Privacy policy

When you join. Your email address, a password, a username and a display name. Your password is stored as a one-way hash, so we can't read it. Your username is public and is part of your closet's web address.

Your profile. Anything you add: avatar, bio, location, favorite genres, banner, mood line, profile song and similar touches. These are public. If you give us your birth year, it stays private and is used only to award the "older than you" mark.

What you post. Photos, item titles, notes, sizes, condition, prices, acquisition stories, posts, comments, wall posts, hashtags, mentions, likes and follows. Most of this is public by design. See "Who can see what" below.

Photo metadata. Phone and camera photos often carry hidden data called EXIF. When you upload, our server reads the date the photo was taken, its GPS location if present, and the camera model. We store those with the photo. We then strip all metadata from every file the site serves, and we delete the original upload. See "Photos and location" below.

Messages. Direct messages between members are stored so the conversation works. They are not public.

Invites and the waitlist. MerchVice launches by invitation. If you join the waitlist, we store your email address so we can invite you later. If you join through someone's invite link, we record who invited you. Referral counts may appear as marks on the inviter's profile.

Band claims. If you claim a band page, we store your claim, the evidence you submit, a contact email, and our decision.

Reports and moderation. If you report something, we store the report and your note. If something you posted is reviewed, we keep a record of the review and its outcome.

Technical data. Our servers see your IP address and basic request details such as browser type and the page requested. We use IP addresses to limit abuse, for example too many sign-in attempts in a minute. Server logs are kept for a short period for security and debugging.

We don't collect payment card numbers. When selling arrives, payments go through Stripe, which handles card data directly. See "Selling and payments".

• To run your account, sign you in and keep you signed in.
• To show your closet, posts and profile to the people you've chosen to share them with.
• To build feeds, notifications and the weekly digest from the members, bands and tags you follow.
• To send email you need, such as verification, password resets, and messages or replies you've asked to hear about. You can turn off social and digest email in settings, and every digest has a one-click unsubscribe.
• To keep the community safe: rate limits, spam checks, reports and review.
• To fix bugs and understand what's working, using our own database, not third-party analytics.

Our feeds are chronological. We don't build an advertising profile of you, and we don't rank you.

Public. Your username, display name, profile, closet items, posts, comments, likes and follows are public. When the site is open to everyone, anyone on the web can see them, and search engines may index public pages.

During the gated launch. While MerchVice is in teaser or invite mode, content pages are visible only to members and invited visitors, and we tell search engines not to index them.

Not public. Your email address, password, direct messages, private birth year, photo GPS when location is off, and your settings.

Suggestive content. Posts marked suggestive are hidden from visitors and from members who haven't switched them on. They are never listed for search engines.

Blocks. If you block someone, they can't message you, comment on your things or mention you. Blocking does not hide your public items from them.

Your photos are resized into a few web sizes. Every served copy has its metadata removed. The original upload is deleted after processing.

We keep the date taken, GPS and camera as private fields on the photo. They help with things like pre-filling the date of a show and, later, provenance.

Location shows only when you choose. It is off by default for closet items and on by default for booth shots, since a booth shot is about a place and a show. You can change it per item or post. When location is off, we don't send it to anyone's browser.

We never use photo GPS for band stats, and we never put location or EXIF in data meant for search engines.

We use a small number of service providers. They process data for us under their own terms and security practices.

• Railway: Hosting, our Postgres database, and photo storage. Where: United States.
• Resend: Sending email. Where: United States.
• Stripe (later): Payments and seller payouts. Where: United States and other countries where Stripe operates.
• PayPal (possibly, later): A payment option for buyers. Where: United States and other countries where PayPal operates.
• An AI service (later): Automated suggestions for our moderators (see below). We'll name the provider and where it processes data here before we use one.

We look up band names against MusicBrainz, a public music database. Those lookups contain the band name typed, not your personal data.

When you add an allowed embed, like a Spotify or Bandcamp player, that service loads in a frame on the page and its own privacy policy applies to it.

Automated help with moderation. An image check runs on our own server at upload to flag possible nudity. We may also use an AI service to suggest how to sort reports, spot spam, or guess what an item is. These tools only suggest. A person makes every decision to remove content or suspend an account.

We share data otherwise only when the law requires it, to protect people from harm, to enforce our terms, or if MerchVice is sold or merged, in which case this policy follows the data.

We don't sell personal data. We don't share it for cross-context behavioral advertising either.

We keep cookies to what the site needs:

• Session: keeps you signed in.
• Invite: remembers an invite link for up to 30 days so you can finish joining.
• Shuffle: a short-lived cookie that keeps archive rows steady while you page through them.

Your light or dark theme choice is saved in your browser's local storage, not a cookie. Rate limiting uses your IP address, not a cookie.

No advertising cookies. No third-party trackers. Embeds you choose to load may set their own.

We keep your data while your account exists.

When you delete an item, it disappears from the site right away. We keep the record and its photos for a while so a mistake can be undone and so moderation history stays intact.

When you delete your account, we remove your profile, closet, posts and photos, and anonymize or remove what's left. Some records stay where we need them: moderation and safety records, records of completed sales for tax and accounting, and anything we must keep by law. Backups roll off within 30 days.

Waitlist emails are kept until you're invited or ask us to remove yours.

• See and edit. You can view and edit your profile and everything you've posted.
• Delete content. You can delete any item, post or comment you made.
• Delete your account. For now, email [email protected] from your account's address and we'll delete it within 30 days. Self-serve deletion is coming.
• Get a copy. Ask at [email protected] and we'll send you your data in a common format.
• Email. Change what we email you about in settings, or unsubscribe from the digest in one click.
• Location. Turn photo location on or off per item.

Depending on where you live, such as California or the EU and UK, you may have further rights, including correction, restriction and objection. Ask at [email protected] and we'll answer within the time the law allows. You can also complain to your local data protection authority.

MerchVice is run from the US, and your data is stored in the US. If you join from elsewhere, your data is transferred to the US.

MerchVice is for people 13 and older, or 16 and older where local law requires it. We don't knowingly collect data from younger children. If you think a child under that age has an account, tell us at [email protected] and we'll delete it.

Passwords are hashed. Connections use HTTPS. Uploads go through signed, short-lived links. Served photos carry no metadata. Access to production systems is limited to the people who run MerchVice.

No system is perfect. If we learn of a breach that affects you, we'll tell you as the law requires.

We'll update this policy as MerchVice grows, especially when selling and trading arrive. We'll change the effective date at the top, and for meaningful changes we'll tell members by email or on the site before they take effect.

MerchVice, Ed Crotty [email protected]