Privacy Policy
Effective [EFFECTIVE DATE]. Last updated November 7, 2026.
The Forum is a news app for adults in the United States. This policy explains what personal information The Forum collects, why, who receives it, how long we keep it, and the choices and rights you have. It covers The Forum app and the website at [DOMAIN].
The short version
- You can read The Forum without an account. To save stories, vote or comment, you create one with your full legal name and your email address. Other signed-in members see your name next to your comments. Your email address is never shown to anyone.
- What you read is used to improve The Forum, under a random install ID that we don't connect to your account.
- Your personal reading profile, saved stories and settings stay on your phone.
- We never receive your precise location.
- The Forum is free because it shows ads from Google. Google may personalize them using information about your device and activity, unless you say no. On iPhone, The Forum asks your permission first. You can opt out of this at any time (see "Ads").
- You can delete your comments, or your whole account, from inside the app at any time.
Who we are
The Forum is run by [OPERATOR] ("The Forum", "we", "us"), [ADDRESS]. You can reach us about privacy at thane@th.enterprises.
Who can use The Forum
The Forum is only for people aged 18 or older who live in the United States. We don't knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe someone under 18 has an account, email thane@th.enterprises and we will delete it.
Information you give us
- Account details. Your full legal name and your email address. Your name is your public display name on The Forum. We use your email to send you sign-in codes and important messages about your account.
- Agreements. When you created your account, that you confirmed you are 18 or older, and which version of our Terms of Use and Community Rules you agreed to.
- Comments, votes and reports. The comments and replies you post, your upvotes and downvotes on stories and comments, the reports you file about comments (and the reason you chose), and the people you block.
- Error reports. If you report a mistake in a story, the story, the note you write (up to 2,000 characters) and, if you're signed in, your account.
- How you heard about The Forum. If you answer this optional question when you set up the app, we store your answer and the date, with nothing that identifies you or your phone.
- Messages to us. What you send when you email us, and our replies.
Information collected automatically
- Reading activity. The app records what happens with each story: when it is shown, opened, finished, skipped, saved, shared, listened to or voted on, how far you scrolled, how long you spent, which version of a headline you saw, and topics you follow or unfollow. It sends this to our servers with a random install ID that the app creates. We don't connect the install ID to your account, name or email. We use this activity to test headlines, check how well our writing works, and rank stories for all readers.
- Days you open the app. Once a day, when you open the app, it records the same install ID, the date and whether your phone is an iPhone or Android. We use this to count how many people read The Forum each day and how many come back. It isn't linked to your account, name or email.
- Your home state. If you choose a home state, the app sends it when it asks for stories, so it can include local news.
- Device and connection data. When the app or website connects to our servers or our service providers' servers, they receive your IP address, device and operating system type, and app version. These are kept in security logs for a short time (see "How long we keep information").
- Crash reports. If the app crashes or hits an error, it sends a report: what went wrong, the screens and network requests just before it (without anything after a "?" in a web address), the app version, and your phone's model and system version. Crash reports don't include your name, email address, install ID, IP address, location, screenshots or recordings of your screen.
- Sign-in records. Our sign-in provider records when you sign in and from which IP address, to protect your account.
Information that stays on your phone
We never receive the following. It is stored only on your device and is deleted when you delete the app.
- Your reading profile. What The Forum has learned you like, the answers you gave when you set up the app (such as your interests and the kind of work you do), and the list of recent signals shown under "What your feed has learned". The profile itself never leaves your phone, although the individual actions it learns from are part of the reading activity described above.
- Saved stories and offline copies, including their pictures and narration.
- Signal predictions. The times of day when The Forum has noticed you usually lose signal, so it can download stories ahead of time.
- Settings, such as text size and appearance.
Location
The Forum never sends your precise location to us. There are two optional features that use it:
- "Check if I'm near a train station." If you turn this on, the app compares your position with a list of stations on your phone while the app is open, then discards it.
- "Use my location" when choosing your state. Your phone's built-in location service turns your position into a state. On iPhone this is Apple's service, which receives your position under Apple's privacy policy. The app keeps only the state you confirm.
