Privacy
Privacy Policy
Last updated September 7, 2026 · Bidding? Read the Bidder Terms
This policy explains what Going Once collects when you use the site, why we collect it, and who else sees it. It applies to bidding, selling, and simply browsing.
The short version: we collect what we need to run an auction and settle it. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not run advertising or tracking networks on this site.
1. What we collect
When you register. Your name, email address, and phone number. If you sign in with Google or Facebook instead, we receive your name and email address from that provider. We never see your password there.
When you bid. Every bid you place, including the maximum you authorize for automatic bidding, along with the time you placed it. Bid amounts appear in a lot’s public bidding history; the bidder is shown by a display name, not your full contact details.
When you win. Your order, invoice, and payment status, and any pickup details the sale requires.
Payment information. Card details go directly to Stripe, our payment processor. Going Once never receives or stores your full card number. We keep only Stripe’s reference to your saved payment method and whether a charge succeeded.
When you sell. If you catalog a sale, we store the lot descriptions, photographs, and notes you upload, along with your membership in that sale.
Automatically. Ordinary server logs (IP address, browser type, and the pages requested), which we use to keep the site running and to investigate abuse.
2. Why we collect it
To create and secure your account; to run auctions and place your bids; to tell you when you are outbid, when a lot is closing, and when you have won; to charge the card you authorized and issue invoices and receipts; to arrange pickup with the seller running the sale; to collect and remit sales tax; to keep the records California requires an auction business to keep; and to detect fraud and enforce our terms.
Email comes in three kinds. Transactional email about your own account and sales (wins, outbids, invoices, and pickup) is part of running the sale. The auction company you signed up through may send you their own announcements about their future sales. And the Going Once mailing list carries notices of new auctions on the platform, including sales run by other companies, along with platform news and occasional offers from us. You only receive it if you opted in. You can stop either kind of announcement without losing the transactional email.
3. Who we share it with
We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with the companies that make the service work, and only as much as each one needs:
- Stripe: payment processing, saved cards, refunds, and disputes.
- Supabase: the database, account sign-in, and photo storage.
- Resend: sending the email described above.
- Cloudflare: serving the site and filtering malicious traffic.
- Google and Facebook: only if you choose to sign in with one of them.
The auction company running a sale you bid in. Every sale on Going Once is run by an independent local auction company. They see the name, contact details, bid history, and purchases of the people who register or bid on their own sales, and they may email you about their own future sales. They are a separate business from us: to stop their email, use the unsubscribe link on it or ask them directly.
We do not pass you to any other auction company. We put you on the Going Once mailing list — new auctions, including sales run by companies other than the one you signed up through, platform news, and occasional offers from us — only if you asked us to, by ticking the box when you registered or turning it on in your account. It is off unless you turn it on, it is never a condition of bidding, and you can turn it off at any time. We never sell or rent your details to anyone.
We also disclose information when the law requires it (a subpoena, a tax authority, or a legal claim) and, if Going Once is ever sold or merged, to the acquiring company as part of that transaction.
4. Cookies and local storage
We use cookies to keep you signed in. Those are required; the site cannot hold a session without them. We do not use advertising cookies, and there are no third-party analytics or advertising trackers on this site.
Your watchlist is stored in your own browser, not on our servers. That means it stays on the device you built it on, we cannot see it, and clearing your browser data erases it.
5. Do Not Track
Some browsers send a “Do Not Track” signal. There is no common standard for honoring it, and Going Once does not respond to it. We say so here because California law requires the disclosure. It makes no practical difference on this site, because we do not track you across other websites and we allow no third party to do so through us.
6. Your choices and California rights
You can view and correct your account details from your account page at any time. You can unsubscribe from announcement email from any announcement we send.
You may ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Write to us using the contact details below and we will respond. Deletion has limits: California requires an auction business to keep records of its sales, including the buyer and the terms, so we keep what those rules and our tax obligations require even after an account closes.
We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we do not use it to build advertising profiles.
7. Security and retention
Traffic to the site is encrypted. Passwords are hashed by our sign-in provider and never visible to us, and card numbers are held by Stripe rather than by us. No system is perfect, and we cannot promise that a determined attacker will never succeed.
We keep account and sale records for as long as your account is open and afterward for as long as our tax and recordkeeping obligations require.
8. Children
Going Once is for adults. You must be 18 or older to register or bid, and we do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we will delete it.
9. Changes to this policy
If we change this policy we will update the date at the top of this page. If a change materially affects how we handle information we already hold about you, we will tell you by email or with a notice on the site before it takes effect.
10. Contact us
Questions about this policy, or about the information we hold about you, can go to [email protected].