Privacy Policy

TownThread LLC ("TownThread", "we", "us", or "our") provides managed private community forums for neighborhood associations, HOAs, and local groups. Our service is available at townthread.org and through community subdomains (e.g., yourhood.townthread.org).

Our mailing address is: [TownThread LLC, Address, City, State ZIP]. You can reach us at privacy@townthread.org for any privacy-related questions.

We collect information in three ways: what you give us directly, what's generated when you use the service, and what we receive from third parties.

What you give us directly:

• Account information — name, email address, username, and password when you register
• Community profile information — anything you add to your forum profile (optional)
• Content you post — forum posts, comments, replies, uploaded files
• Payment information — processed by Stripe; we store only billing email and the last 4 digits of your card
• Support communications — emails and messages you send our team
• Onboarding form data — community name, size, preferences you submit when setting up your forum

What's generated automatically:

• Usage data — pages visited, features used, time spent, clicks
• Device & browser information — IP address, browser type, operating system
• Log data — server logs including access times and error reports
• Cookies and similar tracking (see Section 6)

What we receive from third parties:

• Social login information — if you sign in with Google, GitHub, or Facebook, we receive your name, email, and profile photo from that provider
• Payment processors — Stripe provides payment confirmation and billing status

We use the information we collect only to operate and improve TownThread. Specifically:

• To run your forum — provision your server, authenticate logins, deliver content
• To send transactional emails — account setup, password resets, billing receipts, forum notifications you've opted into
• To provide support — respond to your questions and troubleshoot issues
• To send monthly analytics reports — engagement summaries for community admins (Community and Association plans)
• To improve the service — understand how people use TownThread to make it better; this analysis is done in aggregate, not by tracking individuals
• To comply with the law — where we have a legal obligation to do so

We share data only with the vendors required to operate our service, and only to the extent necessary. We have data processing agreements in place with each of these providers.

• DigitalOcean — cloud infrastructure hosting your community forum server
• Cloudflare — DNS, CDN, and DDoS protection
• Amazon Web Services (SES) — transactional email delivery
• Stripe — payment processing; they handle all card data directly
• Discourse — open-source forum software that powers the forum functionality

We do not share data with analytics companies, social media platforms, data brokers, or advertisers. If we are ever required to disclose data by law, we will notify affected users unless legally prohibited from doing so.

Each TownThread forum is private by default. Content is only accessible to members of that specific community — not to the public, not to other TownThread communities, and not searchable by Google.

Community admins (the people running each forum) have moderator access to all content within their community. They can read, edit, and remove posts in accordance with their community's rules. TownThread staff may access forum content only when required for technical support — we don't browse community forums.

You own your content. TownThread does not claim ownership of anything you post. You grant us a limited license to store and display your content to your community — nothing more.

We use a small number of cookies to make TownThread work:

• Session cookies — keep you logged in during your visit
• Preference cookies — remember settings like notification preferences
• Security cookies — help protect against cross-site request forgery

We do not use third-party advertising cookies, cross-site tracking pixels, or behavioral analytics tools that profile you across the web. We use simple, privacy-respecting analytics to understand how people navigate our marketing site (townthread.org) in aggregate.

You can disable cookies in your browser settings, though some features (like staying logged in) will not work without session cookies.

We take reasonable and industry-standard measures to protect your data:

• All data is encrypted in transit (TLS 1.2+) and at rest
• Each community runs on its own isolated server instance
• Daily automated backups with secure off-site storage
• Access to production systems is restricted and logged
• Passwords are hashed using bcrypt — we never store them in plain text

No system is 100% secure. If a security breach occurs that affects your data, we will notify you within 72 hours of becoming aware of it, as required by applicable law.

We keep your data for as long as your account is active. When a community subscription ends:

• We retain a full data export for 60 days after cancellation
• You can request a complete export of all community data at any time
• After 60 days, all community data is permanently deleted from our servers
• Billing records are retained for 7 years as required by tax law

Individual member accounts within a community are subject to that community's data retention settings, configured by the community admin.

You have the following rights with respect to your personal data. To exercise any of them, email privacy@townthread.org.

• Access — request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• Correction — ask us to correct inaccurate data
• Deletion — request deletion of your account and personal data
• Portability — receive your data in a machine-readable format
• Objection — object to how we process your data in certain circumstances
• Opt out of emails — unsubscribe from any non-essential emails at any time

We will respond to all requests within 30 days. If you are a resident of California, the EU, or the UK, you may have additional rights under CCPA or GDPR — we honor those rights for all users regardless of location.

TownThread is intended for adults 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has created an account without parental consent, please contact us at privacy@townthread.org and we will promptly delete the account.

Community admins are responsible for enforcing age requirements within their own forums. We recommend communities include age requirements in their membership approval process.

We may update this policy occasionally. When we do, we will:

• Post the new version here with an updated effective date
• Email all community admins with a summary of material changes
• Give at least 30 days notice before significant changes take effect

Your continued use of TownThread after the effective date of a revised policy constitutes your acceptance of the changes. If you object to a change, you can cancel your subscription before it takes effect.

Privacy questions, data requests, or anything we missed — we're a small team and we read every email.