Surplus Auction Alerts — Privacy Policy
Last updated: 29 October 2026 · Package:
com.ibrahimtxy.surplusalert · Developer: bulbildir
1. What the app does
Surplus Auction Alerts checks newly listed and soon-to-close auction lots on the public Public Surplus auction search at an interval you choose, and sends a notification to your phone when a matching lot shows up. An example watch: forklift, Canon lens, F-250.
The app never buys, reserves or holds anything. It points you at the auction page on Public Surplus; you act there yourself.
2. Data we collect
The developer collects none. We run no server and receive nothing from your device — not your watches, not your device identifier, not your usage, not crash reports.
The one exception is advertising, and the developer does not process that either: in the free tier Google serves the ads and may use your device's advertising ID (AAID) and IP address. See §5.
3. What is stored on your device
The watches you create (keyword, category, state, ZIP or postal code and distance, price cap, time window), your interval setting, the records already seen (their IDs with status and price, up to 500 per watch) so the app does not repeat itself, the recent finds (up to 20 per watch: title, second line, status or price and its previous value, link and the time found), shown under the watch as Recent finds and deleted with the watch, and the measured data usage. All of it lives in the app's private storage and is deleted when you uninstall the app.
4. Servers the app talks to
The app connects ONLY to Public Surplus. There is no account, no sign-in and no bidding; it reads the same public search page you can open in a browser. The addresses are:
m.publicsurplus.comwww.publicsurplus.com
These requests are ordinary public web requests over HTTPS, the same ones your browser makes on the public Public Surplus auction search page. They carry no identifier of you.
5. Advertising
This section applies to version 0.13.0 and later. Earlier versions show no ads, contain no advertising library and read no advertising ID.
The free tier shows ads. They are served by Google AdMob; the developer does not choose what is shown and has no direct relationship with advertisers. The formats used are:
- Banner — at the bottom of the screen; it never covers your content.
- Rewarded — only when you tap the offer yourself; it grants temporary extra watch slots.
- Native — a card inside your watch list, always marked with an “Ad” label.
Interstitial, rewarded interstitial and app open ads are no longer used; versions of the app released before 28 October 2026 also showed these formats.
- Paid members see no ads and no ad request is made — nothing leaves the device for AdMob, and no consent form is shown.
- To select, serve and measure ads, Google may use your device's advertising ID (AAID) and IP address. The developer never reads or stores that identifier; Google is the party that processes it.
- You can reset or delete the advertising ID in Settings › Google › Ads. The app keeps working if you do.
- In the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, Google's certified consent form is shown before the first ad loads. You can change your choice later from the Privacy options link inside the app.
- How Google processes this data: policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites
There is no analytics (Firebase Analytics and the like), no crash reporting (Crashlytics and the like) and no marketing tracker. How you use the app is never reported to the developer.
6. Permissions
| Permission | Why |
|---|---|
ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE | To avoid pointless attempts while offline, and to tell mobile data from Wi-Fi. |
INTERNET | To reach the public Public Surplus auction search page. |
POST_NOTIFICATIONS | To tell you a matching lot was listed. That is the whole app. |
READ_BASIC_PHONE_STATE | So the ads library can tell Wi-Fi from mobile data. It grants no access to your phone number, IMEI or call log; the app does not declare it, the ads library adds it. |
RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED | So your watches resume after the phone restarts. |
VIBRATE | To vibrate when a notification arrives. |
WAKE_LOCK | So the phone does not fall asleep in the middle of a check. The app does not ask for this itself; the background work library (Android Jetpack WorkManager) adds it. |
BILLING | So you can buy a paid membership through Google Play. The app does not declare this permission itself; the Google Play Billing library adds it. Your payment details (card, address, invoice) never reach the app and are never seen or stored by it — Google Play takes the payment. All the app learns is whether your membership is active. |
AD_ID | Ads in the free tier are served by Google AdMob, which may read the device advertising ID (AAID). The app does not declare this permission itself; the ads library adds it. Paid members make no ad request at all. You can reset or delete the ID in Settings › Google › Ads. |
7. Payment and membership
If you buy a paid membership, the payment is handled by Google Play. Your card details are never entered into the app and are never seen by the developer.
