Privacy



What information do we collect?

  • Basic account information : If you register on one of our services, you may will be asked to enter an username, an e-mail address and a password. You may also enter additional profile information such as a display name and biography, and upload a profile picture and header image. The username, display name, biography, profile picture and header image are always listed publicly.
  • Posts, following and other public information : The list of people you follow is listed publicly, the same is true for your followers. When you submit a message, the date and time is stored as well as the application you submitted the message from. Messages may contain media attachments, such as pictures and videos. Public and unlisted posts are available publicly. When you feature a post on your profile, that is also publicly available information. Your posts are delivered to your followers, in some cases it means they are delivered to different servers and copies are stored there. When you delete posts, this is likewise delivered to your followers. The action of reblogging or favouriting another post is always public.
  • Direct and followers-only posts : All posts are stored and processed on the server. Followers-only posts are delivered to your followers and users who are mentioned in them, and direct posts are delivered only to users mentioned in them. In some cases it means they are delivered to different servers and copies are stored there. We make a good faith effort to limit the access to those posts only to authorized persons, but other servers may fail to do so. Therefore it’s important to review servers your followers belong to. You may toggle an option to approve and reject new followers manually in the settings. Please keep in mind that the operators of the server and any receiving server may view such messages , and that recipients may screenshot, copy or otherwise re-share them. Do not share any dangerous information over any of the Services.
  • IPs and other metadata : When you log in, we record the IP address you log in from, as well as the name of your browser application. All the logged in sessions are available for your review and revocation in the settings. The latest IP address used is stored for up to 12 months. We also may retain server logs which include the IP address of every request to our server.

What do we use your information for?

Any of the information we collect from you may be used in the following ways:

  • To provide the core functionality of our Services. You can only interact with other people’s content and post your own content when you are logged in. For example, you may follow other people to view their combined posts in your own personalized home timeline.
  • To aid moderation of the community, for example comparing your IP address with other known ones to determine ban evasion or other violations.
  • The email address you provide may be used to send you information, notifications about other people interacting with your content or sending you messages, and to respond to inquiries, and/or other requests or questions.

Do we use cookies?

Yes. Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer’s hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow). These cookies enable the site to recognize your browser and, if you have a registered account, associate it with your registered account.

We use cookies to understand and save your preferences for future visits.

Do we disclose any information to outside parties?

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our site, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property, or safety.

Your public content may be downloaded by other servers in the network. Your public and followers-only posts are delivered to the servers where your followers reside, and direct messages are delivered to the servers of the recipients, in so far as those followers or recipients reside on a different server than this.

When you authorize an application to use your account, depending on the scope of permissions you approve, it may access your public profile information, your following list, your followers, your lists, all your posts, and your favourites. Applications can never access your e-mail address or password.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page.

This document is CC-BY-SA.

Originally adapted from the Discourse privacy policy and mstdn.social and tchncs.de.