Effective 15 September 2026. The Story of the Internet at ofstory.net is operated by TWAMD LLC in the United States. There are no accounts and no names, and we keep as little as we can.
What we keep
If you join the launch list, we keep your email address for one confirmation link and one launch note. Beside it we keep what sending and stopping those two messages needs: a normalized copy of the address, a hashed confirmation token, the dates the messages were sent and the dates you confirmed or asked to leave, the state of each send, and a random send receipt that carries no address, so an uncertain send is not repeated. We never sell it or pass it to anyone but the mail service that sends those two messages.
Your browser carries a cookie for up to 90 days. The server turns it into a key using a server-only secret, and keeps that key beside the word this browser picked, the title it nominated, the words it put in the hat, and a dated receipt if this browser said it shared the day, so one share is counted once and that receipt is deleted within a few days. That is how the site can show you your own picks when you come back. The key is not a name, cannot be turned back into one, and is never published.
To limit bots and repeat voting we use the Cloudflare bot check, your IP address, the timing of the page, and coarse device facts: screen size and color depth, platform, processor cores, graphics name, time zone, and the browser identity string your browser sends. These are turned into purpose-limited hashes before anything is written down, never stored or logged raw. A suspicious vote may count or be silently left out. A shared connection alone never causes that, and these signals cannot prove that two requests came from one person.
A paid word in the hat keeps the word, the price, the currency, the payment state, Stripe's own identifiers, and a hash of a random claim your browser holds. No card number ever reaches us, and we do not copy Stripe's payment email or build a buyer profile.
The report flag lets you privately flag a word or title as unsafe. A report keeps the exact word or title, its current version, and a purpose-limited anonymous hash made from the server-issued browser cookie. There is no reason picker or free-text note. Older reports may still carry details accepted before this change. Reports never become comments or profiles.
The contact form sends what you write and any reply address you give, and we keep the message only as long as we need it to reply. It also stores a random receipt and a one-way hash of what you sent, never the message itself, so the same browser can check an uncertain send without sending twice.
We keep owner-only counts of service trouble, such as the bot check or the abuse store being unavailable, with the time they happened. They hold no person, device, word, or choice.
Your browser keeps its own records: your voting key, accepted report marks, your streak and lifetime counts, the day's marks for the words you picked and the turns you took, and title-campaign state while that campaign runs. Clearing browser data, using private browsing, or changing devices loses all of it forever. We cannot restore it.
What we do
We do not ask for names, sell personal data, run advertising trackers, or publish anyone's participation or choices.
We use what we keep only for the launch list, the title campaign, the story and its reader, voting, words in the hat and their payment, private safety reports and messages, abuse prevention, payment reconciliation, service upkeep, and legal duties.
Browser storage is essential only: the private rebuild gate, the bot check, the records above, and order claims. There are no advertising or cross-site tracking cookies, and none of it is an account or a stored-value wallet.
Who helps
Supabase stores data. Vercel hosts the site. Cloudflare delivers it and checks bots. Resend sends launch and contact email. Stripe hosts checkout and handles authorizations, captures, cancellations, refunds, disputes, and receipts under its own privacy terms.
When the owner turns on the optional safety review, OpenAI may receive a proposed word, a title nomination, or reported story content. It checks published safety rules; it does not judge quality or rewrite anything. We never send email addresses, browser keys, device evidence, or who picked what. API data is not used to train models by default, and abuse-monitoring logs there may last up to 30 days.
How long
The vote row that holds your browser key beside the word you picked is kept as part of the permanent record of that day. The cookie the key is made from expires after 90 days, so after that the site can no longer show this browser its old picks. A word that has sealed into the story is permanent, and so is the story itself.
Payment records stay as an append-only business and safety record. Stripe keeps its own records under its own policy. Safety reports stay while the content still needs review.
The evidence behind a day's voting stops working at the Chicago close and is deleted automatically within 24 hours. If a vote is rate-limited or fails the bot check, a strike keyed to your hashed voting key is kept for up to 90 days, and a temporary block is kept for seven days after it ends. A launch-list address that never confirms or that asks to leave is deleted after 30 days. A resolved report about a word or a title is deleted after 90 days, with its reporter hashes. A report made during a title campaign is kept until that campaign is cleaned up. These deletions run on a schedule inside the database.
Your choices
Local law may give you rights to see or delete personal data. Because the service is anonymous, we often cannot connect what is stored to one person. You can still write to us, and you may reply to a launch email to leave the list.
The service is not for children under 13. We protect data with server-only secrets and hashes where we can, but no method is perfectly secure. We may update this policy; the effective date marks the latest version.
Questions and privacy requests can go to hello@ofstory.net or through the contact form.