Privacy Policy

What we collect

When you create an account: your email address, a username, a display name, and a securely hashed password (we never store your actual password — see bcrypt). Optionally, a bio, a location, a website link, and an avatar image you choose to add.

When you use the site: the questions, answers, votes, bookmarks, and reports you submit; notifications about activity on your content; and, only for abuse prevention (rate-limiting login/registration/posting), your IP address is briefly associated with the specific action you took — it is not linked to your profile or shown to other users.

When you search: your search text and how many results it returned are logged without your IP address or account — even if you're logged in — specifically so we can see which topics people are looking for without being able to trace a search back to a person.

When you visit a page: we log the page path and, if you arrived from another website, that site's domain (never the full referring URL, and never our own site as a "source") — again without your IP address, account, or any cookie. This tells us which pages and traffic sources matter without building a profile of any individual visitor.

If you arrive via a link we control that's tagged with campaign parameters (for example, one of our own social media posts, or a link you shared from the app) and you go on to create an account, we record which campaign and, if applicable, which question brought you here — on your account only, never for a visit that doesn't result in an account. This tells us which content is actually worth making more of; see "Cookies" below for how this is remembered between the click and the signup.

The mobile app

The PathTested app uses the same account as the website — nothing you do in one is invisible to the other. If you turn on notifications, we store a device push token (a random identifier Apple/Google issue to your specific device install, not your device's real hardware ID) so we can deliver them; it's deleted when you turn notifications off, log out, or uninstall and it naturally expires. We use Firebase Cloud Messaging (Google) to actually deliver a push to your device — Firebase only ever sees the token and the notification's title/body, never your email, password, or any other account data. Push content about a moderation action never includes the reason in the notification body itself, only in-app.

Changing your avatar uses your device's own system photo picker, which shares only the single photo you pick — the app is never granted broader access to your photo library. The app asks for notification permission only if you enable notifications in Settings; it's never required to use the app, and can be revoked at any time in your device's own system settings.

If you open the app via one of our own tagged links (for example, from one of our social media posts) and later create an account, the same campaign attribution described above under "What we collect" is recorded on your account — held only on your device until then, never sent anywhere before you actually register.

Cookies

We use a session cookie (PHPSESSID) to keep you logged in — this is required for the site to function and isn't used for tracking or advertising. If ad placements are ever turned on, we also set a first-party cookie (consent_ads) that only records your accept/decline choice for ads; nothing ad-related loads before you make that choice. Our own page-view logging, described above, uses no cookie at all. If you arrive via one of our own tagged campaign links, we set a third first-party cookie (pt_attribution) for up to 30 days, holding only which campaign/content you arrived from — it's never read by anything outside our own server, and it's discarded the moment you either create an account (its contents move to your account, see above) or it expires unused. We do not use any third-party analytics or advertising tracking cookies.

Third-party resources

Pages on this site load fonts, icons, and a styling library directly from Google Fonts, cdnjs (Cloudflare), and their own CDN. Loading these involves your browser making a request to those services, which may log standard request data (like your IP address) under their own privacy policies — we don't control that. We don't load any other third-party scripts.

What we don't do

We don't sell your data. We don't use AI to generate content on your behalf or on the platform's behalf — that's the whole point of PathTested. We don't share your email address publicly; other users only ever see your username, display name, and whatever you choose to put in your bio.

Your choices

You can update your profile information any time after logging in. From Settings on the website, you can download a real, complete copy of your own data — your profile, questions, answers, votes, and saved questions — as a plain JSON file, any time you want it. You can delete your account yourself, at any time, from Settings — either in the PathTested app or on the website — this immediately revokes every login session and device on your account (web and app both) and permanently removes your email, password, bio, avatar, and any device push token, without needing to contact us. Note that we may retain non-personal or already-anonymized data (like aggregate search logs) and may keep your past questions/answers visible with your account de-identified, since removing them entirely can break other users' discussions and any pages that already reference them.

Children

PathTested is not intended for children under 16. We don't knowingly collect data from children under 16.

Changes

If this policy changes materially, we'll update the date above.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or a data request? Contact us.