Privacy Policy

Information you provide

When you register or use Gather, you may provide a username, email address, password (stored as a password hash rather than readable text), profile biography, profile image, posts, replies, and other content you choose to submit. If you contact support, we receive the information included in your message.

If you use Google or Microsoft sign-in and that option is enabled, the identity provider may share basic account information such as your email address and profile details, according to the permissions shown during sign-in.

Information created through use

Gather processes information needed to operate features, such as posts and reply timestamps, follows, likes, bookmarks, notifications, account settings, and session state. The service may also process technical request information for security, troubleshooting, and service reliability.

How information is used

Information is used to create and maintain accounts, show public profiles and content, deliver requested features, send account-related messages where configured, prevent abuse, maintain security, troubleshoot failures, and respond to support or privacy requests.

Public content

Content you publish publicly—such as your username, profile details, posts, replies, and media—may be visible to other visitors and may be discovered by search engines. Do not publish information you want to keep private. Account-only areas such as drafts and bookmarks are intended for the signed-in user, but no online service can promise absolute security.

Service providers

Gather relies on third-party services to operate. The current application is configured to use Vercel for hosting, Neon for its PostgreSQL database, and Cloudinary for uploaded media. Google or Microsoft sign-in and an email-delivery provider may be used when the relevant features are configured. These providers process information as needed to supply their services and are subject to their own terms and privacy notices.

Cookies and local storage

Gather uses a session cookie to keep you signed in and protect account-related requests. The site may use browser local storage to remember your display-theme preference. Your browser controls can be used to manage cookies and local storage, although disabling them may prevent some features from working correctly.

Advertising

If advertising services such as Google AdSense are enabled, Google and its partners may use cookies, IP addresses, or similar technologies to deliver, measure, or personalize ads as permitted by their policies and your settings. Third parties may place and read cookies in your browser or use web beacons and IP addresses as a result of ad serving. Where required, Gather will provide applicable privacy disclosures and consent controls. Do not assume advertising cookies are active unless ads have actually been enabled on the site.

Learn more about how Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services.

Disclosure, security, and retention

Information may be processed by the service providers listed above, disclosed when legally required, or used to protect Gather, its users, and the public. Gather applies technical and organizational measures intended to protect information, but internet transmission and storage are not risk-free. Information is kept for as long as needed to operate the service, meet legitimate operational needs, resolve disputes, and comply with applicable obligations; actual retention can depend on the type of record and provider.

Your choices and privacy requests

You can choose what you publish and can use available account settings to update some profile information. For access, correction, or deletion requests, contact Gather using the address on our Contact page and identify the account concerned. We may need to verify that a request relates to your account before acting on it.

Children's privacy

Gather does not knowingly seek personal information from children where collecting it would be unlawful. If you believe a child has provided personal information inappropriately, please contact us so we can review the request.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when the service or its practices change. The revised date at the top indicates the latest version published on this page.