YAWK Privacy Policy

Meka Bear Industries, Inc. (“YAWK,” “we,” “us”) operates www.yawk.fun (the “Site”) and the YAWK web app at app.yawk.fun and mobile apps for iOS and Android (together, the “App”). YAWK is a community-powered live-scoring platform for youth sports. This Privacy Policy describes the information we collect, how we use and disclose it, and the choices available to account holders and parents or guardians. The Site and App are together referred to as the “Service.”

Our Terms of Service govern use of the Service. This Policy describes our privacy practices; it is not a substitute for any separate permission or consent required by law.

1. Information We Collect

Account information. When you register, we collect your name, email address, and phone number. If you choose Google or Facebook sign-in, we receive your name, email address, and the sign-in provider's account identifier. With Sign in with Apple, we receive Apple's account identifier for you, the email address on your Apple account or, if you choose to hide it, the private relay address Apple creates, and your name, which Apple provides only the first time you sign in.

Player information. An adult Roster Pass holder can add a player to a team roster and provide the player's name, jersey number, position, optional photo, and visibility settings. The adult may add themselves, their child, or another athlete for whom they have the necessary parent or guardian authorization. We do not ask for players' dates of birth or ages. On a team created with a Team Pass, a player is added only when their family accepts an invitation from one of the team's managers (see Team invitations below).

Teams and games. Team records include a name, sport, season, and venue. Game records can include scoring events, such as goals, assists, and penalties, and the accounts that reported or confirmed them. These records may relate to more than one player and account holder.

Game video and audio. Roster Pass holders may stream a game live from a camera or phone or upload a recording after it ends. We store the video, its audio, and information about who streamed or uploaded it, when, and for which game. Footage can show or capture the voices of players on both teams, officials, coaches, and spectators, including people without YAWK accounts or player profiles. Audio may include game sounds, crowd conversations, announcements, and music. We do not use facial recognition to identify people in game video.

Clips and Enhanced Highlights. We cut short clips around scoring plays reported by members and, for some plays, create automated Enhanced Highlights: a zoomed, slow-motion replay of the play. To produce an Enhanced Highlight, we send a few still images from around the play to Anthropic's Claude model through Amazon Bedrock, together with a fixed instruction asking only whether the scoring play is visible in them and where in the picture the net is. We do not separately send audio, player names, jersey-number fields, or information identifying the people in the frame as part of that request; the images themselves may show faces, uniforms, jersey numbers, signs, or other identifying details. The model is not asked to identify anyone, and its answer is used only to frame the replay. An Enhanced Highlight carries no names or photos of its own.

Viewing activity. When you watch a live stream, we record which stream you watched and when to manage concurrent viewing and investigate misuse.

Schedules and rosters you ask us to read. If you paste a schedule for automatic game entry, we send the text to Anthropic's Claude model through Amazon Bedrock to extract dates, times, and opponents after removing email addresses and phone numbers detected by our preprocessing. We send it with your team's name and sport and, where the team has them, its season, age group, and level. Other information in the text, including names, may still be transmitted. We do not store pasted schedule text or write it to server logs; our schedule-processing component logs only the count of email addresses and phone numbers removed, and it has no error-reporting SDK. You can check and correct the proposed games, and no games are created until you confirm them. See Sections 3 and 7 for provider processing and retention.

A manager of a team created with a Team Pass can paste a roster into Usher, our assistant, to invite families. We send the pasted text to Anthropic's Claude model through Amazon Bedrock in the United States, with the team's name and sport, to draft one invitation per child. Before sending it, we take out the email addresses and phone numbers our preprocessing detects; other information in the text, including children's and parents' names and jersey numbers, is still sent. The draft comes back to the manager with the email addresses put back in, and no invitation is created or sent until the manager checks it and confirms. We do not keep pasted roster text on our servers or write it to server logs. A manager can instead type each child and a parent's email address in directly; what a manager types is never sent to Usher or to Claude.

Household invitations. If you invite a household member, we collect the invited person's email address to send the invitation.

Team invitations. To invite a family to a team created with a Team Pass, a manager gives us a parent's email address and, if the manager chooses, the child's first and last name and jersey number, by typing them in or from a pasted roster as described above. We use them only to send the invitation, to show it to the parent and to the team's managers, and to let the family join with it. We email an invitation at most five times, and we do not write the full email address or the child's name to our server logs. Section 7 says when we delete an invitation.

