Privacy Policy

Effective Date: June 17, 2025

Last Updated: June 17, 2025

Grip Culture (“Grip Culture,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) respects your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, store, and protect information when you access or use the Grip Culture website, platform, software, profiles, academy tools, tournament tools, organizer tools, and related services (collectively, the “Service”).

By using the Service, you agree to the practices described in this Privacy Policy.

If you do not agree with this Privacy Policy, do not use the Service.

1. Adult Accounts Only

Grip Culture user accounts are only available to individuals who are at least 18 years old.

We do not allow minors under 18 to create their own Grip Culture user accounts.

Adults may create or manage athlete profiles for minors or other managed athletes when they are legally authorized to do so. These profiles are not independent user accounts for the minor athlete.

If you create or manage a minor athlete profile, you represent that you are the parent, legal guardian, authorized coach, academy representative, manager, or other adult authorized to provide and manage that information.

2. Information We Collect

We may collect the following categories of information.

A. Account Information

When you create or use a Grip Culture account, we may collect:

  • Name.
  • Last name.
  • Email address.
  • Password or authentication credentials.
  • Phone number, if provided.
  • Date of birth or age confirmation.
  • Location information, such as city, state, country, or address, if provided.
  • Profile image or avatar.
  • Account role, such as athlete, coach, academy owner, organizer, referee, admin, parent, guardian, or managed profile manager.
  • Account status, verification status, and permissions.
  • Login and account activity information.

B. Athlete Profile Information

For athlete profiles, including managed athlete profiles, we may collect:

  • Athlete name.
  • Display name.
  • Date of birth or age.
  • Gender or division-related information, if used for competition.
  • Weight.
  • Rank, belt, or martial arts level.
  • Academy affiliation.
  • Coach or team affiliation.
  • Profile photo or avatar.
  • Tournament registrations.
  • Tournament results.
  • Match records.
  • Medals, wins, losses, submissions, points, rankings, or team statistics.
  • Managed athlete status.
  • Responsible adult, parent, guardian, manager, or account relationship information.
  • Emergency contact information, if provided.

C. Minor Athlete Information

If an adult user creates or manages a profile for a minor athlete, we may collect information about that minor athlete as provided by the adult user.

This may include:

  • Name.
  • Age or date of birth.
  • Rank or belt.
  • Weight.
  • Academy affiliation.
  • Tournament-related information.
  • Profile photo or avatar.
  • Results, rankings, medals, and competition history.
  • Responsible adult or emergency contact information, when provided.

Grip Culture does not allow minors to create their own accounts. Information about minors must be provided and managed by an adult who represents that they are authorized to do so.

D. Academy Information

When users create, join, manage, or interact with academies, we may collect:

  • Academy name.
  • Logo.
  • Description.
  • Website.
  • Address.
  • City, state, country, and coordinates.
  • Contact information.
  • Person in charge or academy owner information.
  • Coaches, athletes, pending members, and approved members.
  • Academy verification status.
  • Academy membership status.
  • Academy statistics, rankings, tournament history, and public profile information.

E. Organizer and Tournament Information

When organizers use Grip Culture, we may collect:

  • Organizer account information.
  • Organizer role and permissions.
  • Tournament name.
  • Tournament description.
  • Tournament date, time, location, venue, and schedule.
  • Divisions, rules, brackets, registrations, results, medals, rankings, and related tournament data.
  • Organizer contact information.
  • External payment links or payment instructions provided by the organizer.
  • Refund policy, cancellation policy, and other tournament terms provided by the organizer.
  • Organizer policy acceptance records.
  • Tournament publication and management activity.

F. Payment Information for Grip Culture Services

Grip Culture may charge organizers, academies, users, or other customers for access to paid platform features, subscriptions, software tools, organizer tools, academy tools, premium features, or other paid services.

If you purchase paid Grip Culture services, payment information may be processed by a third-party payment provider. Grip Culture does not store full credit card or payment card details on its servers.

Payments made directly to Grip Culture are separate from athlete tournament registration payments made externally to organizers.

Unless Grip Culture expressly states otherwise in writing, Grip Culture does not collect athlete tournament registration payments for organizer-created tournaments.

G. External Organizer Payment Information

Organizers may provide external payment links, websites, QR codes, invoices, third-party checkout pages, or payment instructions.

If you open or use an external payment link provided by an organizer, that payment occurs outside Grip Culture.

Grip Culture does not control, process, receive, store, or manage payment card information submitted through external organizer payment links.

We may record that you clicked or opened an external payment link, accepted an external payment warning, or interacted with tournament registration information, but we do not receive the payment details submitted to the external provider unless that provider separately shares limited information with us under a separate arrangement.

H. Communications

We may collect communications and related information, including:

  • Emails sent to or from Grip Culture.
  • Support requests.
  • Reports of suspicious activity.
  • Tournament complaints.
  • Academy complaints.
  • Verification requests.
  • Policy acceptance confirmations.
  • Notifications and messages sent through the platform, if applicable.

