Dot.Auction

Last updated: 6 August 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how BluePin Inc ("BluePin", "we", "us", "our"), the company responsible for Dot.Auction, collects, uses, stores, and shares personal information when you use Dot.Auction and the wider Dot Ecosystem it connects to. It is written to align with South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 ("POPIA").

1. Who we are

BluePin Inc is the responsible party for the personal information Dot.Auction processes. Our Information Officer can be reached at privacy@infodot.co.za for any question, request, or concern about your personal information.

2. What we collect

  • Account information — your name, email address, and password (stored as a salted hash, never in plain text), via your Dot Ecosystem account.
  • Listings you create — as a seller, the items you list, their starting price, reserve price, and auction window.
  • Bidding activity — as a buyer, the bids you place, the auctions you watch, and the auctions you win.
  • Technical information — IP address, browser and device information, and session activity, collected automatically for security, to keep you signed in, and to push live bid updates to your session over WebSockets.

3. Why we process your information

We process personal information to:

  • create and maintain your account, and authenticate you when you sign in;
  • let you sign in once and move between connected Dot Ecosystem platforms without re-entering your credentials;
  • run the auction itself — track the current highest bid, enforce reserve prices, broadcast bid updates in real time, and settle the winner when an auction closes;
  • keep Dot.Auction secure and prevent abuse (for example, bid manipulation); and
  • respond when you contact us, and meet our legal obligations.

4. Ecosystem single sign-on

When you use another Dot Ecosystem platform to sign in to Dot.Auction (or vice versa), a short-lived, single-use authentication token confirms who you are without exposing your password to the connected platform.

5. Sharing between buyers and sellers

Winning a listed item necessarily discloses your identity (and bid amount) to the seller so the sale can be completed, and a seller's identity is visible to bidders on their own listings. We don't share your information with anyone else beyond what's needed to run the auction.

6. Cookies

Dot.Auction uses a small number of strictly necessary cookies to keep you signed in and to protect your account and forms from cross-site attacks. See our Cookie Policy for the full list and what each one does.

7. How long we keep your information

We keep your account information for as long as your account is active. Completed auction and bid records are retained as the transaction history of the sale, since both buyer and seller may need to refer back to them. If you delete your account, we remove your personal account information within a reasonable period, subject to any records we need to keep for completed transactions.

8. How we protect your information

Passwords are hashed, never stored in plain text. Ecosystem sign-on tokens are short-lived and single-use. We apply reasonable technical and organisational security measures appropriate to the information we hold.

9. Your rights under POPIA

As a data subject under POPIA, you have the right to:

  • ask us to confirm what personal information we hold about you, and to access it;
  • ask us to correct or delete personal information that is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, misleading, or obtained unlawfully;
  • object, on reasonable grounds, to the processing of your personal information;
  • withdraw any consent you've given us, at any time, for a specific purpose;
  • ask us not to use your information for direct marketing; and
  • lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator (South Africa) at inforegulator.org.za if you believe we have processed your personal information unlawfully.

To exercise any of these rights, contact our Information Officer at privacy@infodot.co.za.

10. Children

Dot.Auction is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children without the consent of a parent or guardian as required by POPIA.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We'll change the "Last updated" date above when we do, and for material changes we'll take reasonable steps to let you know before they take effect.

12. Contact us

Questions about this Privacy Policy can be sent to privacy@infodot.co.za, or via our Contact page.