Payments. Stripe processes Roster Pass payments on our website and Android app; Apple processes in-app purchases in the iOS app. Stripe also processes every Team Pass payment, which is made only in our web app. We do not receive or store credit card numbers. We keep records of Roster Passes, Team Passes, and the relevant processor's customer or transaction identifier.

Technical information. Our servers log IP addresses, browser type, request paths, and timestamps for security, debugging, and operation of the Service.

Marketing-site engagement. On www.yawk.fun only, the page sends our servers signals about whether the page rendered, whether app-download buttons came into view, scrolling distance, time open, and approximate browser-window size. Each pageview has a random token used for that pageview; it does not persist between visits. The signals do not set a cookie, store information on your device, or carry an account, device, or advertising identifier that persists between visits. We use them to assess whether visitors arriving from an advertisement can see the page. We do not use them in the App, share or sell them for advertising, or use them to build a cross-visit profile.

We do not collect precise device location data through the Service; venue information selected for teams or games is different from your device location. We do not use analytics SDKs, advertising trackers, tracking pixels, or cross-site or cross-app advertising tracking in the Site or App. The third-party code described in Sections 3 and 5 may load before you use its associated feature.

2. How We Use Information

We use the information described above to create and maintain accounts; provide live scoring, stats, Roster Passes, and household sharing; store, stream, and play game video for signed-in users; make scoring-play clips and Enhanced Highlights; process payments; send login codes, receipts, household invitations, team invitations, notices to a family removed from a team, game recaps, security and account alerts, and information about features available to your account; protect the Service against abuse; comply with law; and improve the Service. You may turn off game recap emails and push notifications as described in Section 6.

We do not sell personal information or share it with advertisers. We do not use player information, game content, or game video to train our own artificial-intelligence models. Schedule and roster reading is initiated only when you submit a schedule or roster for that feature. Schedule, roster, and Enhanced Highlights requests all go to Anthropic's Claude model through Amazon Bedrock, where neither Amazon nor Anthropic uses the content to train models.

3. How We Disclose Information

Service providers and feature providers. We use Amazon Web Services for hosting and storage, including live stream ingest and recording (Amazon Interactive Video Service), conversion of uploaded video (AWS Elemental MediaConvert), video storage (Amazon S3), video delivery (Amazon CloudFront), and running the Claude model used for schedule and roster reading and Enhanced Highlights (Amazon Bedrock); Anthropic for that model; Stripe and Apple for applicable payment flows; Twilio for SMS login codes; SendGrid for email delivery; and Apple Push Notification service (APNs) and Firebase Cloud Messaging for push delivery. Sign in with Apple is available as a sign-in option. Google provides Google sign-in, Maps venue selection, and reCAPTCHA for the Site feedback form; Meta provides Facebook sign-in.

The video services receive the video and audio needed to ingest, convert, store, and deliver recordings, and CloudFront also receives viewers' IP addresses and browser information. The push providers receive your device's push token and the notification text, which for a score alert is the teams, the score, and the play description. SendGrid receives the emails we send, including team invitations, which show a child's first name and jersey number, and notices to a family removed from a team, which name its children by first name. Schedule, roster, and Enhanced Highlights requests go to Amazon Bedrock. Google sign-in and Maps code load when the web App opens, reCAPTCHA loads on every Site page because the feedback widget is part of the shared page layout, and Facebook's and Apple's sign-in code load when the web sign-in page appears; the mobile apps use the device's built-in Apple sign-in instead. These loads can occur before you choose to use the associated feature and may involve requests to those providers. Their own practices may apply to information they receive.

Other YAWK users. Game video, clips, and Enhanced Highlights are available in the App to any signed-in YAWK user, including users who are not members of the recorded team, with a limit on how many people can watch a live stream at once. They are not displayed on the public Site. The App has no share or download feature for video; playback links are signed and expire within hours. The App does not identify who streamed or uploaded a video. Members of a team can see which plays you reported or confirmed.

On a team created with a Team Pass, the team's managers can see its families, including the names of the adults in each family, and its pending invitations, including each invited parent's email address and the child's name and jersey number the manager gave. Every member of such a team can see who its managers are. Anyone with an invitation's link can see its invitation page, which shows the team and the name of the manager who sent it, and of the child only the first name and jersey number.

