Privacy Policy

1. What we collect

Account information: your email address and display name, handled by our authentication provider, Clerk. If you set a profile photo, we store the image.

Content you create: posts, headlines, summaries, comments, reactions, deal listings, deal status reports, and messages sent through the Sound Off form.

Email signups: if you join our launch list, we store your email address.

Basic technical information: our hosting and security providers process IP addresses and browser information as part of delivering the site and blocking abuse.

We do not collect payment card details. If we add paid memberships, payments will be processed by Stripe, and Stripe — not us — will handle card data.

2. Why we collect it

To create and secure your account.

To display your posts and comments to other members.

To operate community features like reactions, deal verification, and member profiles.

To respond when you contact us.

To detect spam, abuse, and security threats.

To send you a launch notice or service messages you asked for.

3. What is public

Your display name, profile photo, posts, comments, and reactions are visible to other signed-in members.

Your member profile shows your activity history: posts, comments, reactions earned, deals posted, and how the community rated those deals.

Your email address is never shown publicly.

4. Who we share it with

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

We use service providers who process data on our behalf: Clerk (accounts and sign-in), Neon (database hosting), Railway (application hosting), Cloudflare (domain, security, and bot protection), and Resend (email delivery). Each handles data only to provide their service to us.

We may disclose information if required by law, or to protect the rights and safety of our members or the public.

5. Cookies

We use cookies that are necessary to keep you signed in and to protect the site from automated abuse.

We use Cloudflare Web Analytics to understand which pages are visited and how the site performs. It does not use cookies, does not track you across other websites, and does not build a profile of you.

We do not currently use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. If that changes, we will update this policy and, where required, ask for your consent first.

6. How long we keep things

We keep your account information while your account is open.

Posts and comments remain until you delete them or your account is closed.

Contact messages are kept so we have a record of what was raised and how we handled it.

Backups may retain deleted content for a limited period before being overwritten.

7. Your choices and rights

You can edit or delete your own posts and comments at any time.

You can ask us to delete your account and associated personal information through the Sound Off page.

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of your personal information, and to appeal a refusal. Residents of California, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, and other states with privacy laws have these rights. Contact us and we will honor them.

We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights.

8. Security

We use encrypted connections, a managed authentication provider, and access controls to protect your information. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

9. Children

Town Lantern is for adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. If we learn we have, we will delete it.

10. Where we operate

Town Lantern is intended for users in the United States, and information is processed in the United States.

11. Changes and contact

We will update this page when our practices change and revise the date at the top.

Questions about privacy go to the Sound Off page.