Privacy Policy

1. Who we are and how to contact us

PoetryVerse operates poetryverse.com (the Website). This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have. If you have questions about this policy or want to exercise any of the rights described below, contact us through the contact form on the homepage of the WebSite.

2. Information We Collect

Account information:When you create an account, we collect your email address, or, if you sign in with Google, the name and email address and avatar image provided by Google. You may optionally provide your own custom avatar image later.

Publisher information:If you choose to become a publisher, you may add a short biography, which may be fictional or personal, and links to other websites. You can also submit poems, which may include a title, subtitle, footnote, and the poem text itself.

Content you create:This includes poems, comments, poem likes, and saved poems.

Automatically collected information:We use Google Analytics and Google AdSense on the Website. These services may automatically collect certain technical information — such as IP address, browser type, device type, referring page, and the date and time of visit — and may use cookies to do so. This information is collected directly by Google, not by us, and is subject to Google's own privacy practices. See Section 5 for more detail. Our hosting provider may also retain standard server access logs for security and operational purposes.

3. How We Use Your Information

• Create and maintain your account
• Let you like, save, comment on, and publish poems
• Display your publisher profile and submitted content to other visitors
• Understand how visitors use the Website, so we can improve it
• Serve advertising, including personalized advertising where you've consented to it
• Communicate with you about your account, if necessary
• Detect and prevent abuse, spam, or violations of our Terms of Service

4. How We Share Your Information

Publicly visible information:As a logged-in user, your submitted comments become visible on the Website. If you become a publisher, your display name (or chosen alias), bio, profile picture and submitted poems are publicly visible on the Website to anyone who visits it.

Service providers:We share limited technical information with the third parties described in Section 5, who help us operate, analyze, and monetize the Website.

Legal reasons:We may disclose information if required by law, or if we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, your safety, or the safety of others.

5. Cookies and Advertising

Google Analytics:We use Google Analytics to understand how visitors use the Website, so we can improve it. Google Analytics may use cookies to distinguish visitors and collect the technical information described in Section 2.

Google AdSense:We use Google AdSense to serve advertising on the Website. AdSense may use cookies to serve ads, including personalized ads based on your browsing activity.

Consent for visitors in the European Economic Area and the UK:If you visit the Website from the European Economic Area, the UK, or Switzerland, you will be shown a consent banner, provided through Google AdSense, before any advertising cookies are set. You can accept or decline these cookies through that banner, and you can change your choice at any time by clearing your cookies and revisiting the Website, or by adjusting your browser's privacy settings.

Managing your ad preferences:Regardless of your location, you can review and manage how Google personalizes ads for you at My Ad Center. You can find more information about how Google uses data from its partners at Google's Partner Sites page.

Browser controls:Most browsers let you block or delete cookies through their settings. Since we don't rely on cookies for the Website's core functionality, blocking them should not affect your ability to use the Website, though it may affect how ads are shown to you.

6. Your Rights and Choices

Accessing and updating your information:You can review and update your account information at any time by logging in.

Deleting your account:You can permanently delete your account at any time from your account settings. Deleting your account immediately and permanently removes your poems, your publisher page and bio, your comments, and your personal information, except where limited information is retained for fraud prevention purposes as described below. Because your content is removed permanently, links to it from search engines or other websites may no longer work after deletion.

Fraud prevention:We retain a cryptographic hash of your email address after account deletion, solely to prevent the same email address from being used to create a new account. This hash cannot be used to identify you or recover your email address.

To exercise any of these rights, use the account deletion feature described above, or contact us through the contact form on the homepage of the Website.

7. Children's Privacy

The Website is not directed at children, and you must be at least 16 years old to create an account. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone younger than this. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will remove it.

8. Data Security

We take reasonable steps to keep your information secure. Like any online service, we can't promise perfect security, but protecting your data is something we take seriously.

9. International Data Transfers

Our servers are located in the United States. If you access the Website from outside the US, your information will be transferred to and processed in the US.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we'll update the "Last updated" date above.

11. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, contact us through the contact form on the homepage of the Website.