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Cookd

Privacy policy

Cookd Ventures Private Limited. Last checked 2026-10-02.

WHO WE ARE

Cookd is run by Cookd Ventures Private Limited, a company registered in India, with its office at AWFIS Building, Rajiv Gandhi Salai, OMR, Kandanchavadi, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600096. "Cookd", "we", "us" and "our" mean Cookd Ventures Private Limited. "You" means anyone who uses the Cookd app, the Cookd website at cookdtv.com, or both.

One account serves both: signing in with the same phone number on the app and on the website reaches the same saved recipes, tips and orders.

HOW YOU SIGN IN

Cookd has no passwords. You sign in with your mobile number, and we send a one-time code by SMS through our messaging provider, MSG91, to confirm it is you. We do not ask for, and do not store, a password of any kind.

Cookd is for people aged 18 and over. When you sign in on the website, we ask you to confirm you are 18 or older.

WHAT WE COLLECT AND WHY

Information you give us directly:

  • Your mobile number, to create your account and sign you in.
  • Your name and email address, if you choose to add them to your profile.
  • A profile photo, if you choose to add one.
  • Your diet (vegetarian, eggetarian or non-vegetarian) and any allergens you tell us about, used only to filter and hide recipes that do not suit you. We treat allergy information carefully because it can reveal something about your health, even though you give it to us for a plain cooking reason.
  • Recipes you save, mark as cooked, like or dislike, and recipes you view — this is what lets "Saved", "Recently viewed" and "Cook with what I have" work, and it is also used, in aggregate and without your name attached, to show counts like "62 cooked this" on a recipe.
  • Tips you post about a recipe: the text you write and any photos you attach.
  • Messages you send us directly, for instance over WhatsApp or email, when you ask for help.

Information we collect automatically:

  • A device identifier, so we can apply sign-in limits per device, and so we can link what you did on that device before you signed in to your account when you sign in.
  • Standard technical information any website or app receives, such as your IP address, and on the app your device make, model, operating system and app version.
  • How you use Cookd — pages and recipes viewed, searches, cooking, saving, rating, sharing, masalas viewed, masalas added to cart, and signing in. We keep this record ourselves, described under What we record about how you use Cookd below.

If you use the app specifically:

  • The camera, only at the moment you choose to take a photo for a tip, for a "cooked it" photo, or for your profile photo. Cookd does not access your camera at any other time.
  • Photos, chosen through your phone's own photo picker — the app does not hold blanket access to your photo library.
  • A push-notification token, only if you allow notifications. The app asks for that permission after you sign in, not before, and only stores a token if you say yes.
  • Crash and performance information if the app crashes or runs slowly, so we can fix it.

We do not collect your contacts, your precise location, or anything from your microphone, on either the app or the website. We do work out your approximate location (city, region and country) from your IP address, as described below.

WHAT WE RECORD ABOUT HOW YOU USE COOKD

We keep our own record of what people do on the Cookd website and app. This helps us see what people like, fix what does not work, and tell people about Cookd recipes and masalas they may want.

The record includes:

  • pages and recipes you view
  • what you search for
  • cooking, saving and sharing
  • masalas you view and add to your cart
  • when you sign in

Each item is tied to your device. On the website, this uses the cookd_device cookie. Once you sign in, we link your earlier activity on that device to your account.

Approximate location. When a record arrives, we work out your city, region and country from your IP address. We keep only the city, region and country. We do not store your IP address in this record. The location data comes from IP Geolocation by DB-IP ("IP to City Lite", licensed under CC BY 4.0).

ORDERS AND SHOPPING

If you have ordered a Cookd pack, we look up your past orders by matching the phone number on your Cookd account to the phone number on the order, so you can see your order history and reorder. Buying itself always happens on our shop at shop.cookdtv.com, which is run on Shopify — a separate service with its own account and its own privacy practices for whatever you type into checkout there (name, delivery address, payment details). Cookd never sees or stores your payment details; we have never asked for a card number, and we do not have one to lose.

