Privacy Policy

1Who we are

Palster is run by Grant Networks, LLC, 24A Trolley Square, Wilmington, DE 19806, United States. We decide how and why your information is used (in EU and UK law, we are the “controller”).

Questions or requests about your information: the contact form or [email protected].

This policy covers palster.com, the installable Palster app and every Palster feature. It doesn’t cover other websites you open from Palster.

2What we collect

What you give us

Space chats: joining a space does not join its Palsenger chat automatically. Chat members see unread counts and a message preview in the space; scheduled messages and spoiler contents stay hidden. Owners and admins can set staff-only announcements and a gap between members’ messages. We store those chat settings and use message times to enforce the gap. Leaving the space or being removed ends access to its chat history. Leaving only the chat keeps previously available history while you remain in the space.

Campfire chat: joining a campfire joins its Palsenger conversation. Messages stay in that conversation after the fire ends, subject to current access, blocks and message removal. Previewing a room alone does not reveal its chat. The compact chat keeps unfinished text in the current tab while you move between rooms.

Mart promotions: We keep promotion budgets, charges and credit returns. For paid placements, we keep member-linked exposure and visit records for up to 30 days, and temporary placement references for up to one hour, to enforce budgets, exclude repeat charges and measure delivery. Sellers see aggregate counts, never the identities of buyers who viewed an ad. Eligibility uses the category, the buyer’s chosen Mart area and the listing’s approximate location, not inferred sensitive traits. Existing listing-open records help us decide whether enough real buyer activity exists to offer a promotion.

Mart conversations: We keep your selected listing privately with your chat. Sending an inquiry shares a listing reference with the other participant. Listing cards show only what each reader can currently see; your selected listing can be changed or cleared from Mart tools.

Private drafts: Palsenger text drafts, unfinished Mart listings and your reusable space welcome and announcement drafts are saved on our servers so you can continue on another device. They are available only to the profile that wrote them, never to chat recipients or other space staff. A device keeps a recovery copy while offline. Conflicting edits ask you which draft to keep. Drafts are included in your data download and removed when your account is purged.

Links opened inside Palster: reader view asks Palster’s server to fetch the public page without your website sign-in cookies. Successful article extracts are kept temporarily in a small memory cache for faster repeat opens. Images and website view connect your device to the publisher. The reading list stores only page addresses and titles on this device, separately for each profile; it does not sync with Saved. Reading appearance is a device setting, and browser history and reading positions last only in the open Palster tab. Applause and link reports are saved on Palster’s server.

Scene ordering: Scenes from your pals and followed accounts are ordered using freshness, existing interaction history and Close Pals choices. Scenes you have not watched on this device come first. Your browser keeps up to 500 watched Scene identifiers per profile and ignores entries older than 30 days; this viewing history is not sent to the server. A Scene counts after its media has loaded and stayed open for one second. The Scenes page mixes creators, while each creator’s viewer plays their Scenes in sequence.

Community tools: we keep your event reminders and waitlist choices, shared-collection invitations and contributions, space post-review decisions and timing needed for slow mode, and your Pulse topic preferences. A shared collection contains links: accepting an invitation never grants access to private posts, listings or Scenes. Your personal saves are not shared automatically. Posts waiting for space approval are shown only to their author and staff; staff provide a reason when declining. Space search respects membership, blocks and lesson access. A topic snooze lasts 30 days; you can reset any preference.

Joining an event waitlist means that when a place opens, you can be marked Going and notified. Hosts can make recurring dates with separate attendance lists and cancel one date or later dates in the series; people going, waiting or expecting a reminder are notified.

