Privacy Policy

We proudly know absolutely nothing about what you put into Mate and what comes out of it.

We don’t track you. We don’t gather, transfer, sell, trade, gamble, stir-fry, ferment, decorate, or dance salsa with your data. It’s your data — not ours.

In all seriousness, privacy is a number one focus for us at Gikken. It’s an ethics issue plaguing lots of modern tech companies who could make a buck off of your personal matters. We don’t play dirty, which is why we’ll tell you exactly how your data is handled in plain English (and every other language if you translate this page with Mate).

So what do we collect?

The bare minimum. There are a few small, anonymous things we keep an eye on in order to stay alive as a business.

If you aren’t using a Mate Account, we anonymously chart out trends like what buttons are clicked, which features are most used, and how many people are using them. There’s no way for us to know who you are. We just use this info to improve Mate’s design so your translation stays efficient.

If you are using a Mate Account, your translation history and Phrasebook are synced with our secure servers so you can have uninterrupted access on all of your devices. Your password is encrypted and no one has access to the database but us (for support and debugging). Your saved info also includes your email and optionally your name.

Delete your data

Want to destroy all your info from our servers? Scroll to the bottom of the settings page in any Mate app and click “ERASE ALL MY DATA”. Boom. Destructed. That’s it. Thanks, GDPR.

What tools do we use?

We do not use Google Analytics. Instead, we use a service in our apps called Amplitude Analytics who have never been involved in any privacy scandals.

On this site we use Fathom Analytics. Google and Facebook don’t know you’re here. All we measure are overall page views and referrals. Just doing our best to make you a bit more invisible online.

We get our translations from Google and Bing, in an anonymous way. We never share any of your personal info with them, they will never know who did the translation.

Being invisible comes with perks. We can’t follow you around the web with ads. We don’t like ads, either. If we did a good enough job impressing you with Mate, you’ll try it out. If not, we’re just glad you stopped by.

Cookies

Real life? Delicious. Internet life? Atrocious.

No cookies here. Tons of other sites force you to accept cookies which means they are allowed to follow you across the internet with ads. Yuck. Fathom Analytics gives us just enough anonymous info to deliver a great product to you or send you on your way. You’re the consumer. Consume what you want, not what’s forced. Consume real cookies, not creepy digital ones.

Payment info

When you choose to get Mate (yay!), you’ll pay through a payment service, not through us. We don’t know anything about your bank or cards or how many coins are in the back pocket of your trousers.

If you buy Mate for iOS or Mac on the App Store, Apple will handle payment just like when you get any other app.

If you go for a Mate Pro browser extension or Mate for Mac from this site, you’ll pay via Paddle. They’re super credible folks from London.

Browser permissions

If you use Mate on your browser, it may request permission to access all visited web pages and browsing history. The name of this request is a little wonky, and we wish it were more truthful (we didn’t write it).

We do not access your history and do not keep track of pages you’ve visited. Mate needs this permission to insert translation scripts into the pages you visit so you can instantly translate anything with no load time.

Think of it like a little librarian dog who quickly reads through each site before you do, ready to bark back in whatever language you choose. It’s not our good boy, they only speak to you.

Contact us

Mate is made by a small software company called Gikken. We’re all about full transparency. In fact, we’re based in Berlin where it’s known no one uses window shades.

Anything you want to know is yours, just give us a shout:
[email protected]