Privacy Policy

Who we are and how to reach us

HostWorld AI, Inc., 4952 Amherst Way Southwest, Port Orchard, WA 98367, United States. Privacy questions: privacy@hostworld.ai. General support: support@hostworld.ai. The founder reads both.

Information we collect

Account information. Name, email address, mobile number, and the sign-in method you use (email and password, or Google sign-in). Hosts also give us a verified mobile number so the agents can reach them.

Property information. Address, photos, description, amenities, nightly rates, calendar availability, house manual and rules, cancellation terms, tax settings, and the calendar links you paste from Airbnb, VRBO or other platforms.

Booking and payment information. Guest name, email, mobile number if given, dates, guest count, amounts paid, taxes collected, refunds, and payout records. Card numbers never reach HostWorld; Stripe collects and stores them, and we keep only Stripe's identifiers and the last four digits it shows us.

Messages and calls. Texts, emails and voice calls between guests, hosts, cleaners, vendors and our AI agents, including transcripts. Calls are recorded only where the host has turned recording on and every participant hears the disclosure.

Operations records. Cleaning and maintenance tasks, photos cleaners send, vendor quotes, expenses, receipts and income you or the agents record for your books.

Connected mailbox data (Managed channels only). If you connect Gmail or Outlook, we read messages sent to you by booking platforms such as Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com and Expedia, and mark them handled once they are dealt with. On VRBO, which gives every thread a real reply address, we also send the reply from your mailbox into that thread. See the mailbox section below for exactly what we access.

Technical information. IP address, browser and device type, pages viewed, and the timestamps of requests, collected through server logs and our own analytics. We do not use advertising trackers.

How we use it

To run the service: list and book homes, sync calendars, collect payments and lodging taxes, pay hosts, and let the AI agents answer guests, schedule cleaners, triage repairs and keep your books.

To keep people safe and the platform honest: verify phone numbers, detect fraud, enforce cancellation terms, and keep a full log of every action an agent takes on your behalf, which you can review in the audit log.

To communicate with you: booking confirmations, receipts, cancellation notices, agent escalations, and service announcements. Marketing email is sent only with your consent and always has a way to stop.

To improve the product: we look at how features are used in aggregate. We do not sell personal information and we do not use your data to train third-party AI models.

AI agents

HostWorld's agents are built on large language models from Anthropic. When an agent answers a guest, drafts a note, categorizes an expense or reads a booking email, the relevant text is sent to Anthropic's API to generate a response. Anthropic processes it as our service provider under terms that prohibit using it to train their models. Every agent action is logged with its input, output and cost, and hosts can switch any agent off per property.

Every text and email an agent sends identifies itself as HostWorld's AI assistant. Guests and hosts can always reach a person by replying, and by replying STOP to any text they stop all texts.

Connected mailboxes and Google user data

Hosts on the Managed channels plan may connect a Gmail or Outlook mailbox so the agents can handle guest messages that arrive from booking platforms by email.

What we access. With Gmail we request a single scope, gmail.modify; with Microsoft we request offline_access, User.Read, Mail.ReadWrite and Mail.Send. We use them only to read messages from a fixed list of booking-platform senders (for example automated@airbnb.com), to record those messages in your HostWorld inbox, to mark those messages read and file them under a HostWorld label once they are handled, and — on VRBO, which gives every thread a real reply address — to send the reply from your address into that thread. Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia do not accept replies by email, so there we never send anything on your behalf: we write the reply and you paste it in. We do not read your other mail, contacts, or attachments unrelated to a booking, and we never send email you did not ask for.

How we store it. Your refresh token is encrypted at rest with a key held only on our servers. Parsed booking messages are stored in your HostWorld inbox so you and the agents can act on them. We do not store the full contents of your mailbox.

How you disconnect. Property → Channels → Disconnect removes the token from our systems immediately. You can also revoke HostWorld from your Google Account permissions or your Microsoft account at any time.

Limited Use disclosure. HostWorld's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We use Google user data only to provide and improve the mailbox features you have turned on; we do not transfer it to others except as needed to provide those features, to comply with law, or as part of a merger or acquisition with prior notice; we do not use it for advertising; and no human reads it except with your permission, for security purposes, to comply with law, or for internal operations where the data has been aggregated and anonymized.

Who we share information with

Service providers who process data on our instructions: Amazon Web Services (hosting, storage, email delivery, voice transcription), Stripe (payments, payouts, host identity), Twilio (texts, calls, phone verification), Anthropic (AI models), Google and Microsoft (mailbox access you authorize), Firecrawl (reading a listing page you paste), and Netlify (serving the website).

Other people in a booking. Hosts see guest names, contact details and messages for their own bookings. Guests see the host's first name, property details and terms. Cleaners and vendors see the address, dates and task details for jobs they accept.

Tax authorities. Where HostWorld collects lodging taxes, we remit them and report as the law requires.

Legal requests and safety. We disclose information when the law requires it, to enforce our terms, or to protect a person from harm.

Business transfers. If HostWorld is acquired or merges, your information moves with the service under this policy, and we will tell you first.

Texts and calls

Guests opt in to texts on the booking form; hosts opt in when they verify their number. Message frequency varies with your bookings. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out and HELP for help. Consent is not a condition of booking. We honor STOP immediately and permanently until you text START.

We do not text between 9 pm and 8 am in the property's local time except to answer a message you sent us in the previous 30 minutes.

Retention

Account and property data stay while your account is open. Booking, payment, tax and books records are kept for seven years to meet tax and accounting rules. Messages and agent logs are kept for three years. Connected mailbox tokens are deleted when you disconnect. You can ask us to delete your account at privacy@hostworld.ai; we will remove everything not required by law within 30 days.

Your choices and rights

You can read and change your account and property information in the host app, export your books, switch agents off, disconnect mailboxes, and stop texts with STOP. Residents of California, Washington and other states with privacy laws can ask what we hold, ask us to correct or delete it, and ask us not to share it; email privacy@hostworld.ai and we will respond within 45 days. We do not discriminate against anyone for exercising these rights.

Security

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Payment details live with Stripe. Access inside HostWorld is limited to what each role needs, and every automated action is logged. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach affecting you, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

Children

HostWorld is for adults. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.

Changes

When we change this policy we will update the date at the top and, for material changes, email account holders before the change takes effect.