I. Device, Usage, and Technical Information

When you use the Service, we may automatically collect:

  • IP address.
  • Browser type.
  • Device type.
  • Operating system.
  • Pages viewed.
  • Features used.
  • Access times.
  • Referring URLs.
  • Approximate location based on IP address.
  • Session activity.
  • Error logs.
  • Security logs.
  • Cookie and analytics information.
  • Interactions with buttons, forms, links, profiles, tournaments, academies, and platform features.

J. Location Information

We may collect location information when you provide it, such as academy address, tournament venue, city, country, or coordinates.

If location tools, maps, or address search features are used, third-party map or geolocation providers may process information according to their own policies.

3. How We Use Information

We use information to operate, provide, protect, and improve the Service.

This includes using information to:

  • Create and manage user accounts.
  • Verify age eligibility for adult accounts.
  • Manage roles and permissions.
  • Create and manage athlete profiles.
  • Create and manage managed athlete profiles.
  • Create, display, and manage academy profiles.
  • Create, display, and manage tournament information.
  • Support organizers, coaches, athletes, academies, referees, and admins.
  • Display tournament registrations, brackets, schedules, results, rankings, medals, and statistics.
  • Display academy team stats, athlete rosters, tournament history, and public information.
  • Communicate with users about accounts, profiles, tournaments, academies, policies, verification, security, or support.
  • Send service-related emails, alerts, and notifications.
  • Process payments made directly to Grip Culture for paid services.
  • Maintain records of policy acceptance.
  • Review academies, organizers, tournaments, and suspicious activity.
  • Detect, prevent, investigate, and respond to fraud, abuse, platform misuse, security incidents, or policy violations.
  • Enforce our Terms of Service and other policies.
  • Improve product features, performance, reliability, and user experience.
  • Comply with legal obligations.
  • Respond to lawful requests, court orders, subpoenas, law enforcement, regulators, or legal process.
  • Protect the rights, safety, and integrity of Grip Culture, users, minors, athletes, academies, organizers, and the platform.

4. Public and Shared Information

Some information on Grip Culture may be publicly visible or visible to other users.

This may include:

  • Academy names, logos, locations, websites, descriptions, status, stats, and rosters.
  • Athlete names, avatars, ranks, age categories, weight divisions, academies, tournament results, medals, rankings, wins, losses, and match history.
  • Coach names, academy roles, and profile information.
  • Tournament names, dates, venues, divisions, schedules, brackets, results, rankings, organizer information, and related event information.
  • Team statistics and tournament history.
  • Public or semi-public competition data.

If you manage information for another person, including a managed minor athlete, you are responsible for confirming that you have authority to submit and manage that information.

Grip Culture may limit, hide, remove, or restrict information when necessary for safety, privacy, legal compliance, dispute resolution, or platform integrity.

5. How We Share Information

We may share information in the following ways.

A. With Other Users

We may share profile, academy, tournament, role, ranking, and competition-related information with other users as part of the normal operation of the Service.

For example:

  • Organizers may see athlete registration information.
  • Coaches and academy owners may see academy member information.
  • Referees or admins may see tournament-related information.
  • Athletes, coaches, academies, and public visitors may see public profiles, rankings, academy pages, and tournament pages.

B. With Service Providers

We may share information with vendors and service providers who help us operate the Service, including:

  • Hosting providers.
  • Database providers.
  • Email providers.
  • Analytics providers.
  • Customer support tools.
  • Payment processors for payments made directly to Grip Culture.
  • Security and fraud prevention providers.
  • Map, location, or address providers.
  • File storage and image hosting providers.
  • Development, infrastructure, and monitoring tools.

These providers may process information only as needed to provide services to us, subject to their agreements and policies.

C. With Payment Providers for Grip Culture Services

If you purchase paid Grip Culture services, payment information may be processed by our payment provider.

Grip Culture does not store full payment card details on its servers.

D. With Organizers

If you interact with a tournament, register interest, appear in brackets, participate in event workflows, or use tournament features, relevant information may be shared with the organizer.

This may include athlete name, academy, rank, age or division information, weight, registration details, bracket placement, results, and related tournament data.

E. With Academies and Coaches

If you join, request to join, manage, or are associated with an academy, relevant information may be shared with academy owners, coaches, or authorized academy representatives.

This may include profile information, membership status, pending requests, athlete information, rank, contact information when appropriate, and academy-related data.

F. With Legal Authorities

We may disclose information when we believe disclosure is necessary to:

  • Comply with law.
  • Respond to court orders, subpoenas, legal process, regulators, or law enforcement.
  • Protect rights, safety, minors, users, or the public.
  • Investigate fraud, abuse, threats, or illegal activity.
  • Enforce our Terms and policies.
  • Protect Grip Culture’s platform, systems, users, or business.

G. Business Transfers

If Grip Culture is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, sale of assets, restructuring, or similar transaction, information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to applicable law.

6. External Payment Links

Organizer-created tournaments may include external payment links or payment instructions.

Grip Culture does not process payments made through external organizer payment links unless expressly stated otherwise in writing.

If you click an external payment link, you may leave the Grip Culture platform and interact with a third-party website, payment provider, or organizer-controlled checkout process.

Those third parties have their own privacy policies and terms. Grip Culture is not responsible for their privacy practices, payment practices, refunds, security, content, or conduct.

