Privacy Policy

The Short Version

• We collect as little as we can: your email, a display name, and what you choose to save, such as price alerts, saved pharmacies and how you pay for medicine (your coverage type).
• We never sell your information, and we don’t share your health information for advertising.
• We don’t put advertising or third-party tracking code on drug pages or account pages. We count page views ourselves, as anonymous daily totals.
• We don’t store what you type into Hoot. Your question goes to our AI provider to get an answer, and we don’t keep it.
• “Report a wrong price” doesn’t ask who you are. No email, no name, and we don’t store your IP address.
• Payments are handled by Stripe. We never see or store your card number.
• You can see, download or delete your information at any time.

Who We Are

eDrugSearch.com (“eDrugSearch,” “we”) is a prescription drug price comparison service. We don’t sell medication or fill prescriptions. This policy explains what information we collect on eDrugSearch.com, how we use it and the choices you have. eDrugSearch is owned and operated by Squawkia, Inc., a Texas company, 611 Live Oak St, Boerne, TX 78006.

Information We Collect

Information you give us

• Account: your email address and a display name. We sign you in with a one-time email link, so we don’t store a password.
• What you save: pharmacies you save and medicines you set price alerts for. When refill reminders launch, the medicines you add to them will be saved too.
• How you pay for medicine (optional): on drug pages you can pick “No insurance,” “Private insurance,” “Medicare” or “Medicaid” to see the savings options that fit you. If you’re signed in, we save that one choice to your account so you don’t have to pick it again. We don’t save which drug or page you were on. If you’re not signed in, the choice lasts only while you’re on that page, and we don’t store it anywhere.
• Family plan: if you own a Family plan, the names and emails of the people you invite. You see only their name, email and join date.
• Reviews: the pharmacy reviews you write. If you upload proof of an order for a “Verified order” badge, only our team sees it, and we delete the file once the review is approved or removed.
• Price reports: see “Report a Wrong Price” below.
• If you cancel a membership: the reason you pick and any short note, if you choose to give them. Both are optional.
• Messages: your name, email, optional phone number and message when you contact us.
• Payments: when you buy a membership, Stripe collects your payment details and may ask for your billing address. We receive your plan, payment status and renewal dates, plus Stripe’s customer and subscription IDs. We never receive your full card number, and we don’t send Stripe the medicines you look at.

Information collected automatically

• Basic technical data: like any website, our servers receive your IP address, browser type and the pages you request. We use it to keep the site secure, prevent abuse (for example, limiting sign-in attempts) and fix problems, and we keep it only as long as needed for those purposes.
• Cookies and browser storage: we use cookies to keep you signed in and to make the site work. Your browser also remembers a few settings on your device, such as Hoot’s sound and text size, and keeps your current Hoot chat until you close the tab. We don’t use advertising cookies.
• Analytics on general pages: on our general public pages, such as the home page, guides and membership sign-up pages, we use Google Analytics to see how people find eDrugSearch and to count membership sign-ups. It uses cookies and receives your IP address, browser details and the page you visit. We don’t use it on drug price pages or account pages, and we never send it the medicines you look up or save. When you create an account, we save the Google Analytics ID your browser already has to your account and pass it to Stripe, so we can count the sign-up. We send Google only the fact that a sign-up happened, never your email, name or medicines.
• Where your visit came from: drug price pages set one first-party cookie that notes where your visit started (for example, a search engine or a campaign link), not which drug you looked at. If you then open our membership page, Google Analytics there uses it to credit the right source. It’s deleted when you close your browser. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, and you can opt out of Google Analytics with Google’s opt-out browser add-on.
• “Go to pharmacy” clicks: we count how many times each pharmacy’s button is clicked, as daily totals per pharmacy. We don’t record who clicked, which drug or any cookie or IP address.
• Page views: to learn which pages people find useful, our website counts how many times each public page is viewed each day. When you view a page, your browser tells our server which page it was and one word about where the visit came from, such as “search engine,” “AI assistant,” “social media,” “another page on our site” or “direct.” It never sends the address you came from or anything you searched for. We keep only daily totals per page. We don’t use cookies or browser storage for this, and we don’t store your IP address or browser details. This counter sends nothing to Google or any other company. To stop one visit from being counted over and over, our server makes a scrambled code from your IP address, using a random key that changes every day. The code is kept only in server memory for 5 minutes and is never written to our database or files. We don’t count views while you’re signed in, and we don’t count search results or account pages.

Hoot AI: What Happens to Your Questions

Hoot AI (beta), for members, uses an AI model to answer your questions. Here’s exactly what happens.

What we send to get an answer. When you ask Hoot AI a question, we send these things to Amazon Web Services (AWS), which runs the AI model (Claude, made by Anthropic) for us through a service called Amazon Bedrock, in the United States:

• your question;
• up to your last 3 questions and Hoot’s answers from the same chat, so Hoot can follow along;
• facts from our own pages, like prices and their checked dates;
• the coverage type you picked on the page, if you picked one.

Some questions also go through a quick extra safety check by the same AI model. We don’t send your name, email address, account details or IP address.