Public display. When “Show on public site” is off, the player does not appear in public rosters, lists, or player pages. When it is on, the player's stats, team, season, and games appear publicly, subject to the separate photo, jersey-number, and name-display choices described in Section 4. Publicly displayed information can be viewed and copied by others.

Legal and safety disclosures. We may disclose information when required by law or legal process, or when reasonably necessary to protect the rights, safety, or property of YAWK, our users, or the public.

Business transfers. In an acquisition, merger, or transfer of our business, information may be transferred to the successor, subject to this Policy and applicable law.

4. Players, Visibility, and Children's Privacy

Adult accounts and authorization. Accounts are intended for adults aged 18 or older. Before adding a player, the account holder must be that player's parent or legal guardian or have permission from the player's parent or legal guardian to register the player and manage the information submitted. A Roster Pass, whether free or paid, is not by itself a method of verifying parental identity or consent. Where applicable law requires separate parental notice or consent for a feature, we will provide the notice and obtain the required consent before the applicable collection, use, or disclosure.

Visibility controls. Each player's “Show on public site” master switch is off by default. When it is off, the player is absent from public rosters, lists, and player pages. When it is on, the player's stats, team, season, and games appear publicly. The household can independently choose whether to show the player's photo and jersey number and whether the name appears in full, as first name and last initial, or as the word “Hidden.” A player has a public profile page only when the full name is shown. Play-by-play references to a player whose name is hidden appear as “A player.” Other visible context, including team, season, games, stats, or jersey number, may still enable someone to identify the player.

The account holder who added the player and members of that account holder's household can change the player's visibility settings in the App. A parent or guardian outside that household may contact support@yawk.fun to request a change. Changes affect information YAWK displays going forward, including existing records still displayed by YAWK, but cannot recall screenshots, cached pages, or copies already collected by third parties.

Children in game video. Parents and other spectators may record games, as people commonly do at sporting events. A player appearing in footage need not have a YAWK profile or belong to the uploader's household. Video is available to signed-in YAWK users, not on the public Site, and player-profile visibility settings do not change what appears in a recording. The person who streams or uploads a game is responsible for complying with venue, league, team, and applicable recording rules; a Roster Pass or this Policy does not itself grant permission to record or establish consent for everyone captured. If a child appears in a video, clip, or Enhanced Highlight and you want us to review it for removal, email support@yawk.fun with the game, team, and enough detail to locate the content. You do not need a YAWK account to make a request. We will verify the requester's authority as appropriate and review the source recording and related clips and highlights; we will explain the outcome and any limits. Removing a recording also removes the clips and Enhanced Highlights made from it.

Parent and guardian requests. You can review and edit information for players you manage in the App and contact support@yawk.fun to request review, correction, deletion, or an end to further use of a child's information. A parent or guardian who did not create the profile may also contact us. We will take reasonable steps to verify the requester's authority before providing or changing a child's information and will explain any limits that apply to shared game records or legal retention. Account deletion is addressed in Section 6.

Teams run with a Team Pass. A team manager can put a child's name and jersey number in an invitation to the child's parent before the parent has joined (Section 1). A parent who does not want to join can decline the invitation, which deletes it. A manager can remove a family from the team. When that happens, the family's passes on the team end and their children's stats on the team are deleted, unless another household still holds a pass for the same child on that team; if it was a child's only team, the child's profile is deleted too. We email the adults in the family to say so, and the email says when a profile was deleted.

5. Cookies and Similar Technologies

We use a strictly necessary, first-party HttpOnly session cookie to authenticate signed-in web App requests. When you play a recording or clip, we set short-lived first-party cookies that let your browser fetch that video from our content delivery network; they identify the video, not you, and expire within hours. If you open a team invitation in the web App and then sign in, the App keeps the invitation's code in that browser tab until you are back at the invitation or close the tab; it keeps no name or email address there. The marketing-site engagement signals described in Section 1 do not use cookies or store information on your device. We do not use analytics or advertising cookies or third-party tracking pixels.

Third-party code may load before you use the associated feature. The web App loads Google sign-in and Google Maps code when it opens. The Site loads Google reCAPTCHA on every page because the feedback widget is part of the shared page layout. Facebook's and Apple's sign-in code load when the web sign-in page appears; the mobile apps use the device's built-in Apple sign-in. These integrations may send browser or device information to their providers and may set their own cookies; their practices are governed by their privacy notices.

6. Your Choices and Account Deletion

Access and updates. You can view and update your account information in the App. Section 4 describes player visibility controls and parent or guardian requests.