Before submitting information or payment externally, review the organizer’s information, payment provider, refund policy, cancellation policy, and privacy terms.

7. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

We may use cookies, local storage, analytics tools, and similar technologies to:

  • Keep you logged in.
  • Remember preferences.
  • Improve performance.
  • Understand usage.
  • Analyze traffic.
  • Detect fraud or abuse.
  • Improve security.
  • Support platform functionality.

You can control cookies through your browser settings. Disabling cookies may affect some features of the Service.

8. Analytics

We may use analytics tools to understand how users interact with the Service.

Analytics information may include pages visited, time spent, device type, browser type, approximate location, feature usage, and technical events.

We use this information to improve the Service, fix issues, measure performance, and understand platform usage.

9. Data Retention

We keep information for as long as reasonably necessary to provide the Service, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, enforce agreements, maintain records, prevent fraud, protect users, and operate the platform.

Retention periods may vary depending on the type of information.

For example:

  • Account information may be retained while your account is active.
  • Tournament results, rankings, medals, and competition history may be retained as part of historical sports records.
  • Academy and tournament records may be retained for platform integrity and dispute resolution.
  • Payment records for paid Grip Culture services may be retained as required by tax, accounting, or legal obligations.
  • Security logs may be retained to detect and prevent abuse.
  • Policy acceptance records may be retained to prove consent and agreement.

You may request deletion of certain information, but we may retain information when necessary for legal, security, fraud prevention, dispute resolution, legitimate business, or historical competition record purposes.

10. Data Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational measures designed to protect information from unauthorized access, misuse, loss, alteration, or disclosure.

However, no method of transmission or storage is completely secure.

You are responsible for protecting your account credentials and notifying us if you believe your account has been compromised.

11. Your Choices and Rights

Depending on your location and applicable law, you may have rights to:

  • Access personal information we hold about you.
  • Correct inaccurate information.
  • Delete certain information.
  • Request a copy of certain information.
  • Object to or restrict certain processing.
  • Withdraw consent where processing is based on consent.
  • Opt out of certain communications.
  • Request information about how we share personal information.

You can update some information directly through your account or profile settings.

To submit a privacy request, contact us using the contact information below.

We may need to verify your identity before responding to certain requests.

12. State Privacy Rights

Certain U.S. state privacy laws may provide additional rights to residents of those states, depending on whether those laws apply to Grip Culture.

These rights may include access, deletion, correction, portability, opt-out of sale or sharing, opt-out of targeted advertising, opt-out of certain profiling, and appeal rights.

Grip Culture does not sell personal information in the traditional sense of exchanging personal information for money.

If Grip Culture uses advertising or analytics tools that may be considered “sharing” or “targeted advertising” under certain privacy laws, we will provide applicable choices where required.

13. Children and Minor Athlete Profiles

Grip Culture user accounts are only for individuals 18 or older.

Grip Culture does not knowingly allow individuals under 18 to create their own accounts.

Adults may create or manage athlete profiles for minors if they are authorized to do so.

If we learn that a person under 18 created their own user account, we may suspend or delete that account.

If we learn that information about a minor was submitted without proper authorization, we may restrict, remove, or require verification for that profile.

Parents or legal guardians may contact us to request review, correction, or deletion of minor athlete information, subject to legal, safety, fraud prevention, dispute resolution, and legitimate platform record needs.

14. Communications

We may send you service-related communications, including:

  • Account notices.
  • Security notices.
  • Policy updates.
  • Tournament-related notifications.
  • Academy-related notifications.
  • Verification notices.
  • Support responses.
  • Billing notices for paid Grip Culture services.
  • Administrative messages.

You may also receive optional marketing or promotional communications if you have opted in or where permitted by law.

You can unsubscribe from marketing emails, but you may still receive service-related messages.

15. International Users

Grip Culture is operated from the United States.

If you access the Service from outside the United States, you understand that information may be processed and stored in the United States or other locations where our service providers operate.

Privacy laws in these locations may differ from the laws in your country.

16. Data Accuracy

Users are responsible for keeping account, profile, academy, tournament, and managed athlete information accurate and updated.

If you believe information on Grip Culture is inaccurate, outdated, unauthorized, or misleading, you may contact us or use available platform tools to request correction or review.

17. Third-Party Links and Services

The Service may contain links to third-party websites, organizer payment pages, academy websites, social media pages, maps, external forms, or other services.

Grip Culture is not responsible for the privacy practices, content, security, payment practices, or conduct of third-party services.

Review the privacy policy and terms of any third-party service before providing information or making payments.

18. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time.

When changes are material, we may provide notice through the Service, email, account notification, or other reasonable means.

Your continued use of the Service after the updated Privacy Policy becomes effective means you accept the updated Privacy Policy.

19. Contact Us

If you have questions, concerns, or requests related to this Privacy Policy, contact us at:

gripcultureapp@gmail.com

[Insert business address, if applicable]

20. Acceptance

By using Grip Culture, creating an account, managing a profile, managing a minor athlete profile, creating or managing an academy, creating or managing a tournament, using organizer tools, or continuing to access the Service, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy.