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Privacy

What Communities keeps, who can see it, and what you can do about it.

Draft of 14 September 2026. This text has not yet been reviewed by a qualified adviser and will change before launch. Where it says a period is not yet set, no period has been decided.

The short version

You can read everything without an account. The first time you post, reply, like, save or follow, your browser gets an anonymous account with a random id. Other people see a different alias for you in every thread; they never see the account.

What you post is public and may appear in search engines. What you save, follow, hide, mute or block is private to you. We do not run advertising, we do not sell data, and we do not load analytics scripts.

Who is responsible

Communities is operated by its founder. Questions about this policy go to support@thecommunitiesapp.com. Anything about safety or a person at risk goes to safety@thecommunitiesapp.com. Contact your local emergency services first if someone is in danger.

What we collect, and why

Each item below exists for one reason, given with it.

  • An anonymous account: a random id created in your browser when you first take an action that needs one. It is what lets you edit or delete your own posts, see your replies, and recover the account later. It is kept in a cookie in your browser.
  • Your posts: the title, text, community and time, plus any images, GIF links or video links you attach. Images are re-encoded on our server and embedded metadata such as location is removed before anything is stored.
  • An alias for each thread: a random two-word name and a colour, assigned the first time you post in a thread. It is shown on your posts in that thread only. The link between an alias and your account is stored privately and is never published.
  • A recovery email, only if you add one: used to send you a confirmation link and, later, a sign-in link. It is never shown to anyone and is not required for anonymous posting.
  • A public profile, only if you choose one: a username, optional display name and avatar. Posts you make as yourself link to it; anonymous posts never do.
  • Private activity: saves, follows, likes, hidden threads, muted threads and communities, blocks, notifications and which of them you have read. Visible only to you. A block records the other account's id so it can be enforced; the app never shows you that id.
  • Reports you submit, and any moderation decision that concerns you: kept in restricted storage so a safety decision can be reviewed and appealed.
  • Technical records: the hosting providers below log requests, including IP addresses, for security, rate limiting and error handling. New anonymous accounts are limited per IP address per hour. We do not add tracking of our own to these logs.
  • Browser storage: your theme, feed layout and last chosen sort, unsent drafts, and whether the sidebar is collapsed. These stay in your browser and are never sent to us.

What is public

Threads, replies, images, your alias in each thread, an “OP” mark on the opener's replies, like and reply counts, and a public profile if you chose one. Public pages are indexed by search engines and can be shared by link.

Not public: your account id, your email, which aliases belong to the same account, your private activity, who reported what, and moderation notes.

Limits of anonymity

Anonymous means other participants cannot link your threads together. It does not mean the service cannot. Your account is connected to your posts so that you can edit, delete and recover them and so that rules can be enforced.

What you write, the images you attach and the way you write can identify you regardless of the alias. Anyone can screenshot a public page. Removing content does not recall copies other people made or every cache elsewhere.

Blocking works per account. It stops that account replying to you and notifying you; it does not stop anyone reading a public page or making another account.

If you clear your browser or switch devices without adding a recovery email, the account cannot be recovered and its posts stay published under their aliases.

Services we rely on

No advertising networks and no analytics vendors. The following handle data on our behalf or when you use a feature:

  • Supabase hosts the database, accounts and image storage, in the United States (us-east-1). It also sends recovery emails.
  • Vercel hosts the website and its server code.
  • Giphy: when you open GIF search, your search words go from your browser to Giphy under Giphy's own policy. Nothing goes to Giphy until you open the picker.
  • YouTube and Vimeo: when you play a video link inside a thread, the player is loaded from them under their policies. YouTube is loaded in its no-cookie mode.

Measurement

We measure whether conversations get replies and whether people come back, using counts computed inside our own database. Results are aggregates with their denominators; staff and test accounts are excluded; no post text or account ids leave the database for that purpose.

Deleting things

Deleting a thread or reply removes your words and attachments and leaves a neutral placeholder so other people's replies keep their place. The image file is withdrawn immediately and its bytes are purged by a periodic clean-up.

Deleting your account replaces your threads and replies with placeholders, withdraws your images, and deletes your profile, saves, likes, notifications and thread aliases. Replies other people wrote under your threads stay. Reports and moderation records are kept in restricted storage.

Backup copies may retain data until they expire. The backup retention period, the retention period for restricted safety records, and the retention period for provider logs are not yet set and will be stated here before launch.

Age

Communities is for people aged 13 and over. We do not verify age and we do not ask for a date of birth. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 13 we will delete it. How reports of this are handled in each supported region is not yet set.

Your choices

  • Post anonymously, which is the default, or as yourself, chosen each time.
  • Edit or delete your own threads and replies from the post itself.
  • Hide a thread, mute a thread or community, or block the author of a post, from the menu on that post.
  • Add a recovery email under Account, or delete the whole account there.
  • Ask about the data we hold, or ask for a correction, at support@thecommunitiesapp.com. We will need to confirm the request comes from the account concerned, without asking for documents we do not need.

Changes

When this policy changes we will update the date at the top and describe the change on this page. Substantive changes will be announced on the home page before they take effect.