Who we are

floortok is an information service about Japan's retail and luxury market. It is operated by Tenke GK (registered in Japan), whose registered address is Mutsumi Building 3F, 2-10-48 Kitasaiwai, Nishi-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa 220-0004, Japan. Tenke GK is the business responsible for the personal information handled through this site — the personal-information-handling operator under Japan's Act on the Protection of Personal Information (個人情報保護法). "floortok" is the name of the service. You can reach us about any privacy matter at hello@floortok.com.

What we collect

Browsing the site: we store a preference cookie to remember your chosen language (English or Japanese) and, once you make a choice, your cookie/analytics consent. Our hosting provider also keeps standard technical logs (such as IP address and browser type) to deliver pages and keep the service secure.

If you create an account: we collect your email address so you can sign in. If you sign in with Google, we receive basic profile information (such as your email address and name) from Google to set up and identify your account. We store your account and the plan you are on.

If you take a paid subscription: payment is handled by Stripe. Stripe collects your card details directly; we receive only limited payment information such as the amount, the date and the last four digits of your card, plus your plan and billing status, which we store on your account.

Purpose of use

We use the personal information above to: provide and secure the site; create and manage your account and sign-in; remember your settings; save features tied to your account (such as a watchlist); provide, bill and manage paid subscriptions, including processing and billing subscription payments through our payment provider; deliver the morning-edition email to members who have opted in; send a single “a reader shared this story with you” email when a reader asks us to share an article with someone they know; understand how the site is used so we can improve it; and respond to enquiries, corrections and press or media correspondence you send us. We do not use it for any purpose beyond these without telling you.

Cookies and analytics

We set a cookie for your language preference and, once chosen, your consent decision. These are needed to run the site and remember your choices.

With your consent, we use Google Analytics (provided by Google) to understand how the site is used. When enabled, it sets cookies and sends information about your visit — such as your device and browser, pages viewed, approximate location derived from IP, and an analytics identifier — to Google, which processes it on our behalf as a measurement service. We ask for your consent before it runs, and you can decline or change your choice at any time (declining does not limit access to the site).

This is an "external transmission" disclosure under Japan's Telecommunications Business Act: the recipient is Google, the information is the visit and device data described above, and the purpose is site analytics. Links to external sites (news publishers, brand and government pages) are governed by those sites' own privacy policies.

Separately, we count how many times each Journal article is opened and how long it is read, so we can see which reporting is useful. This measurement is our own and stays with us: it stores no name, account, device or network identifier and sets nothing on your device, so the record cannot be traced back to you or to any individual reader.

Service providers and international transfers

We use trusted providers to run floortok, and some of them store or process data outside Japan: hosting and content delivery (Vercel); accounts, database and sign-in, including Google sign-in (Supabase and Google); site analytics (Google); payment processing for paid subscriptions (Stripe, Inc.); email delivery for account and morning-edition messages; and the tools that help us produce editorial illustrations and content. These providers act on our instructions. Stripe is a payment processor certified to the PCI-DSS card-security standard: it handles your card details directly, and we receive only limited payment information such as the amount, the date and the last four digits of your card — never your full card number. Because these providers may process data in other countries, including the United States, your personal information may be transferred outside Japan; we provide this information and take it into account when choosing providers, consistent with the Act on the Protection of Personal Information. We will provide information about the measures these providers take to protect personal information on request.

Sharing a story by email

If a reader uses our “share this story” link, they give us the email address of the person they want to send it to. We use that address for one thing only: to send that single message. The recipient is not added to any mailing list, and we do not use the address for marketing, profiling, or any other purpose — now or later.

We do not store the recipient's email address. Once the message is sent we keep only a one-way scrambled record, which cannot be turned back into an address, and which we use solely to make sure the same person is not sent repeated messages and to honour a request never to be contacted again. The record of the send itself — which article, when, which reader asked us to send it, and their IP address — is kept for 30 days for security and to prevent misuse, and is then deleted.

We ask the reader doing the sharing to confirm that they know the recipient personally or professionally and that it is appropriate to send them the story. The address reaches us from that reader, not from the recipient. Every share message names the reader who asked us to send it, explains why it arrived, and carries a one-click way to tell us never to make contact again, which we honour permanently and across all our email.

The name you give when you share a story, and any short note you write, are shown to the recipient. Please do not include personal information about anyone else.

If you are in the EU or the UK: we send this single message on the basis of our legitimate interests in allowing readers to pass on an article. We received your address from the reader named in the message. You can object at any time using the link in the message or by writing to hello@floortok.com.

Retention

We keep account information for as long as you keep your account, and delete or anonymise it within a reasonable period after you close your account or ask us to. Technical logs and analytics data are kept only for as long as needed for security and to understand site usage.

Email addresses given to us so that a reader can share a story are not stored at all; see “Sharing a story by email” above.

What we do not do

We do not sell your personal data, and we do not build advertising profiles or run third-party advertising trackers on the site.

Personal information in our reporting

Our articles and the press images we publish can include personal information about third parties — for example the names of company representatives, or people who appear in official press photographs. We obtain this from public and officially published sources and from press materials offered for media use, and we handle it for the purpose of news reporting and editorial commentary. We use press photographs only where they are offered for media use and on the supplier's stated terms.

If you appear in our coverage and have a concern, please contact us at hello@floortok.com.

Your rights and choices

You can accept or decline analytics at any time, and clear cookies and local data from your browser whenever you like. You can ask us to tell you what personal information we hold about you, and to correct, delete or stop using it, by contacting hello@floortok.com. If you have a concern, you can also raise it with us at that address.

If you are in a region with data-protection laws such as the EU/UK, you may have additional rights (including access, erasure, objection and portability); contact us at the same address to exercise them.

Children

floortok is a business-information service intended for adults and is not directed at children.

Changes

We may update this policy from time to time; the date above shows the latest version. If we make a significant change to how we handle personal information, we will make that clear on the site.