One Sentence

Privacy

Privacy Policy

Last updated [OWNER: the date this policy takes effect]

This page explains what One Sentence at a Time collects, why, who else handles it, and how to get a copy or delete it.

The short version: we collect what it takes to run a public story you can sign in to. Your lines and your display name are public. Your email address and everything else stay private. We don’t sell your data and we don’t show ads.

Who we are

One Sentence at a Time is run by [OWNER: the operator’s legal name, and the country they’re based in], who decides how this data is used. Write to hello@onesentenceatatime.com about anything on this page.

What we collect

Your account

  • Your email address, and whether it’s been confirmed by a sign-in.
  • Your display name, which you can change or leave blank.
  • If you sign in with Google: the name, email address and profile photo address Google shares (your Google name becomes your starting display name), and the sign-in tokens Google issues.
  • When you created your account, when you accepted the Terms and which version, and when you confirmed the name your lines are signed with.
  • Your settings: the two email preferences, and whether to show your photo.

Signing in

  • For each device you’re signed in on: when the session started and when it expires, its IP address, and the browser’s user agent (the name and version of your browser and system). We use these to keep accounts secure.
  • Sign-in codes and links, until they’re used or expire.

What you write and do

  • Your lines, with the time you wrote them and the line you continued.
  • Your comments, your votes, and the lines you flag, with the note you write.
  • The notifications we record for you, such as “someone continued your line”.

How you found the site

  • Whether your first visit came from a shared link, a “what happens next” link, one of our emails or none of these, and the line you landed on.
  • If you arrived through someone’s share link, whose link it was.

Reports

If you report a line, we keep what you tell us and, if you give it, your email address. Reports don’t need an account.

Moderation

If a line is hidden, we keep its original text and who wrote it in a private log, so a mistaken removal can be undone.

Payments

Paid branches are turned off, so the site takes no payments. If you paid for a line before they were turned off, Stripe handled your card details and we keep only the amount, the share set aside for charity, the payment’s status, Stripe’s reference for it, and which line it paid for. If payments return, we’ll update this policy first.

Technical data

  • Error reports from the server and your browser (see who else handles it).
  • IP addresses, held in memory for up to about an hour, to limit abuse such as too many reports or sign-in emails from one network. They aren’t written to the database.
  • Server and proxy logs: [OWNER: what they record (for example IP addresses) and how long they’re kept].
  • Analytics (see cookies below).

How we use it

  • To run the story and your account: signing you in, showing your lines with your name, and sending the emails described below.
  • To keep the site safe: limiting abuse, moderating lines and comments, and securing accounts.
  • To understand how the site is used, and to find and fix errors.

We don’t sell your data, and we don’t use it for advertising. We use the name, email address and photo Google shares only to create and run your account, and don’t share them except with the service providers listed below.

If you’re in the European Economic Area or the UK, the legal bases are: running the service you signed up for (contract), keeping it safe and working (legitimate interests), and analytics cookies where consent is required (consent). [OWNER: confirm the legal bases with counsel]

What’s public

  • Your display name: next to your lines and comments, on your profile page, on the share images for your lines, in the page data search engines read, and in the emails other writers get when you continue or comment on their lines.
  • Your profile page: your name, the month you joined, how many lines you’ve written, and those lines. Profile pages ask search engines not to list them.
  • Your Google photo, only if you turn on “Show my Google photo” in Settings. It’s off until you do.
  • Your lines and comments, and each line’s vote score (not who voted).
  • Share links you copy include a short code that identifies your account, so we can tell when your link brings someone in. Anyone with the link can work out which profile it came from.

Never public: your email address, sign-in details, settings, flags, reports and IP addresses. The people who run and moderate the site can see account details, including email addresses, when they need to.