• Account: your name, handle, email address and password. We keep only a scrambled version of your password (an Argon2id hash) that can’t be turned back into it. If you add a passkey, we keep its public key; your fingerprint or face never leaves your device. If you turn on two-step sign-in, we keep the key your authenticator app shares with us and a scrambled copy of each recovery code.
• Your country at sign-up: the country your device is set to, read from its time zone and language. We use it only to offer the ways to pay that work where you live. It isn’t shown on your profile; your town there is yours to add.
• Your age at sign-up: we ask for your birthday only to check you’re old enough. We don’t store it. If you’re under 13, we remember that answer in your browser for a day so the check can’t simply be retried.
• Profile: whatever you choose to add: photo, cover, intro, bio, pronouns, town, work, links, birthday (month and day) and birth year, and the audience for each.
• What you share: posts, comments, reactions, polls and votes, photos, videos, Scenes, voice notes, Campfire rooms, space posts, event replies, Mart listings, offers, feedback, requests and saved searches, page reviews, and anything else you create.
• Hidden details in photos and videos: cameras store where and when a picture was taken, the phone’s make and more inside the file. Our servers remove all of it from every photo, GIF, video and voice note you upload, keeping only which way up a picture goes.
• Messages and calls: Palsenger messages, photos, voice and video messages, reactions, shared lists and plans and who answered them, shared locations, the reminders you set, your chat folders, and a record of calls (who, when, how long). We don’t record the sound or video of calls.
• Photos and videos that open once: kept apart from other uploads where no web address reaches them, handed to each person in the chat once, and deleted when everyone has opened them or after 14 days at the latest. They can’t stop someone photographing their screen.
• Live location: while you share it, your device sends its position to that chat about every 20 seconds, only while Palsenger is open, until the time you picked or you stop. The last position stays in the chat like any shared location.
• Payments: what you bought, the amount and the payment company’s reference. Your card or GCash details are entered on Stripe’s or PayMongo’s own page; we never see or store them.
• When you use Find your pals: the email addresses you choose or paste are turned into a scrambled form (SHA-256) on your device. We compare them with members’ addresses to show you who is on Palster, and we don’t keep them. Only members who allow it can be found this way, and we never show anyone’s address. Turn it off for yourself in Profile → Privacy.
• When you contact us or report something: what you write, your email address, and the content you report.

What we collect as you use Palster

• Language choices: the language Palster is shown in, the language translations go into, the languages you read and whether to translate automatically, so they follow you to every device.
• Activity: who you’re pals with and follow, who you message, comment on and react to, the spaces you’re in and your personal favorites, the hashtags and Discover topics you follow (and when you last opened each hashtag, to count what’s new), the posts you’ve already seen, and the people and topics you mute or hide. This is what Pulse uses to rank your timeline. On Mart we also note which listings you open (once a day each): sellers see how many people looked, never who, and Mart uses it to show you what you looked at and more like it.
• Technical information: your IP address, browser and device type, in our web server’s logs and in the security service in front of our servers. If you turn on push notifications, the address your browser gives us for them and your browser’s name.
• Location, only if you allow it: when you use a feature that needs it (tagging a place, finding Mart items nearby, sharing your location in a chat), your device asks first. We use it to find the town or place name, and keep the name you choose. A location you share in a chat is stored in that chat. Your Mart area is the town you choose and its point rounded to about a kilometre, kept so Mart can show distances on any device; a listing keeps its town and a point rounded the same way, and buyers see only the town.
• Cookies and on-device storage: a sign-in cookie and a few settings. See the Cookie Policy.
• Invite checks: to stop people rewarding themselves with fake accounts, we compare a scrambled, one-way version of the network address an invite was used from (we can’t recover the address from it).

What we get from others

• Other members can mention or tag you, invite you, add you to a group chat or circle, or report you.
• If you sign in with Google, Google tells us your name, email address and a Google account number.
• Stripe and PayMongo tell us whether a payment went through.

