Who we are

Our website address is: https://thechat.online

Personal Details

In order to register you will need to provide some personal details, for example your Name, your email address, your Date of Birth and other information like your gender. In order to use The Chat Cafe you will have to provide some information, but you are in control on whether or not you make this information public. By default your first name is shown and your age, everything else is hidden unless you choose to show it. Some details cannot be made public for example your surname.

Objectionable Content

Objectionable content is not allowed and will result in the user being banned from this app. You can report this directly using the option on each profile by clicking the three dots … or to one of the moderators in chat. We also have background processes that constantly scan for content and remove it.

Examples of objectionable content is content that most users would find to be offensive, upsetting, or inappropriate. Some examples of objectionable content include:

* Defamatory commentary and hate speech about religion, gender, race and other targeted groups,

* Overly sexual material of an explicit nature,

* Portrayals of extreme violence or content that encourages violence,

* Bullying and harassment, and

* Illegal activities such as drug use and gambling

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymised string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service Privacy Policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Log Files

As with most other websites, we collect and use the data contained in log files.  The information in the log files include  your IP (internet protocol) address, your ISP (internet service provider, such as Sky, BT, Virgin), the browser you used to visit our site (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox), the time you visited our site and which pages you visited throughout our site. We also store details of your browser size in order to make sure our site works on all size screens, including mobiles and tablets.

Media

If you upload images, videos or audio to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website. We do strip the EXIF information from most images, but we cannot guarantee this.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

We also use third party advertisements on The Chat Cafe to support our site.  Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP , the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed.  This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites).

DoubleClick DART cookies

We also may use DART cookies for ad serving through Google’s DoubleClick, which places a cookie on your computer when you are browsing the web and visit a site using DoubleClick advertising (including some Google AdSense advertisements).  This cookie is used to serve ads specific to you and your interests (”interest based targeting”).

The ads served will be targeted based on your previous browsing history (For example, if you have been viewing sites about visiting Las Vegas, you may see Las Vegas hotel advertisements when viewing a non-related site, such as on a site about hockey).  DART uses “non personally identifiable information”.  It does NOT track personal information about you, such as your name, email address, physical address, telephone number, social security numbers, bank account numbers or credit card numbers.

You can opt-out of this ad serving on all sites using this advertising by visiting http://www.doubleclick.com/privacy/dart_adserving.aspx

You can choose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security.  However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites.  This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts.

Deleting cookies does not mean you are permanently opted out of any advertising program.  Unless you have settings that disallow cookies, the next time you visit a site running the advertisements, a new cookie will be added.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Who we share your data with

If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email. We don’t share your information unless we legally have to, for example law enforcement or other preventative measures.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognise and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

You can request an export of your data in your profile settings https://thechat.online/profile/*/about/account/

If you want your data deleted, then you can request deletion using the automated form. https://thechat.online/data-deletion-request/

Where we send your data

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.