Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 21, 2026

Places Found (placesfound.com) is run by Places Found LLC. This policy explains what we collect, why, who else handles it and your choices. Questions or requests: contactplacesfound@gmail.com.

When you visit

Our hosting provider, Hostinger, records technical details of each request in server logs: the time, your IP address and the country it’s in, your browser and device, and the page requested.

Maps on our pages load map images from the U.S. Geological Survey’s servers, so your browser sends those requests, including your IP address, to the USGS.

We don’t use analytics services, advertising or social-media trackers.

When you create an account

Accounts are for people 18 or older.

We collect your username, email address and password (stored only in hashed form), your first name, your last name if you give it, and your confirmation that you’re 18 or older. Our membership software records when you joined, your free membership level and when you last signed in. It doesn’t keep the IP address you sign in from. We email you a link to confirm your email address, and until you use it your account shows as waiting for verification. If you later change your email address, we email a link to the new one. Until you use it, you can’t change your profile or make it public, and its links don’t show. We also email you when your membership starts, and we’re notified when you join.

Your free membership is recorded as a $0 payment.

The account form uses Google reCAPTCHA to keep automated sign-ups out. It collects information about your browser, your device and how you use the form, and sets a cookie (_GRECAPTCHA). When you send the form, your IP address goes to Google with the check. Google processes this on our behalf, only to tell people from automated programs.

Creating a free account doesn’t load Stripe’s payment script, on the account form or on the page you see afterwards. Our membership software loads it where a payment or a change to a paid membership can start: its own account, profile and card pages, and the account form while you’re signed in or renewing or changing a membership. The shop’s cart page loads it too, as do Payment methods and Add payment method on your account page. Wherever it loads, it collects information about your device and how you use the page to prevent fraud, under Stripe’s privacy policy.

Saved Places. If you mark a Place Want to go or Visited, we keep which Places you marked, how, and when, with your account. You can also choose up to four Places on your Visited list as favorites, and we keep which ones, in your order. You see them on your profile, once you have one. While your profile is public, it shows the Places on your Want to go and Visited lists and your favorites, but not when you marked them; otherwise only you can see them. We don’t show anyone how many people saved a Place. Visited is your own note, not a record that you visited, and it doesn’t change anything on a Place. You can remove a Place from your lists or your favorites at any time, and your saved Places and favorites are deleted with your account or with a request to delete your information.

Your public profile. If you create your account on our registration page on or after October 17, 2026, it comes with a profile. It’s public once you confirm your email address. Any other account, including one created before then, has a public profile only if you choose to make one. When your profile first becomes public, it gets an address made from your name, such as placesfound.com/YourName. A public profile shows your name, the month your account was created, the Places on your Want to go and Visited lists (not when you marked them) and your favorites, and the photo, bio and links you add; if you contribute, it also shows the Places that credit you and, while you’re an active contributor, says so; if you work for Places Found, it shows your title. You can change what it shows and make it private or public again at any time on the profile itself, and change its address once on your account page. An address that was public keeps leading to your profile unless you ask us to stop it. We record your confirmation that you’re 18 or older, and when you gave it. We also record when your profile was made and the version of the profile rules in force. Our editors review public profiles. They can correct or remove a bio or links, change a name or an address, or take a profile down if it breaks our profile rules, and our administrators can remove a photo. We email you when they do, and we keep a record of each takedown and its reason. An address that was public is never given to anyone else, even after your profile or account is deleted: we keep the address itself, which may be your name, and nothing else about you.

Your profile’s photo, bio and links. If you add a photo, we save a new copy: cropped to a square, 512 pixels across, without the camera, date or location details the file may hold. We don’t keep the file you upload. It appears on your profile and your account page, and our editors see it where they manage profiles. When your profile is made private or taken down, the photo moves to a new address. All three are deleted when your profile is unlinked from your account or deleted, when we complete a request to delete your information, and when we remove a closed account’s personal details. Your photo is also deleted when you replace or remove it, when our administrators remove it, when your profile is moved to the trash, and when your public name is removed.

Following. If you follow someone, we keep whom you follow and when, with your account. You see whom you follow and who follows you on your own profile. The people you follow see you among their followers while your profile is public; while it isn’t, you don’t appear among anyone’s followers. For now, while we test following, anyone can also see on a public profile whom it follows and who follows it. You can unfollow anyone or remove a follower at any time, and they aren’t told. Following doesn’t send anyone an email. Whom you follow and who follows you are deleted with your account, when we complete a request to delete your information, and when we remove a closed account’s personal details.

Reports. If you report a profile, we keep your report with that profile: your account, the reason you chose and anything you wrote. The person isn’t told who reported them.

If you apply to contribute

Contributors must be adults. We keep what you enter in an application (the areas you apply for, the name you’d like to be credited under, your background and any links), the version of the terms you accepted, the dates, and our decisions and notes, which you see on your account page.

If you contribute

  • Our record about you. Once we accept someone as a contributor, we keep a private record of our editorial decisions about them: the acceptance, who operates the account, the areas they work in and their standing in each, qualifications with the evidence we considered, and any suspension. Only our administrators see it, except that your public profile says you’re an active contributor.
  • What you send. We keep your submissions, with their sources and links, and our decisions and notes about them. A documented visit also records the day of the visit, and its links lead to your original photos and video, which can carry the date, time and place your camera recorded. We use them to check the visit.
  • Recognition. We keep private awards. A contribution score and milestones are worked out from them whenever we look, not stored separately. None of these grants anything.
  • What’s published. Accepting work doesn’t always mean crediting it publicly: each editorial decision records whether it’s credited. Credited work carries your credited name in the page’s contribution history once the page is published, in its opening if you did the Place’s original research, and at the top of its visit checklist if you’re its primary contributor. Photos and video we publish from your visit carry your credited name and the month you visited, with a link to your profile when one is published. The copies we publish carry none of the camera, time or location details your files hold. A published profile shows your name, the month your account was created, the photo, bio and links you add, the Places that credit you, and the Places on your Want to go and Visited lists and your favorites. You change your photo, bio, links and lists on your profile while your account is open; your name, which is printed with your credits, we change for you.
  • AI-managed accounts. Some contributor accounts are run by AI under a person’s supervision. Their name is followed by “(AI-managed)” wherever it appears, and their profile names the supervising person, or says “under human supervision” when that person has no published profile. Their profile picture is an image made for Places Found, never a photo or likeness of a person. Their profile shows no saved Places.
  • If a contributor’s account is closed, we close it rather than delete it, so the record of who did the published work stays accurate. The account can no longer sign in, and its profile no longer shows its Want to go and Visited lists. We keep our record about it, its credits, and its applications and submissions. On request, we remove its personal details (email address, names, biography, website, billing and shipping details, saved Places, whom it follows and who follows it, the personal details on its comments, its profile’s photo, bio and links, and its age confirmation), show its credits without a name, and replace what you wrote in a decided application or submission with “Removed”. Published work is never credited to another person.

What we keep about contributors. We keep applications and submissions, including ones we don’t accept, and our editorial decisions about them, in private records that only our administrators can see. We keep published work, its credits and the editorial decisions behind it because they show where the work came from and who is accountable for it. Requests about your contributor information are covered under “Your choices”.

What’s public

Registering gives you a public profile, as described under “Your public profile”, unless you make it private. There’s no public list of members. The site never uses your username or email address for anything public: your profile’s name and address come from the name you give, or an address you choose. Your credited name appears only with published work that’s credited publicly, and on your profile while it’s public. A public profile also shows the Places on your Want to go and Visited lists and, for now, whom you follow and who follows you. Anything else a profile or a credit shows is what you’ve agreed to include there.

Cookies

  • WordPress’s sign-in cookies keep you signed in.
  • _lscache_vary, from our caching software, is set while you’re signed in so you aren’t shown pages cached for visitors.
  • _GRECAPTCHA is set by reCAPTCHA on the account form.
  • Stripe sets cookies (__stripe_mid and __stripe_sid, and m on its own domain, m.stripe.com) on the pages that load its script.
  • WooCommerce’s cart cookies are set only if you use the shop, which isn’t open.

How we use it

To run your account, keep the Places you save and show them on your profile while it’s public, publish profiles and act on reports, review applications and contributions, credit published work, keep the site secure and free of automated sign-ups, and meet legal obligations. We don’t sell personal information or use it for advertising.