3How we use it

• To run Palster: create your account, show your content to the audience you choose, deliver messages and calls, and run paid features.
• To rank Pulse: we use your connections, Close Pals choices and interactions (messages, comments, reactions, shares and spaces you share), freshness, conversation including participation by your pals, interests and followed Discover topics. Local-community posts can get a lift when their stated place matches yours. We use your saved reading languages, or browser languages until you save choices, for a small language boost. Palster’s local detector temporarily reads eligible post text to identify its language; ranking keeps only a short-lived text hash and language result in memory, never a new stored copy of the words. We do not infer demographic traits or interests from bios for Pulse ranking. We also use your topic preferences and balance repeated authors, topics and formats. Your followed topics, topic preferences and prior campaign impressions help select Palster’s own campaign cards. We explain this on About.
• To suggest people, pages and spaces: for example people you share pals with. You can leave suggestions entirely by turning off “Show me in search and suggestions”.
• To show Palster’s own promotions: cards marked “From Palster” promote a space, live room, post or feature on Palster. We pick them using their relevance to your followed topics and topic preferences, eligibility and how often you have seen them, and count when they’re shown, tapped or hidden. No other company advertises on Palster.
• To keep people safe: review reports, enforce our rules, stop spam and fraud, and protect accounts (for example, limiting repeated sign-in attempts).
• To contact you: sign-up codes, password resets and security notices by email; notifications in Palster and, if you turn them on, push notifications. Once a week, when something is waiting for you, we email you a short list: pal requests, who has written to you in Palsenger (never what they wrote), notifications you haven’t opened and a few posts your pals shared, built from what you could see in Palster. Every one has a link that stops them, and you can turn it off in Notification settings; we keep when we last sent it and how many of each it listed. We don’t send marketing emails.
• To improve Palster: we look at overall figures, such as how many members are active or come back, to see what works.
• For AI features you use: see section 5.
• To meet legal obligations and to establish or defend legal claims.

Our legal reasons (EU, UK and similar laws)

• Our contract with you to provide the Service: your account, content, messages, payments.
• Legitimate interests in a safe, working and improving Palster: ranking, suggestions, Palster’s own promotions, security, preventing fraud. You can object (section 8).
• Consent for device location and push notifications. You can withdraw it at any time in your device or browser settings.
• Legal obligations, for example tax records and lawful requests.

4Who can see what you share

• Your name, handle and photo are visible to members who are signed in, so people can find you, unless you’ve blocked them.
• Everything else on your profile has its own audience: members, pals, a circle, or only you. Anything you haven’t set is shown to pals. Locking your profile limits everything to pals.
• Posts go to the audience you pick when you post. Circle posts are seen only by that circle’s members. Space posts are seen by whoever the space lets in, and so are entries in a space’s challenges. Your vote in a challenge is counted, but nobody is shown who voted for what.
• Outside Palster, signed-out visitors can’t see profiles. A public post’s link shows a short preview (first name, the start of the text and the first photo) unless you lock your profile or turn link previews off. Pages can choose to show a public preview. A space’s own description (its name, what it is for, topics, house rules and how to join) can appear in search engines unless its staff turn that off. In a space anyone on Palster can join, the titles of its discussions can too, unless its staff turn that off; a note under the title field says so when you post. What members write in a discussion, its replies, and who wrote it or is in the space never appear there. What search engines can read, AI services such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity can read too, to answer questions or to train their models; members’ profiles, posts and chats are never open to them.
• Pages are public, and a page’s staff can see the page’s messages and insights. Insights are counts, never a list of who visited.
• Blocking someone hides you from them and them from you, both ways.

5Who we share it with

We also share information:

• When the law requires it, in response to valid legal process, or to prevent death or serious harm. See requests from authorities.
• To protect people and Palster, for example reporting child sexual exploitation to the US National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, as US law requires.
• If Palster changes hands in a merger or sale; this policy would continue to protect your information, and we’d tell you first.
• When you ask us to.

