We collect certain information when you use Zines Forever. This includes information you provide to us, information we collect automatically, and information we receive from other sources.

Account information. When you create a Zines Forever account, you can come up with a username and password, and provide a way of contacting you (such as an email address and/or phone number). You'll also need to provide your birthday. In some cases, you may be required to verify your account or provide additional information (like a verified phone number) to your account. You may also have the option to add your name or nicknames.

Content you create. This includes any content that you upload to the service. For example, you may write messages or posts or draw images through the service. This also includes your profile information and the information you provide when you create new worlds. If we were to change that in the future (for example, to facilitate content moderation), we would disclose that to you in advance.

Information from actions you take. We collect information about your use of Zines Forever and your activities on the services. This includes the drawing actions you take, the worlds or other communities you join and participate in, your roles in servers, content moderation decisions you make, and other related actions. You can control whether we collect, use, and display this information as described in the “How to control your privacy” section below.

Other information you provide directly to us. You may have the option to submit additional information as you use Zines Forever. For example, you may choose to submit information to our Zines Forever Support teams.

Information about your device. We collect information about the device you are using to access the services. For example, this includes information like your IP address, operating system information, browser information, and information about your device settings.

Information about your use of the apps or websites. For example, we collect log and event information related to how and when you use our services (such as the pages, worlds, and channels you visit, the activities you engage in, or the embedded content you interact with).

Other information that we collect automatically. When you take certain actions on other sites, we may receive information about you. For example, when we advertise for Zines Forever on third party platforms, if you click on the ad, we may receive information about which ad you saw and on which platform. Similarly, we may also receive certain information when you click on a referral link, such as which website you came from.

We may receive information from cookies (small text files placed on your computer or device) and similar technologies. First-party cookies are placed by us (and our third-party service providers) and allow you to use the services and to help us analyze and improve your experience and the services. You can control cookies as described in the “How to control your privacy” section below. The services use the following types of cookies:

Strictly Necessary Cookies: These are required for services to function and to meet our legal obligations. If you try to use tools to disable these cookies, parts of the services may not work properly.

Functional Cookies: These help us provide enhanced functionality. Disabling these could affect some service functionality.

Performance Cookies: These allow us or our third-party analytics providers to learn how you and others use and engage with the services so we can understand and improve them.

We use third-party analytics services to collect information about your session including browser, location (city, state, country), user ID (if signed in) to understand the interaction between the website and user. We may disclose your site use information to these analytics providers to help us learn more about how you and others use our services: Google Privacy & Terms.

To provide you with the services. We use your information to provide you with the Zines Forever services. For example, we collect and store the messages you send and display them as you direct. We also use the information you provide to us to create and manage your account.

To meet our commitments to the Zines Forever community. We work hard to try to make Zines Forever a safe, positive, and inclusive place. To do so, we use your information to monitor for and take action against users and content that violate our Terms of Service, Community Guidelines, and other policies. This includes responding to user reports, generating transcriptions of content as part of our investigation, detecting fraud and malware, and proactively scanning attachments and other content for illegal or harmful content. We also use certain information, which may include content reported to us, content that violates the Terms, and certain other content widely available on the service (such as public posts, usernames, avatars, banners, user profiles, world names, world icons, and world banners), to create systems and models that can be automated to more swiftly detect, categorize, and take action against prohibited content or conduct.

To contact you. We use your information to contact you in connection with your account, such as to verify or secure it. We may also use your information to contact you about important product or policy changes. We may use your information to send you marketing communications such as letting you know about new products or features we think you'll like. You may opt-out of receiving such marketing communications. Where local law requires, we will obtain your consent before sending such communications.

To provide customer service. We use your information to respond to your questions about our products and services, and to investigate bugs or other issues.

To protect our services. We use information to keep our services secure, to prevent misuse, and to enforce our Terms of Service and other policies against users who violate them.

To report on our company's performance. We use your information to track the fundamental metrics of our business, to perform financial reporting, to respond to regulatory obligations, and to debug billing issues.

To improve our services. We use your information to help us understand how users interact with our services, what features or products users may want, or to otherwise understand and improve our services. This includes information about how you use our services and how worlds are structured.

To comply with our legal obligations. We retain and use your information in connection with potential legal claims when necessary and for compliance, regulatory, and auditing purposes. For example, we retain information where we are required by law or if we are compelled to do so by a court order or regulatory body. Also, when you exercise any of your applicable legal rights to access, amend, or delete your personal information, we may request additional information from you for the purpose of confirming your identity.

To protect someone's vital interests. We may collect or share personal data if we think someone's life is in danger—for example, to help resolve an urgent medical situation.

When you tell us to. When you add your content to the services, you are telling us to make that content available to certain people or communities. Who can access that information is determined by who can access a particular space. For worlds, those permissions are set by world owners or admins. They control whether a world requires an invite link or is open and accessible to anyone. And these permissions, like the size of the server, may change over time. We may also disclose your information as you otherwise instruct us or provide us your consent to do so.

With our vendors. We may provide information to vendors we hire to carry out specific work for us. This includes payment processors like Stripe and PayPal that process transactions on our behalf and cloud providers like Google that host our data and our services. We do this to help bring more users to Zines Forever and make our business successful, and provide only the information required to facilitate these services.

To comply with the law. We may disclose information in response to a request for information if we believe disclosure is required by law, including meeting national security or law enforcement requirements. Where allowed and feasible, we will attempt to provide you with prior notice before disclosing your information in response to such a request.

In an emergency. We may disclose information if we believe in good faith that it's necessary to prevent serious harm to a person.

To enforce our policies and rights. We may disclose information if needed to enforce our Terms of Service, Community Guidelines, or other policies, or to protect the rights, property, and safety of ourselves and others.

Sale, Acquisition, or Transfer of Assets. We may disclose information if Zines Forever is evaluating and/or engaging in a merger, acquisition, reorganization, bankruptcy, or sale, transfer, or change in ownership of Zines Forever or any of its assets.

Aggregated or de-identified information. We may disclose information that has been aggregated or anonymized such that it cannot reasonably be used to identify you. For example, we may share aggregated user statistics in order to describe our business to partners or the public.

We retain personal information until we determine it is no longer needed for the processing purposes for which we collected or retain it or for legal compliance.

We take a number of steps to help protect your information. All information sent within our services is encrypted both in transit and at rest. For example, we use Transport Layer Security (“TLS”) to encrypt text and images in transit. We also enforce technical and administrative access controls to limit which of our employees and contractors have access to nonpublic personal information.

Manage your content and servers. You may edit or delete specific pieces of information within the services: You can edit or delete any message you have sent or content you have posted if you still have access to the space where you posted it. You can edit or delete a Zines Forever zine if you have the permissions needed to do so. You can edit or delete a channel from a Zines Forever zine if you have the permissions needed to do so. Content may be retained by Zines Forever for use as described elsewhere in this policy. Also, in limited circumstances, we may have a legal obligation to retain certain information, even if you delete the information or your account.

Delete your account. You can delete your account via the User Settings menu. Deleting your account permanently deletes identifying information and anonymizes other data.

To control how information is collected and used from cookies on the services, you can take one or more of the following steps.

You can disable and manage some cookies through your browser settings. You will need to manage your settings for each browser you use. You can find instructions for how to manage Cookies in popular browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari (iOS), Safari (Mac), and Opera.

To disable analytics cookies, you can use the browser controls discussed above or, for certain providers, you can use their individual opt-out mechanisms, such as Google Analytics Opt-Out.

Your mobile device may also include browser settings to manage the use of cookies. Your device may also have settings to control the collection and use of information in your apps.

If you disable or remove cookies, some parts of the services may not function properly. Information may be collected to remember your opt-out preferences.

We will update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We always indicate the date the last changes were published, and if changes are significant, we'll provide a more prominent notice as required by law, such as by emailing you or highlighting the changes within the services.