Privacy Policy

Welcome to Thingster ("we", "us", or "our"). Thingster is your public and private notebook—a platform designed to encourage writing, recording, and sharing thoughts, stories, and media without fear or mental blocks.

We take your privacy seriously. This Privacy Policy explains what personal data and information we collect, how we use and protect it, and the choices and rights you have when using our website (thingster.app), applications, RSS feeds, APIs, and associated services (collectively, the "Service").

1. Information We Collect

We collect information in several ways depending on how you interact with Thingster:

• Account & Authentication Information: When you sign up or sign in, we collect your email address. We support modern, passwordless authentication using Passkeys (WebAuthn / FIDO2). When you register a passkey, your private key never leaves your local device; we only receive and store your public key credential and credential ID.
• Profiles & Identities: You may establish multiple identities, organizations, and topic spaces. We collect the information you provide for these identities, such as display names, descriptions, bios, and avatar images.
• User Content ("Things"): We store the content you create and post, including text, articles, images, audio, video, comments, reactions, and space organization. You choose whether each Thing or space is public or private.
• Payments & Monetization Data: If you use monetization features (such as paywalled posts or creator payouts), payment transactions are processed through third-party payment providers (such as Stripe Connect) or distributed blockchain networks (such as stablecoin transactions). We do not store full payment card numbers or cryptocurrency private keys. Note that transactions conducted on public blockchain networks are inherently public and recorded on distributed ledgers.
• Usage & Device Information: We automatically log technical data such as your IP address, browser type, operating system, referring URLs, request timestamps, and basic interaction data (such as view counts and performance metrics).
• Cookies & Local Storage: We use essential session cookies and browser storage (such as localStorage) to keep you authenticated, remember your UI preferences, and manage feature flags.

2. How We Use Your Information

We use the collected information for the following purposes:

• To provide, operate, and maintain the Thingster platform.
• To authenticate you and secure your account access via passkeys or email sessions.
• To publish and distribute public Things, generate RSS podcast feeds, and serve embeddable widgets according to your settings.
• To enable collaboration within organizations and management of multiple identities and topic spaces.
• To process monetization, paywall unlocks, and creator payouts.
• To monitor system health, detect spam or abusive behavior, and ensure platform security.
• To communicate with you regarding service updates, security notifications, or customer support inquiries.

3. Content Visibility & Sharing

Thingster is designed to give you control over your audience:

• Public Things: Content marked as public is accessible to anyone visiting the site, can be syndicated via RSS or podcast feeds, can be embedded on external websites, and may be indexed by web search engines.
• Private & Paywalled Things: Content designated as private is restricted to authorized users. Paywalled content is only accessible to users who have completed the necessary unlock transaction or have creator/organization permissions.
• Service Providers: We share data with third-party service providers who assist in operating our infrastructure, such as Cloudflare (for hosting, edge compute, D1 database, and R2 object storage), email delivery services, and payment processors. These providers process data strictly on our behalf under confidentiality terms.
• Legal Compliance: We may disclose information if required to do so by applicable law, regulation, legal process, or enforceable governmental request, or to protect against harm to the rights, property, or safety of Thingster, our users, or the public.

4. Data Security & Storage

We implement industry-standard security safeguards to protect your personal data, including TLS encryption in transit, edge-level protections, and passwordless authentication with FIDO2/WebAuthn passkeys. While no system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure, we continuously assess and update our operational and technical security measures.

5. Data Retention & Deletion

We retain your personal information and content for as long as your account remains active or as needed to provide our services. You can delete or edit your Things and remove registered passkeys at any time through your account settings. If you wish to delete your entire account and associated data, please contact us.

6. Your Rights & Choices

Depending on your location (such as residents of the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, or California), you may have certain rights regarding your personal data under the GDPR, UK GDPR, or CCPA/CPRA, including:

• The right to access and review the personal information we hold about you.
• The right to rectify inaccurate or incomplete information.
• The right to request deletion of your personal data ("right to be forgotten").
• The right to data portability to export your content and information.
• The right to restrict or object to certain data processing activities.

We do not sell your personal data or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

7. Children's Privacy

Thingster is not intended for use by children under the age of 13 (or under 16 in certain jurisdictions). We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under these ages. If we become aware that a child has provided us with personal information, we will take prompt steps to delete such information.

8. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically to reflect changes in our practices or applicable laws. When changes are made, we will revise the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. Your continued use of Thingster after the effective date of an updated policy constitutes your acceptance of the revisions.

9. Contact Us

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please contact us via our Contact Page or reach out through our official Thingster updates organization.