What we don’t keep. We don’t store or log your questions or Hoot’s answers on our servers, and we don’t use them for ads, analytics or profiling. Your current chat is kept only in your browser tab, so Hoot can follow along from page to page. It’s gone when you clear the chat or close the tab. To make sure earlier messages weren’t changed, each answer comes with a short code that expires after 30 minutes. We don’t store the code.

What AWS does with it. AWS says Amazon Bedrock doesn’t store your questions or answers, doesn’t use them to train AI models and doesn’t share them with the model’s maker. Anthropic can’t see them. AWS runs automated abuse checks, and AWS says no person sees the content. We keep Bedrock’s optional request logging turned off.

What we count. To keep Hoot fair and affordable, we count how many questions are asked: in total each day, and per member to apply fair-use limits. For the per-member count, we use a scrambled code (a one-way hash) made from your account number. These counts are deleted automatically after about 3 days.

Please don’t type private details you don’t need to, like your full name, date of birth or insurance ID. Hoot doesn’t need them to find you a better price.

Report a Wrong Price

Every price has a “Report a wrong price” link. The form asks only what’s wrong (for example, “The price is wrong” or “Out of stock”) and lets you add an optional short note. It doesn’t ask for your name or email.

We save the report with the drug, the price row you reported, the reason, your note and the date. Only our team can see reports. We use them only to fix our prices.

To stop abuse, we limit how many reports one connection can send each day. We do that with a scrambled code made from your IP address, and the code changes every day. We don’t store your IP address. We delete a report 180 days after we’ve resolved it, and any report after 1 year at most.

Please don’t put personal or health details in the note. If you want a reply, email support@edrugsearch.com instead.

How We Check Prices

To keep prices current, we use automated tools, including AI, to visit pharmacy websites and read their public prices. This uses only pharmacy pages. No information about you is involved.

Health Information

Some of what you share with us can say something about your health. That includes the medicines you set price alerts for, the questions you ask Hoot, and possibly your coverage type (for example, Medicare or Medicaid). We treat all of it as sensitive.

We use it only to provide the features you asked for. We don’t sell it, share it for advertising or use it to profile you. Our Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy explains this in more detail.

How We Use Information

• To run your account and the features you use: saved pharmacies, price alerts, your coverage choice, Hoot, price reports and reviews (and refill reminders once they launch).
• To process membership payments and send receipts and account emails.
• To answer your messages and corrections.
• To keep eDrugSearch secure and prevent fraud and abuse.
• To improve the site using information that doesn’t identify you, such as optional cancel reasons and daily totals.
• To comply with the law.

Who We Share Information With

We don’t sell your information. We share it only with service providers that help us run eDrugSearch, under contracts that limit how they may use it:

• Website hosting (Hostinger), which stores our site and your account.
• Amazon Web Services (AWS): Amazon Bedrock runs Hoot AI and receives the questions members ask it, as described above. Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) sends our emails, such as sign-in links, price alerts and account emails. Some emails may also be sent through our web host.
• Our support mailbox (Google Workspace), for emails you send us.
• Payment processing (Stripe).
• Website analytics, on general pages only (Google Analytics).

We may also disclose information when the law requires it, to protect the rights and safety of our users or others, or as part of a merger or sale of the business, in which case this policy will continue to apply to your information. Pharmacies don’t receive your information from us. When you visit a pharmacy’s website from eDrugSearch, that pharmacy’s privacy policy applies.

How Long We Keep It

• Account, saved lists and coverage choice: while your account is open. When you delete your account, we delete them within 30 days, except records the law requires us to keep, such as payment records.
• Hoot questions and answers: not stored on our servers. Daily question counts are deleted after about 3 days.
• Price reports: deleted 180 days after we resolve them, and after 1 year at most.
• Proof-of-order files: deleted when the review is approved or removed.
• Published reviews: stay on the site under your display name unless you ask us to remove them.
• Server logs (IP address, browser, pages): as long as our web host keeps them, usually up to 30 days.
• Page view totals: daily totals per page, with nothing about you. We keep them to compare how pages do over time.

Your Choices and Rights

• See and download the information we hold about you.
• Correct information that’s wrong.
• Delete your account and information.
• Withdraw consent for anything you agreed to, and turn off emails at any time.

Email support@edrugsearch.com from the address on your account. You can also change your coverage choice, price alerts and saved pharmacies yourself at any time on your account page. We respond within 45 days. If we can’t do what you ask, we’ll explain why, and you can appeal by replying to our decision. We won’t treat you differently for using these rights.

Security

We use encryption in transit (HTTPS), limit staff access to your information and keep order proofs in private storage that only our team can open. No system is perfect, but if a breach affects your information, we’ll notify you as the law requires.

Children

eDrugSearch is meant for adults. We don’t knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.

Changes to This Policy

If we make a material change, we’ll update the date at the top and email account holders before it takes effect.

Contact Us

Questions or requests: support@edrugsearch.com. Mail: Squawkia, Inc., 611 Live Oak St, Boerne, TX 78006.