Both need your permission, and you can turn location off for The Forum at any time in your phone's settings.
Ads
Ads are served by Google AdMob as separate cards between stories, never inside a story. Google's software in the app receives your IP address, information about your device, your device's advertising identifier (if you allow it), and information about the ads you see and tap. Google uses this to show ads, to limit how often you see the same ad, to measure ads and to prevent fraud.
Ads may be personalized: chosen using what Google knows about your interests, including from other apps and websites. On iPhone, The Forum asks your permission through Apple's "Ask App Not to Track" prompt, and if you say no, Google doesn't get your advertising identifier and The Forum doesn't let Google track you across other companies' apps and websites. When the app first starts, Google may also show a short message asking for your choices where state law requires it. Under some US state laws, sharing information with Google for personalized ads counts as "selling" or "sharing" personal information. You can opt out at any time: see "Your choices" and "Your privacy rights". You see the same number of ads either way. Read how Google uses information from apps that use its services.
Release alerts
If you turn on release alerts, the app gives The Forum a push notification address for your phone (a token from Apple or Google, passed on through Expo, our app platform), along with which releases you want alerts for. It isn't linked to your account, your name or your install ID. We use it only to send those alerts, and we stop using it when you turn alerts off or delete the app. To stop alerts, switch them off in Account, or turn off notifications for The Forum in your phone's settings.
Partner stories
Some stories are republished from partner newsrooms whose licenses require them to count their readers. When you open one of these, the app loads a tiny counter image from that newsroom's server, which receives your IP address and device information under that newsroom's privacy policy. Partner stories are always labeled with the newsroom's name.
How we use information
- To run The Forum: create and secure your account, send sign-in codes, show stories, and show your name with your comments.
- To keep the community safe: check comments and display names against our Community Rules, act on reports, honor blocks, and investigate abuse.
- To improve The Forum: test headlines, review how well stories are written, rank stories, and find and fix problems. We do this with reading activity that isn't connected to your account.
- To show ads, as described above.
- To send release alerts, if you turn them on.
- To answer you when you contact us.
- To protect The Forum, our members and the public, and to comply with the law.
We send email only for sign-in codes and important messages about your account or these policies. We don't send marketing email.
Automated moderation
We use automated tools, including an AI model provided by Anthropic, to check new comments and display names against our Community Rules. A comment that clearly breaks the rules may be hidden automatically, and a comment reported by three different members is hidden until a person reviews it. You can ask for a human review of any decision at thane@th.enterprises. Anthropic processes this text only to provide the service to us and, under its commercial terms, doesn't use it to train its models.
What other members see
Other signed-in members can see your full legal name, your initials, your comments and replies, when you posted them, and their vote scores. Comments are not visible to people who aren't signed in, and they aren't published on the open web, but members can still copy or screenshot them. Votes are counted, but no one else can see how you voted. Blocking is private: the person you block isn't told.
Who we share information with
- Service providers that run parts of The Forum for us, under contracts that limit how they can use it:
| Provider | What they do | Information involved |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Database and sign-in | Account details, comments, votes, reports, blocks, sign-in records |
| Cloudflare | Hosting, content delivery and storage | Reading activity, IP addresses, home state in feed requests |
| Resend | Sending sign-in codes | Email address |
| Anthropic | AI moderation of comments and display names | Comment text and display names |
| Sentry (Functional Software, Inc.) | Crash reports | Crash reports, as described above |
- Google, for ads, as described in "Ads". Google uses the information under its own privacy policy as well as for The Forum.
- Other members, who see what you post, as described above.
- For legal reasons, when we believe in good faith that the law requires it (such as a valid subpoena or court order), or to protect the safety of any person, to address fraud or security issues, or to enforce our terms.
- In a business transfer, if The Forum is sold, merged or reorganized, to the new owner, who must honor this policy.
- With your permission, in any other case.
When you allow personalized ads, the information Google's software receives (described in "Ads") may count as "selling" or "sharing" personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising under California law and similar laws in other states. We don't sell or share personal information in any other way, and we don't knowingly sell or share the personal information of anyone under 18, who can't use The Forum.