Who else handles it

  • Hostinger hosts the site, its database and its backups, and sends the site’s email (account confirmations, password resets and notices) from hello@placesfound.com through its outbound relay service, MailChannels.
  • Google processes the account form’s reCAPTCHA signals for us, your IP address included. As our email provider, it also handles email we receive, including messages to our contact address and the site’s notifications.
  • Stripe handles payments, if we offer any, and the fraud signals its script collects, under its own privacy policy.
  • The USGS receives map-image requests from your browser.

We may also disclose information when the law requires it.

How long we keep it

  • Your account and membership: while the account exists. For a reader account, we aim to complete a deletion within 30 days of confirming the request is yours, the $0 payment record of a free membership included. A reader account is one that has never applied to contribute, sent a submission, been accepted as a contributor, been credited on a Place or been a Place’s author, or had a profile linked to it by us. A profile that came with your account is deleted with your account. Requests about any other account are reviewed individually (see “Your choices”).
  • Saved Places and favorites: until you remove them, or until your account or your information is deleted.
  • Following: until you unfollow someone or remove a follower, or until your account or your information is deleted.
  • Your profile’s photo, bio and links: until you change or remove them, or until they’re deleted as described under “Your profile’s photo, bio and links”.
  • Your public profile and your age confirmation: until your account is deleted, its personal details are removed, or you ask us to delete your information; making the profile private keeps it for you. An address that was public is kept, as described under “Your public profile”.
  • Reports you send: with the profile you reported. Your account and what you wrote are removed 12 months after we’ve dealt with the report.
  • Paid memberships: we don’t offer them now. Before we do, this policy will say what their payment records hold and how long they’re kept.
  • Messages you send us and our replies: up to 12 months after the matter is resolved. We keep them longer only while they’re still needed: while we rely on a permission or license they hold, while they’re part of our editorial records, or until a dispute they concern is resolved. Once a year we check whether each of these is still needed.
  • The site’s email log: WooCommerce keeps a log of the emails it sends, including the recipient’s address, for 30 days.
  • Records of requests: WordPress keeps its own entry for each request made through its privacy tools: the email address, the type of request, its status and its dates. We remove that entry once the request is completed and answered. A download file it makes for a copy of your data is deleted automatically after 3 days. Separately, outside the website, we keep a short note of each completed request: the dates, what we did and, after a deletion, the deleted account’s ID number. It shows the request was handled, and lets us delete again if we ever restore the site from a backup. We keep the note for 12 months after the request is completed.
  • Contributor records: see “What we keep about contributors”.

Copies with our providers. Deleting something from the site doesn’t remove it from backups already made, or from the logs our hosting and email providers keep. Those copies can remain for a time under the providers’ own retention schedules, so we can’t give you a date by which every copy is gone. If we restore the site from a backup, we use our notes of requests to delete again anything we’d deleted at someone’s request, and we don’t restore from a backup more than 12 months old.

What stays after an account is deleted. Only what’s described above, for the reasons given: a contributor’s applications and submissions, messages within their period, and the note of the request. Records kept under the same ID number can be connected to each other, and some of them, such as an application, a submission or a message, can identify you by what they say.

Your choices

You can change your account details on your account page, your profile on the profile itself, and make your profile private at any time. To ask for a copy of your information, a correction or deletion, email contactplacesfound@gmail.com from your account’s email address.

  • We first confirm the request is yours, usually with a link sent to that address.
  • If you can’t use that address any more:
    • If you can still sign in, change your email address on your account page and write from the new one.
    • If you can’t sign in, write from another address. Your username, the name on your account or roughly when you registered help us find the account, but they don’t show it’s yours, so we won’t copy, change or delete anything on those alone. We’ll ask for something that does, such as regaining the account’s email address through your email provider. If that can’t be established, we’ll tell you the request can’t go ahead yet. We never ask for your password.
  • For a reader account (see “How long we keep it”), we aim to complete a request within 30 days of confirming it. Requests about any other account are reviewed individually (below).

If you contribute or have applied, we review requests about your information one by one. We correct what’s wrong and remove what we don’t need to keep. We generally keep published work and the editorial history it needs: who contributed what and when, and our decisions about it. That history lets readers trust the work, and lets us answer questions and corrections about it. We still assess every request to remove something, including a request to stop showing your name, and we’ll explain what we keep and why. Your work is never credited to another person.

Children

Accounts are for people 18 or older. Places Found isn’t directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect their information. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we take its profile down and delete the account’s personal information.

Changes

We’ll post any change here with a new date.