Privacy policy
Variable Weight Charges is a Shopify app for shops that sell products by weight. Buyers pay an estimate at checkout; after weighing, the app charges or refunds the difference. This page explains what it stores, why, where, and how to get it removed. Last updated 22 October 2026.
Who we are
Variable Weight Charges is operated by Just A Robot (justarobot.online). Questions about this policy go to support+weight@justarobot.online.
What the app stores, and why
About the store
- Your store's domain and an access token Shopify issues so the app can read and edit orders, set product prices and collect payments. The token is encrypted at rest.
- Your shop name, reply-to email, weight unit, and optional outgoing-mail (SMTP) credentials if you connect your own email account. Credentials are encrypted at rest.
- The products you sell by weight: price per pound or kilogram and the estimated weight.
About buyers (your customers)
- For each order that contains a product sold by weight: the buyer's name and email address from the Shopify order, the order number, and the weighed lines (product, quantity, estimated and actual weight).
- The amount charged or refunded after weighing, and the order's status.
Buyer names and emails are encrypted at rest with a key held outside the database. We store them because the shop needs to see whose order it is weighing, and the buyer gets an email with the final weights and total.
The app does not store card or payment details. The buyer's card stays with Shopify; the app asks Shopify to charge or refund the difference on the order. It does not use advertising trackers or analytics cookies on any page.
Who else handles the data
- Shopify: the source of orders, the payment processor's gateway, and the platform the app runs inside.
- Railway (United States): hosts the app and its database.
- Cloudflare R2: holds continuous encrypted backups of the database.
- An email relay: sends the buyer's final-total email on the shop's behalf, unless the shop has connected its own email account, in which case that account sends it.
No data is sold, shared for advertising, or used to train anything.
Buyers receive transactional email only: the final weights and amount charged or refunded for their order. The app never sends marketing email. Shops receive an email when a buyer's card is declined.
How long it's kept
- Until an order is settled: the buyer's name and email are kept, because the shop still has to weigh and settle the order.
- 12 months after an order is settled or cancelled (or 12 months after it came in, if it never finished): the buyer's name and email are erased automatically. The anonymous record (products, weights, amounts, dates) stays so the shop keeps its history.
- Access log: each time buyer details are shown to the shop, the app records the store, the screen and a row count (never the details themselves). These entries are deleted after 12 months.
- When a shop uninstalls: the access token is deleted immediately. Shopify sends a shop-deletion notice 48 hours later and the app then deletes everything it holds for that store.
- Backups: deleted data ages out of the backup retention window rather than being removed instantly.
Your rights (buyers)
You can ask to see the data held about you, or to have it erased. The simplest route is through the shop you bought from: they request it in Shopify, Shopify forwards it to the app, and the app answers the data request or erases your name and email automatically. You can also email support+weight@justarobot.online directly. Erasure keeps the anonymous fact that an order was weighed, which the shop needs for its books.
Where GDPR, UK GDPR or CCPA applies to you, these are the access, erasure and portability rights those laws describe; the shop is the controller of its customer data and the app is a processor acting on its instructions.
Security
Personal data and credentials are encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM) with a key kept separately from the database and its backups. We run a single small system and keep the attack surface accordingly small.
- Who can see buyer data: the shop that sold the order, inside its own Shopify admin. On our side, one operator, and only when a shop asks for help or a data request has to be answered. There is no support team with standing access.
- Accounts: the hosting, code and Shopify Partner accounts behind the app use unique, long passwords from a password manager and two-factor authentication.
- Environments: development runs against its own database with test stores only; production data is never copied into it.
If something goes wrong
If we learn that buyer or shop data has been exposed, lost or accessed without authorization, we will: contain it (revoke credentials, rotate the encryption keys and re-encrypt); work out which stores and buyers are affected; email every affected shop within 72 hours of confirming the incident with what happened, what data was involved and what we did; and notify Shopify as the Partner Program Agreement requires. Shops are responsible for onward notice to their own customers where the law requires it, and we will give them what they need to do that. To report a security concern, email support+weight@justarobot.online.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that matters, the date at the top moves and installed shops are told by email. The current version always lives at this address.