How long we keep information
| Information | How long |
|---|---|
| Account details and agreements | Until you delete your account |
| Your comments | Until you delete them or your account. When deleted, the text is erased at once. If others replied, a "This comment was removed" placeholder stays, with no name attached |
| Comments hidden for breaking the rules | The text is kept for 12 months, for appeals and safety, then erased |
| Votes, blocks and reports you filed | Until you delete your account |
| Error reports about stories | 12 months. If you delete your account first, the report stays without your account attached |
| How you heard about The Forum | 24 months |
| Reading activity | 12 months |
| Days you open the app | 24 months |
| Security and sign-in logs | Up to 90 days |
| Crash reports | Up to 90 days |
| Release alert tokens | Until you turn alerts off, or the phone stops accepting them |
| Emails with us | Up to 2 years after the conversation ends |
When you delete your account, we delete it from our live systems straight away. Copies in backups are overwritten within 30 days. We may keep information longer if the law requires it or to resolve a dispute that is under way.
Your choices
- Delete a comment: tap ⋯ on the comment, then Delete comment.
- Delete your account: Account, then Delete account. This deletes your name, email, votes, blocks and reports, and erases the text of all your comments. It also gives the app a new install ID, so reading activity from before can't be matched to the new one.
- Block someone: tap ⋯ on their comment, then Block.
- Location: turn it off for The Forum in your phone's settings.
- Personalized ads: on iPhone, Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Tracking, then turn off The Forum; on Android, Settings, then Google, then Ads, then delete your advertising ID. You can also opt out of the sale or sharing of your information for ads by tapping Your Privacy Choices in the Account tab, emailing thane@th.enterprises or sending a Global Privacy Control signal.
- Release alerts: Account, then Release alerts.
- Everything on your phone: delete the app.
Your privacy rights
Several US states give their residents rights over their personal information. We give these rights to everyone who uses The Forum, wherever they live in the US:
- Know and access: what personal information we have about you, and a copy of it in a portable format.
- Correct: information that is wrong. You can't change your name to a different person's name, because the Community Rules require your own full legal name.
- Delete: your personal information, with the exceptions the law allows.
- Opt out of the sale of personal information and sharing for targeted advertising (see "Ads" for how personalized ads work in The Forum). We don't use profiling that has legal or similarly significant effects.
- Not be treated differently for using these rights.
To make a request, email thane@th.enterprises from the address on your account, or use Delete account in the app. We confirm it is you by sending a code to that address. You can ask someone else to make a request for you if you give them signed permission and we can confirm your identity. We answer within 45 days, and if we need more time (up to another 45 days) we will tell you why.
If we turn down your request, you can appeal by replying to our answer within 60 days. We will answer the appeal within 60 days. If you are still unhappy, you can contact your state attorney general.
Signals from your browser or device
We honor the Global Privacy Control signal as a request to opt out of sale and sharing for advertising. On iPhone, saying no to Apple's tracking prompt does the same.
California
In the past 12 months we collected these categories of personal information, from you, your device and other members (through reports), for the purposes and with the recipients described above: identifiers (name, email address, install ID, IP address); customer records (name and email address); internet or network activity (reading activity and how you use the app); and approximate location (your home state and location estimated from your IP address); and, if you allow personalized ads, device advertising identifiers and information about the ads you see, which Google receives. We also collect your account login details (your email address with a one-time code) only to sign you in, which is a use California law allows. We don't disclose personal information to third parties for their own direct marketing.
Security
Data travels between the app and our servers encrypted, and our providers encrypt it where it is stored. Access to our database is limited by row-level rules, so members can read only what they are allowed to, and only a few people at The Forum can see account details. No system is perfectly secure, so we can't promise that information will never be accessed without permission. If a breach affects you, we will tell you as the law requires.
Where information is processed
The Forum's servers are in the United States. People who work on The Forum may access information from other countries, including Australia, and they protect it to the same standard.
Changes to this policy
If we make a change that matters, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect, and update the date at the top. Earlier versions are available on request.
Contact
[OPERATOR], [ADDRESS]. Email thane@th.enterprises.