WHO WE SHARE INFORMATION WITH

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with the services below, each for a specific job. Some of them help us run Cookd. Meta helps us with advertising:

  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) — hosts Cookd's servers and stores Cookd's data, in AWS's Mumbai, India region.
  • MSG91 — sends the SMS with your one-time sign-in code to your phone number.
  • OpenAI — checks the text and photos in a tip you post, before it is shown to anyone else, for things like harassment, hate speech and unsafe images. OpenAI is also used, without any of your personal data, to help draft recipe descriptions, translations and ingredient suggestions.
  • Google Analytics (on the website) and Firebase (Google's equivalent inside the app) — help us understand how Cookd is used and diagnose crashes. See Analytics below.
  • Shopify, and inside the app, its checkout partner ShopFlo — run our shop and your checkout, as described under Orders and shopping above.
  • Meta (Facebook and Instagram) — helps us measure our ads and show Cookd ads and offers. See Facebook and Instagram ads below.
  • CustomerLabs — on our shop (shop.cookdtv.com), tells Meta when a purchase is made.
  • KwikEngage — sends our WhatsApp messages, including marketing messages if you have agreed to them.
  • Firebase Cloud Messaging (Google) — delivers app notifications, if you allow them.

We may also share information if the law requires it, or to protect the rights, property or safety of Cookd, our users or the public.

ANALYTICS, CRASH REPORTS AND ADVERTISING

On the website, we use Google Analytics 4 to record page views and named actions — for example signing up, saving a recipe, posting a tip or clicking through to the shop — so we can see what is useful and what is not. Google signals and advertising personalisation are switched off for Google Analytics, so Google does not use these visits for advertising or link them to your Google account. Meta's tools are separate, and are described under Facebook and Instagram ads below.

On the app, we use Firebase Analytics for the same kind of usage information, and Firebase Crashlytics to learn about crashes and performance problems. Firebase's own advertising signals are switched off in the app. Separately, the app has Meta's tools for measuring our ads. On iPhone, they work only if you allow tracking when Apple asks. See Facebook and Instagram ads below.

We run ads for Cookd on Facebook and Instagram. Unless you tell us not to, we use what you do on Cookd to measure those ads, and to show Cookd ads and offers to people who may like them, including people who use Cookd but have not bought. We do not sell your data to anyone.

FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM ADS (META)

We advertise Cookd on Facebook and Instagram, which are run by Meta. We use Meta's tools to do two things: to measure whether our ads work, and to show Cookd ads and offers to people who may be interested. This includes people who use Cookd but have not bought a Cookd masala yet.

We use three Meta tools:

  • The Meta Pixel on our website. It runs when you visit our website. To stop it, tap "Don't share with Meta" at the bottom of any page.
  • The Meta tools inside our app. On iPhone, they run only if you tap Allow when Apple asks if Cookd may track you. If you tap Ask App Not to Track, we send nothing to Meta from your iPhone.
  • Our own server. It sends Meta some of the same actions, such as viewing a masala or adding it to the cart.

What Meta may receive: the actions above, your device or browser details, and technical details such as your IP address and browser. If you are signed in, we may also send your mobile number to Meta in a scrambled (hashed) form, so Meta can match you to your Facebook or Instagram account. Meta cannot read your number from the hashed form, but Meta can match it against numbers it already has.

Meta uses this data under its own privacy policy. It has its own controls for the ads you see, in your Facebook and Instagram settings.

Our shop. When you buy on our shop (shop.cookdtv.com), the shop also tells Meta about the purchase, through a service called CustomerLabs. We use this to measure our ads.

MARKETING MESSAGES AND NOTIFICATIONS

We may use your mobile number, your app and your activity on Cookd to tell you about Cookd recipes and masalas. We may do this by WhatsApp message, app notification or ads. For example, we may tell you about a new recipe, or about a Cookd masala that goes with a recipe you cooked.

We send these only if you have agreed. You can stop them at any time, as described below. Messages about your own orders, and your sign-in code, are not marketing. We will still send them.

HOW TO SAY NO OR CHANGE YOUR MIND

You can say no at any time, in one tap. When you stop, we stop sharing your data with Meta from that point on. We cannot take back what Meta already received, but you can ask Meta to delete it in your Facebook or Instagram settings.

