1. Introduction

Welcome to Ugly Melon. We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data. This Privacy Policy explains how Ugly Melon ("we", "us", or "Ugly Melon") collects, uses, and protects your personal data when you use our marketplace website and mobile application.

2. The Data Controller

We are the data controller responsible for your personal data. If you have any questions about this privacy policy or wish to exercise your legal rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer at [to be inserted].

Under UK law, you have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK regulator for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO.

3. The Data We Collect About You

We may collect, use, store, and transfer different kinds of personal data about you, grouped as follows:

• •Identity Data: First name, last name, username, date of birth (to verify you are over 18), and business name (for Trades accounts).
• •Seller Tax & Identity Data: If you sell on Ugly Melon, your full legal name (or registered business name), your home or registered business address including postcode, your date of birth if you sell as an individual, your National Insurance number or a business tax reference, and your VAT number if you have one. We are legally required to collect and check these details.
• •Contact Data: Email address, billing address, and phone number.
• •Transaction & Listing Data: Details about the items you list, images you upload, search history, and interactions on the platform.
• •Technical Data: Internet protocol (IP) address, login data, browser type, time zone setting, and device signatures.
• •Profile & Communications Data: Your marketplace feedback/ratings, customer support queries, and the text-based contents of messages sent through our in-app chat system.

Important Note on Financial Data

Ugly Melon does not collect, store, or process your credit card, debit card, or bank account details. All financial processing is handled entirely by Stripe. When you connect a payment method or link your Stripe account, you provide that data directly to Stripe, whose use of your personal data is governed by their own privacy policy.

Seller Tax Details and HMRC Reporting

If you sell on Ugly Melon, UK law requires us, as the operator of a digital platform, to collect and check certain information about you and to report your sales to HMRC every year. This duty comes from the Platform Operators (Due Diligence and Reporting Requirements) Regulations 2023, so the collection of these details is a legal obligation rather than a choice we make.

We collect your full legal name (or registered business name), your home address or registered business address including the postcode, your date of birth if you sell as an individual, your National Insurance number or a business tax reference such as a Company Registration Number or Unique Taxpayer Reference, and your VAT number if you have one. A professional seller — a trade or business advertiser, a maker, or the holder of a paid seller account — is asked for these details before their advert or shop goes live. If you sell casually, we only ask once your sales in a calendar year reach the reporting threshold, and they are needed before you post again from then on; a casual seller who stays below that threshold is never asked.

By 31 January each year we report to HMRC, for each seller, their identity and tax details together with the total amount paid to them in the previous calendar year split into quarters, the number of sales, and the fees Ugly Melon has charged. We also give every seller a copy of their own reported information by the same deadline. Sellers who made fewer than 30 sales and took less than €2,000 (approximately £1,700) in a calendar year are not reported at all.

These details are visible only to you and to the Ugly Melon team, are shared with HMRC and nobody else, and are kept for five years after the end of the year they relate to. You can see and update them at any time in your account settings.

4. How and Why We Use Your Personal Data

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we use your data under the following legal bases:

• •To Perform a Contract: To register you as a user, facilitate in-app messaging, host your listings, and process platform listing/subscription fees.
• •Legitimate Interests: To moderate our messaging chat system to prevent off-platform scams, fraud, harassment, and prohibited listings, thereby ensuring platform safety.
• •Legal Obligation: To verify user age; to collect, check and report seller information to HMRC as required of digital platform operators; and to comply with UK tax, accounting, or law enforcement requests.

5. How We Share Your Personal Data

We do not sell your personal data. However, we must share your data with selected third parties to operate the marketplace:

• •Other Users: When you post a listing, your public profile information, listings, and location area are visible to other members. When you use the in-app chat, your messages are visible to the recipient.
• •Stripe: We share basic identity data via API integrations to allow you to connect your Stripe account and process buyer-to-seller transactions safely.
• •Service Providers: Third-party IT, hosting, and automated moderation software providers acting as data processors.
• •Regulators/Law Enforcement: We report seller identity details and yearly sales figures to HMRC as required by the digital platform reporting rules, and we may share information with UK authorities (such as HMRC or the police) where the law requires it.

6. Automated Message Monitoring

To protect our community from financial scams, fraud, and illegal trades, Ugly Melon uses automated tools to filter and monitor in-app messages. Our system automatically blocks hyperlinks, web addresses, and offensive phrases. If a message triggers a safety flag, it may be reviewed by an administrator to enforce our Terms of Service.

7. Data Retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, including satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, or reporting requirements. Typically, if you close your account, your visible data is deleted or anonymised immediately, though certain transaction logs are kept for up to 6 years to comply with UK tax laws. The seller identity and tax details we collect for HMRC reporting are kept for 5 years after the end of the year they relate to, as those rules require.

8. Your Legal Rights

Under the UK GDPR, you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• •Request access to your personal data (a "data subject access request").
• •Request correction of incomplete or inaccurate data.
• •Request erasure of your personal data (the "right to be forgotten").
• •Object to processing or request the restriction of processing of your data.
• •Request the transfer of your personal data to you or a third party.
• •Withdraw consent at any time where we rely on consent to process your data.

Exercising Your Rights

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at [to be inserted].