Privacy Policy

1. Our principles

By default, what you post in a room is visible to the people in that room who are allowed to see it, and to nobody else. Viewing a room's messages requires being there (or holding a role that permits it). We do not own room conversations; the people who use the rooms do. More transparency beats less: settings are easy to find, and this page says what they do. Privacy, security and confidentiality hold each other up; we treat all three as core to the business.

2. Scope and roles

This policy covers ConferenceRooms.org: the website, the web chat, chat programs connecting to our network, and our services. It describes what we do with information, not what others do: a workplace, school or community whose rooms you join may have its own rules about storage, access and retention, and room founders and operators can see what their roles allow (see Roles below). Ask them if you are unsure.

Roles, from most to least control: founders own rooms and set their rules; managers and operators run rooms day to day, including moderation; registered members hold nicknames; visitors join from a link without an account. The person who registers a room is its founder. Control varies by room; founders decide who holds which role in theirs.

3. What we collect

Accounts and nicknames: the nickname and password you register, plus optional profile details you add (visible to other users as your profile shows).

Billing: name, email and billing address for paid editions. Card details go directly to our payment processor; we do not store card numbers.

Room content: messages, topics, memos, channel-agent configurations, and anything you send or link in rooms, including when it was sent, by whom, and where.

CR Scribe records: where a room uses Scribe, the conversation is written to a web page as it happens, with who was present. See Logged rooms below.

Connection and usage records: IP address, times, client type and settings, language preferences, which rooms and features you use, and error reports. Approximate location may be derived from IP addresses; we do not collect precise GPS.

Support messages: what you tell us when you contact us, so we can answer.

4. Cookies and on-device storage

The chat keeps settings on your own device (theme, nickname suggestions, recent emoji, layout) so they survive reloads. Our website uses minimal first-party storage for the same purpose. We do not load third-party trackers on our website. Your browser controls apply; disabling storage may limit settings memory but not chatting itself.

5. How we use it

To run the rooms: authentication, delivering messages, search, backups against data loss, and safety work including abuse and fraud prevention.

To answer you: support replies and service notices (operational messages about limits, changes or outages are part of the Service and cannot be switched off). News about features is optional and you can opt out any time.

To improve the rooms: aggregated or de-identified usage statistics that cannot be tied to you. This policy does not limit such aggregate use.

6. Logged rooms and records

A room whose founder enables CR Scribe publishes its conversation to a web page while it happens, each day sealed with a SHA-256 fingerprint. Who can read the page follows the room's own access: open rooms publish openly, restricted rooms restrict their pages. Treat logged rooms as on the record, and check the topic or ask before saying anything sensitive.

Room founders choose retention for their rooms within their edition's options. Deleting a message removes it from the live room; copies already written to Scribe pages or exported by an entitled operator follow the rules above.

7. Your choices

Change your nickname, profile details and settings any time. Leave rooms any time. Ask us through /contact/ to close your account and delete your account data; past room messages remain part of room records as described above. Room founders control their rooms' access, moderation and logging; members control their own accounts.

8. When information is shared

With your consent, or when the law reasonably requires it: to comply with legal process, protect safety, rights and property, or address fraud and security issues. Where we can, we tell the affected user about a legal request first.

With providers who run parts of the Service (hosting, payment processing, email delivery) under contracts that limit them to our instructions and confidentiality.

With room roles: founders and operators see what their role needs (for example, who is in the room and what was said there). If you use a work or school address, your organization may learn which rooms you use; do not use a work address unless that is acceptable to you.

In a merger, acquisition or similar transfer, as part of the business, with notice to you.

As statistics that cannot identify anyone, for research or business, without limit under this policy.

9. Security

Connections are encrypted in transit, including chat programs over SSL/TLS on port 8897. Nicknames and rooms never show your real address to other users; other people see your nickname and a masked network name. We protect stored data with generally accepted measures, and we keep the circle of staff who can access content small, logged, and permission-gated. No transmission or storage is ever perfectly secure; use unique passwords and keep them secret. Found a vulnerability? Tell us through /contact/ and we will investigate quickly.

10. Children and schools

The Service is not for children under 13. Teachers who bring students over 13, for example for classes, handle parental consent under FERPA or local equivalents, as in our Terms.

11. Changes to this policy

We update this page as practices evolve. Continuing to use the Service after a change means you accept it. Material changes get prominent notice first.

12. Where data lives

Our servers may sit in the United States. Wherever your rooms run, we apply appropriate safeguards for transfers and you can ask us about them through /contact/.

13. Memos (MemoServ)

Memos are stored only so an offline nickname can collect them later: sender, recipient, time and content, visible only to those two nicknames. They never appear in CR Scribe room logs and never pass through CR Translation.

Deleting a memo deletes it permanently, including from backups: deleted memos are never backed up and cannot be recovered. Delivery is best-effort, depending on both sides connecting, and we do not guarantee when or whether a memo is collected.

14. CR Scribe records may contain errors

Scribe pages are written live, by automation: expect the occasional late line, wrong order or gap after an outage. A sealed page proves nobody altered it afterwards; it does not prove every word arrived. For records that matter, keep your own copy too.

15. CR Translation may be wrong, slow or unavailable

Translation runs on ConferenceRooms.org servers. Messages are not sent to a third-party translation provider, and translated text is not used to train third-party models.

CR Translation produces automated translations and can mistranslate, distort tone, or replace words outright, and we are not responsible for what follows from an error. Translation can be slow, delayed or unavailable at busy times, is not guaranteed in every language including advertised ones, and always covers two languages at a time.

16. CR Share

Uploading a file to CR Share stores the file on ConferenceRooms.org servers together with your registered nickname, the file name, its size and type, and when it was uploaded and when it expires. Ordinary connection information (such as IP address and time) is recorded in security logs. We do not send CR Share files to a third-party file host.

Files are temporary. A file is deleted automatically when its link expires (3 days on Free, 7 days on Professional, 32 days on Enterprise), when you delete it, or earlier if we must enforce the Terms or the law. We do not keep an archival copy, we do not back up deleted or expired files, and we cannot recover them. CR Share is not a backup service or a document archive.

Links work only in the web chat. A CR Share link is a .crorg handle with no public download page. Clicking it inside the web chat creates a short-lived passthrough on conferencerooms.org that is tied to that chat session and expires after a few minutes. Anyone in the web chat with the link can open it; people outside the web chat cannot. Do not upload anything you would not want the recipient to keep or forward.

You can see and delete your files at /cr-share/. Deleting a file removes the stored file and marks the record deleted; download links stop working immediately. Metadata about uploads and security logs may be kept for a limited period to prevent abuse and comply with the law.

Uploads require a registered nickname; we do not accept anonymous uploads.

17. Contact

Questions about privacy: write to info@conferencerooms.org or through /contact/.