Privacy Policy

Information we collect

When you create an account, we collect your email address, username, and display name, plus a password (stored as a salted hash, never in plain text) or an OAuth identity if you sign up with Google or Facebook. You may optionally add a profile photo, a short bio, and pin your favorite lists to your public profile.

When you create, vote on, share, or report a list, we store that activity — list and item content, votes, shares, and reports — associated with your account.

If you use ListWorld's social features, we also store the comments you write and your reactions to other people's comments, who you follow and who follows you, the accounts you have blocked, and the collections you group lists into. If you turn on two-factor authentication we store an encrypted authenticator secret and your unused recovery codes. We record the time zone your browser reports so scheduled email arrives at a sensible local hour.

How we use your information

We use your information to operate ListWorld: authenticating you, rendering your lists and profile, sending transactional email (account verification, password resets, milestone and digest notifications) via Amazon SES, and moderating reported content.

With your consent (see the cookie banner shown on your first visit, or the Do Not Sell page at any time), we use PostHog to understand product usage in aggregate. We use Sentry to capture error reports when something breaks, so we can fix it.

Cookies

We set a session cookie required for you to stay signed in, and, only after you opt in, analytics and advertising cookies. We also set small functional cookies that remember your light/dark theme preference and briefly hold an action you started before signing in — a vote or a list copy — so we can finish it for you afterwards. If you arrive from one of our embedded widgets or a shared link, one of them also remembers which of the two brought you here — for a widget, which site it was on; for a shared link, which network — for up to 24 hours, so we can tell which of those channels is working. That cookie holds no identifier and nothing about what you do on the site; if you go on to sign up or cast a vote, we record which channel brought you alongside that action. None of these functional cookies is shared with anyone else. See the Do Not Sell page to review or change your cookie preferences at any time.

Third-party services

We use AWS (S3, CloudFront) to store and serve uploaded images; Amazon SES to send email; PostHog for privacy-respecting analytics; and Sentry for error monitoring. If you sign up or sign in with Google or Facebook, those providers share your name, email, and profile photo with us as authorized by you during that sign-in.

Your rights

You can request a full export of your data, or request deletion of your account, from your account settings — deletion executes after a 7-day grace period, during which you can cancel the request. The export includes your lists and items, votes, comments and reactions, follows, blocks, collections, notification settings, and the reports you have filed.

When you delete your account you choose whether your published lists stay online. If you keep them, we anonymize your account rather than removing it: your email, username, photo and bio are erased and your lists and comments remain under the name “Deleted User”. If you do not keep them, your lists and your account are removed outright, and your comments are stripped of their author and their text — the empty comment remains only where other people have replied to it, so their replies are not deleted along with your account. Your votes, reactions, follows, blocks and collections are deleted on both paths.

California residents have the right to opt out of the sale of personal information; ListWorld does not sell personal information, but you can still review our Do Not Sell page.

Children's privacy

ListWorld is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. Account creation requires confirming you are at least 13 years old.

Contact

Questions about this policy? Contact us at privacy@listworld.com.