Who else handles it

These services handle data for us, only to run the site:

  • Hosting. The site, its database and its live-update server run on servers we manage with Coolify, at [OWNER: hosting provider and server location].
  • Amazon Web Services (Amazon SES) sends our emails, so it handles your email address and the content of the emails we send you. [OWNER: SES region]
  • Google, if you choose to sign in with Google.
  • Google Analytics counts page views and a few actions (like publishing a line or sharing). We never send it what you write, your name or your email address.
  • Bugsink, an error tracker we host ourselves, receives error reports from the server and from your browser. A report can include the page address, your browser and device type, and technical details of what went wrong.
  • Email forwarding. Mail sent to our contact address is forwarded by [OWNER: confirm: Cloudflare Email Routing].
  • Backups. [OWNER: confirm: daily database backups, kept for 30 days, stored with the backup storage provider].

We may also share information when the law requires it, or to protect someone from harm. Data may be processed outside your country: [OWNER: where data is stored, and the safeguards for transfers out of the EEA and UK].

Emails

  • Sign-in codes and links, when you ask for them.
  • When someone continues one of your lines, or comments on one: on unless you turn them off, and at most one continuation email every 30 minutes and one comment email an hour. Turn them off in Settings or with the one-click unsubscribe link in each email.
  • If one of your lines is removed, the reason, unless you’ve turned off both kinds of notification email.
  • A link to confirm, if you ask to delete your account.

We don’t send newsletters or marketing emails.

Cookies and browser storage

  • Signing in. A cookie keeps you signed in for up to 30 days, renewed while you use the site. Signing in can also set short-lived cookies for the sign-in step itself.
  • Your browser’s storage. Unsent sentences are kept in your browser for up to 7 days, so a reload or a sign-in doesn’t lose them, along with a few small markers (such as how often you’ve seen the prompt after publishing). How you arrived (such as the shared link you followed) is kept in your browser for up to a day and sent along when you write a line or sign up.
  • Analytics. Google Analytics runs with its storage turned off for visitors in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland: no analytics cookies are set, and Google receives only cookieless signals. Elsewhere it sets Google Analytics cookies (named _ga) to tell visits apart. You can block them in your browser, or with Google’s opt-out add-on.

We don’t use advertising cookies.

Your choices and rights

  • Download your data: Settings, then “Download my data”, gives you a file with your account details, lines, comments, votes, flags, payments and sign-in sessions.
  • Change your name or hide your photo: Settings.
  • Stop notification emails: Settings, or the unsubscribe link in any of them.
  • Delete your account: Settings, then “Delete my account”. We email you a link to confirm. Once you open it:
    • your account, sign-in sessions, comments, votes, flags and notifications are deleted;
    • your lines stay in the story without your name;
    • payment records, if any, are kept without your account, for accounting;
    • the moderation log keeps the original text of any of your hidden lines, without your account.
  • Everything else, such as correcting something, removing personal information from a line, deleting the moderation log’s copy of a line, or objecting to how we use your data: email hello@onesentenceatatime.com. We’ll reply within [OWNER: response time, for example 30 days].

If you’re in the EEA or the UK, you can also complain to your data protection authority.

Children

The site is for people 13 and older. Children under 13 must not create accounts; teachers can write on a class’s behalf from their own account. If you think a child under 13 has an account, email hello@onesentenceatatime.com and we’ll delete it.

How long we keep it

  • Sign-in sessions expire 30 days after they start or were last renewed, or when you sign out.
  • Sign-in codes and links expire after 10 minutes; account-deletion links after 1 hour.
  • Your account, settings, comments, votes, flags and notifications: until you delete your account.
  • Your lines: for as long as the story exists, without your name after you delete your account.
  • IP addresses used to limit abuse: about an hour, in memory only.
  • Reports and the moderation log: [OWNER: how long they’re kept].
  • Error reports: [OWNER: Bugsink retention period].
  • Backups: [OWNER: confirm 30 days], so deleted data can remain in a backup until it rolls off.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we’ll update the date at the top and let people know [OWNER: how: for example a notice on the site, or an email to account holders] before the change applies. The rules for using the site are in the Terms of Use.