Privacy Policy

Effective July 18, 2026

isthebest.com is a community ranking site built around a simple idea: you should be able to vote without creating an account or handing over your identity. This policy describes exactly what we collect, why, and what we never do.

What we collect

• An anonymous device identifier. When you visit, our infrastructure (AWS Cognito) issues your browser an anonymous identity that persists in a cookie. It contains no name, email, or profile — it exists so that “one vote per person per ranking” works without a sign-up. Clearing your browser data resets it.
• Votes and contributions. Your active vote in each ranking, and any topics, places, or answers you add. Contributions are public; individual votes are never displayed — only aggregate counts.
• Abuse-prevention signals. We record a one-way hash of your IP address alongside votes and apply rate limits by device and network. This is what keeps rankings honest. We do not store your raw IP with your votes.
• Usage analytics. We use Google Analytics (GA4) to understand which rankings people visit. Google Analytics sets cookies and collects usage data as described in Google's privacy policy. You can opt out with the GA opt-out browser add-on.
• Optional account email. Accounts are entirely optional and not required for anything today. If you create one, we store the email address you sign up with, and nothing else about you.

What we don't do

• We don't require an account to vote, ask questions, or add answers.
• We don't sell or rent personal information. To anyone. Ever.
• We don't build advertising profiles of you or track you across other sites.
• We don't display who voted for what — votes are aggregate-only.
• We don't store databases about the places that appear in rankings — “Map” links hand you to Google Maps or Apple Maps, which operate under their own privacy policies once you're there.

Advertising

The site reserves space for standard display ads and may introduce them (e.g. Google AdSense) in the future. If we do, ad providers may use cookies as described in their own policies, and we'll update this page before that happens.

Data retention

Vote records are retained to keep rankings accurate and to allow retroactive removal of fraudulent voting. Anonymous identifiers persist until you clear your browser storage. If you created an account, you can request its deletion at any time.

Children

isthebest.com is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.

Changes & contact

We'll update this page if our practices change, and material changes will be noted here with a new effective date. Questions or requests: info@isthebest.com. See also our Terms of Service.