Monthly and yearly memberships renew automatically; Google Play charges your account at the start of each period. The lifetime membership is a one-off purchase and does not renew. You can cancel a subscription at any time in Google Play Store › Menu › Subscriptions; cancelling takes effect at the end of the period you have already paid for. Refunds are also handled by Google Play — the developer has no access to the payment.
The app has no server of its own. Whether your membership is active is read again every time the app asks Google Play (when you open the app and when you view the membership screen). That is why a cancellation or refund closes the membership the next time you open the app. If you changed device, Restore purchases on the membership screen brings back a purchase made with the same Google account.
8. Children
The app is not directed to children. The developer collects no data from anyone; the advertising data described in §5 is processed by Google.
9. Keeping and deleting your data
Everything the app stores stays on your device; there is no account and no server copy. Deleting a watch removes it immediately. Clearing the app’s storage, or uninstalling the app, deletes everything it has ever kept — nothing survives elsewhere, so there is no separate deletion request to make. A paid membership is held by Google Play, not by the app: it survives reinstalling and can be brought back with Restore purchases.
10. Changes
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it.
11. Contact
12. This app in detail
The sections above apply to every app by this developer. What follows is written for this app only and describes exactly what it records, what it never records and what it will not claim.
What the app reads Watches, the search screen and the Browse menu all read the same public auction search page of Public Surplus, the one anyone can open in a browser without signing in. Your keyword, category, region and time window are sent to that page as the search; your price cap is applied on the phone after the list arrives and is not sent anywhere. If you type a ZIP or postal code, it is sent to that same search page together with the distance you pick, because Public Surplus measures the distance itself, and it is kept on this phone inside the watch you create. The app has no location permission and never asks where the phone is. Opening a category on Browse reads one page of that category (up to 25 lots) and nothing else. Lot details When you tap Details on a lot, the app reads that lot's public page once and shows what it prints: the price and reserve note, the number of bids, when bidding started and closes, the seller, the pick-up location, payment, shipping, condition, the description, the seller's notes and the names of attachments. None of it is written to the phone: it is held in the app's memory (at most 20 lots) and is gone when Android closes the app. It does not read the high bidder or the seller's contact details, and it does not download photos or attachments; those, the terms and bidding open on Public Surplus in your browser. Directions hands the pick-up address to your maps app; the app itself sends it nowhere. Tracked lots When you tap "Track closing time" on a lot, or type a lot number, the app reads that lot's public page once, because the exact closing time is printed only there. It keeps, in the app's private storage on this phone: the lot number, its title, the closing time as Public Surplus printed it, the current price at that moment, when you added it, when the page was last read, and whether its reminder was sent. It does not read or keep the high bidder, the seller's contact details or any other person's data shown on that page. Up to 100 lots can be tracked; when the list is full the app refuses a new one rather than deleting an old one. A lot is removed when you tap Stop tracking, when you clear the app's storage or when you uninstall the app. The reminder You choose when the one reminder per lot comes: 1 hour, 6 hours or 1 day before bidding closes. Just before it is shown the app reads the lot page once more, because Public Surplus can extend an auction; a later closing time moves the reminder instead of sending it early. If that page cannot be read, the reminder still comes, with the saved time, and says it could not re-check. When Public Surplus no longer shows a lot without signing in (a closed lot was measured to need a login), the app marks it as no longer public and stops there: it never signs in and never tries another way. Android can hold a reminder back a little while the phone sleeps. What it never does It never places, raises or retracts a bid, never holds or pays money and never signs in to Public Surplus. The price it shows is the price when the page was last read; bids only go up, and fees, tax and collection costs are set by the selling agency. Check the lot on Public Surplus before you act.