6AI and your information

We don’t use your content or messages to train AI models. Writing help, rewrites and suggested replies use Qwen3 on Palster’s own server, with your draft or up to 12 recent visible text messages from that chat. Spoilers and photos that open once are excluded from reply suggestions. Requests and results stay in memory for up to 15 minutes; logs contain call metadata, never the words. AI Pals use local Qwen3 on Palster’s server with your message, up to four recent visible text turns and your first name. Favorite AI Pals and answer styles are saved privately to your profile. AI Pal chats are stored in Palsenger; their call logs contain metadata only. Translation runs on Palster’s own server with open translation models (Qwen3 for Cebuano): the text you translate, and the language check behind See translation, never leave Palster and are not stored. Chat summaries send only the text they need to the external AI provider to produce the result. Automated community-account replies in Palsenger are limited to private one-to-one chats with Palster’s founder. Community accounts may also generate comments and replies in public conversations on posts by community accounts or the founder, using their fictional profile and the visible thread. Both run on Palster’s own server; this context is not sent to an external AI provider. Camera effects and smooth skin run entirely on your device; your camera picture never leaves it. Details are on AI at Palster.

7How long we keep it

• While your account is open, we keep your information until you delete it. Deleting a post, comment or message removes it; unsending a message clears it.
• When you delete your account, it disappears from view at once and every device is signed out. After 30 days (your chance to change your mind), everything that is yours is erased, including your uploads.
• Some records stay, without your name: orders, payment records, reports and moderation decisions are kept as “deleted member” where we need them for accounts, safety or the law. We keep only the dates and counts of a deletion, never the content.
• Server logs (IP address, browser, address requested) are kept for a limited time for security and to fix problems.
• Copies kept to protect against data loss may hold deleted information for a limited time before they are deleted.

8Your choices and rights

Things you can do yourself

• Download your data: Settings → Your data → Download your data gives you a file of your profile, posts, comments, reactions, messages you sent, Scenes, connections, space activity, Mart listings, orders, requests, your Mart area and saved searches, and what you saved and the folders you saved it in.
• Delete your account: Settings → Your data → Delete account.
• Correct your profile: edit it at any time.
• Choose your audiences, lock your profile, and decide who can send you pal requests, follow you or message you.
• Turn off read receipts, typing and active status in Palsenger, push notifications, location access and link previews.

Rights you can ask us for

Depending on where you live (for example under the GDPR in Europe, the UK GDPR, or California’s privacy laws), you may have the right to access, correct, delete or receive a copy of your information, to object to or restrict how we use it, and to withdraw consent. We give these rights to everyone, wherever they live. Ask through the contact form or [email protected]. We may need to confirm it’s you, usually by asking you to write from your account’s email address. We don’t treat you differently for using your rights.

If you’re unhappy with our answer, you can complain to the data protection authority where you live.

California

We don’t sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, as those terms are defined in California law. The categories we collect, the reasons and who we share them with are those in sections 2, 3 and 5.

9Security

Palster is served only over HTTPS. Passwords are stored as Argon2id hashes, passkeys and two-step sign-in are available, and changing your password signs out every device. Access to our systems is limited.

Please know that Palsenger messages are not end-to-end encrypted. They are protected in transit and stored on our servers, so we could access them, for example to review a reported message. We don’t read your messages otherwise. Voice and video calls are encrypted between the devices in the call, as all browser calls are; when a direct connection isn’t possible they pass through our own relay server, which can’t listen in. More on our security page.

No system is perfectly secure. If we learn of a breach that affects you, we’ll tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

10Children and teens

Palster is not for children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect information from them. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 13, we delete it. If you believe a child under 13 is using Palster, tell us.

Members aged 13 to 17 can use Palster. We encourage parents and teens to look at the privacy settings together: locking a profile, choosing who can message, and blocking.

11Where your information is processed

Palster is run from the United States, and your information is stored and processed there and wherever our service providers work. When we transfer information from the EU, UK or other places with transfer rules, we rely on the safeguards those laws allow, such as the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses.

12Changes and contact

We’ll update this policy as Palster changes. For a change that matters, we’ll tell you in Palster before it takes effect. The date at the top shows the latest version.

Contact: [email protected], or Grant Networks, LLC, Attn: Privacy, 24A Trolley Square, Wilmington, DE 19806, United States.