  • Website: tap "Don't share with Meta" at the bottom of any page. We stop the Meta Pixel, remove Meta's cookies, and stop sending your website activity to Meta from our server. To share again later, tap the same link, which then reads "Share with Meta".
  • iPhone: tap Ask App Not to Track when Apple asks. To change it later, go to iPhone Settings, then Privacy and Security, then Tracking, and turn Cookd off.
  • App notifications: turn them off in your phone's Settings, under Cookd, Notifications.
  • WhatsApp messages: reply STOP to any marketing message, or ask our support on WhatsApp to stop them.
  • Delete your account: go to cookdtv.com/delete-account. We will not send you marketing after that.

If you stop, you can still use all of Cookd.

COOKIES ON THE WEBSITE

The Cookd website uses a small number of cookies:

  • cookd_session — keeps you signed in. It cannot be read by any script on the page, only by our server, and lasts up to a year or until you sign out.
  • cookd_signed_in — a flag with no secret information in it, so the page can show your account menu straight away without asking our server first. Same lifetime as cookd_session.
  • cookd_device — identifies your browser, not you personally, for the sign-in limits and for the record of what you do on Cookd described above. When you sign in, we link it to your account. Lasts up to a year.
  • cookd_lang — remembers which language (English, Tamil or Hindi) you chose to read recipes in. Lasts up to a year.
  • cookd_consent — remembers if you chose not to share with Meta. Lasts up to a year, or until you change your choice.

If Google Analytics is active for your visit, it sets its own cookies (typically named things like _ga and _ga_<id>) to tell one visit from another. Meta's tools set cookies too (named _fbp and _fbc) to measure our ads and show Cookd ads. If you tap "Don't share with Meta", we remove them and do not set them again.

HOW LONG WE KEEP INFORMATION

We keep the record of what you do on Cookd (described above) for 24 months, then delete it. If you delete your account, we delete that record too, and unlink your device from your account. We keep your account information for as long as your account exists. If you delete your account — described in full, with the exact list of what is deleted and what is kept, at cookdtv.com/delete-account — we delete your personal information from our live systems straight away, other than:

  • Counts like "62 cooked this" or "92% would make this again", which stay on the recipe with nothing left that identifies you.
  • Copies of our database kept as backups. We keep backups for 90 days and then delete them, so your data is gone from every backup within 90 days of your deletion request, even though it is removed from the live system straight away.
  • Financial records — such as invoices and payment records — which we keep for 8 years. Cookd is an Indian company, and Indian tax and GST rules require records like these to be kept for up to 8 years. We delete them once that period ends.

The cookies described above expire on the schedule given for each one, or sooner if you clear them or sign out.

YOUR RIGHTS, AND DELETING YOUR ACCOUNT

Under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and as a matter of how Cookd is built regardless of law, you can:

  • See and correct your name, email, diet and allergen information at any time, in your profile on the app or at cookdtv.com/account.
  • Delete your account and the personal information tied to it, from the app or from cookdtv.com/delete-account — no need to have the app installed.
  • Say no to marketing use of your data, or change your mind later, as described under How to say no or change your mind above.
  • Ask us a question about any of this, or raise a concern, using the contact details below.

Saying no to marketing. You can stop us using your data for marketing, including sharing it with Meta, at any time, using the steps under How to say no or change your mind. To ask a question or make a complaint about this, under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, write to the Grievance Officer named at the bottom of this page.

CHILDREN

Cookd is for people aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone younger.

If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has used Cookd and given us their information, contact us at support@cookdtv.com and we will delete it.

SECURITY

We do not store passwords, because Cookd does not have any. Your session is kept in a cookie or token your device sends us; it is not readable by other scripts on a page, and signing out, or deleting your account, ends it everywhere.

CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

We may update this policy as Cookd changes. The date at the top of this page is when it was last checked against how Cookd actually works, and we will let you know of any change that matters through the app or the website.

GRIEVANCE OFFICER AND CONTACT

For any question about this policy, or to exercise any of the rights above, write to us at support@cookdtv.com.

Grievance Officer (named in accordance with the Information Technology Act, 2000, and its rules):

Name — Vijay
Phone — 8838612910
Email — vijay@cookdtv.com