Delete a video. A person who streamed or uploaded a full-length game video can delete that video from the game's page in the App. Deleting it also deletes the clips and Enhanced Highlights made from it. An uploaded video's files are removed from our storage at once; we keep no backup copies of video. The original file of a live-stream recording stays in our storage but can no longer be played by anyone. Copies our content delivery network has cached expire or become unplayable within hours. A parent or guardian who did not upload the video can use the request process in Section 4.

Delete your account. You can initiate account deletion from the App's profile page. If you are an invited household member, deleting your account removes you from the household; it does not delete the household's players or passes. If you are the primary account holder and there is a co-parent in the household, the household is handed over to that member rather than deleted; the handover happens automatically and rests on your having invited them. If you are the sole household member, the household's players and Roster Passes are deleted. Full-length videos you streamed or uploaded are deleted in every case, with their clips and Enhanced Highlights. If you manage a team created with a Team Pass, your role as its manager ends; if that leaves the team with no manager who holds a pass on it, the team becomes an ordinary team, as our Terms of Service describe, and its pending invitations are cancelled. Game contributions may remain in the shared historical record with the contributor's name and photo removed; those records keep an internal account identifier that is never displayed, together with the team, date, and score. Roster Passes and Team Passes are one-time purchases with no recurring charge, so deletion cancels nothing and does not trigger a refund. We retain records required by law and information in routine encrypted backups until those backups rotate out, within seven days in production. Copies of public information collected by others are outside our control.

Message preferences. You can turn off game recap emails and push notifications in the App's notification settings. Login codes, payment receipts, security alerts, household invitations, team invitations, and notices to a family removed from a team are not controlled by those preferences because they are needed to provide or protect the Service.

7. Data Retention

We retain account and Service information while the account is active when needed to provide the Service. Deletion and household transfer depend on your role as described in Section 6. Some game contributions remain in shared historical records after the contributor's name and photo are removed; legally required records may also be retained. Routine encrypted production backups and server logs rotate out within seven days, and household and team invitations expire after seven days. We delete a team invitation when it is accepted, declined, or cancelled, after it expires, or when its team stops being invite only. Our record of each batch of team invitations a manager sends notes who sent it and how many invitations it held, but no names or email addresses, and is deleted after 30 days. Player profiles, game records, Roster Pass records, and account information are kept while the account exists, except where Section 4 describes a family being removed from a team.

Game-video retention. We keep a full-length game recording while it remains associated with the uploader's account, unless it is deleted sooner by the uploader or in response to an appropriate removal request. We do not delete video on a schedule. Clips and Enhanced Highlights are kept with the recording they came from and are deleted with it. Viewing records are kept with the stream's records. Video is not included in our database backups, and copies cached by our content delivery network expire or become unplayable within hours of a deletion.

Schedules, rosters, and Enhanced Highlights. We do not store pasted schedule text or write it to our server logs. We do not keep pasted roster text on our servers or write it to our server logs. Schedule, roster, and Enhanced Highlights requests go through Amazon Bedrock to Claude models for which Amazon retains no request content after processing; we have not enabled Bedrock's optional request logging, and Anthropic does not receive the schedule or roster text or the images.

8. Security

We use TLS encryption in transit, encryption at rest, HttpOnly session cookies, limited employee access on a need-to-know basis, and cloud infrastructure provided by Amazon Web Services. No method of storage or transmission is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. We take measures to deter automated scraping of public player information and stats, but cannot guarantee that publicly displayed information will not be collected by others.

9. International Users

YAWK operates from the United States, and information provided through the Service is stored and processed there, except that the still images sent to the Claude model for Enhanced Highlights may be processed in another Amazon Web Services region. We do not target users in the European Union, the United Kingdom, or other jurisdictions outside the United States. If you use the Service from elsewhere, your information may be transferred to and processed in the United States. This statement does not limit rights that applicable law may give you.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy. If a change is material, we will notify you by email or a prominent notice in the App before it takes effect. Where a change requires a new consent under applicable law, we will seek it before making the changed use or disclosure. The revised Policy will state its effective date. Continued use after a change takes effect does not replace any consent the law requires.

11. Contact Us

For privacy questions or requests concerning your information or a child's information, contact:

Meka Bear Industries, Inc. (YAWK)
56 Broad St STE 14004
Boston, Massachusetts 02109
Email: support@yawk.fun