

This policy is governed by the laws of the State of Alabama, not including conflict-of-law rules.