Privacy Policy

The Third Shore (thethirdshore.com, hereafter “the journal”) respects your privacy. This policy explains what we collect, why, how we store it, and your rights.

1. What we collect

Readers do not need to register to read current-issue articles. We do not collect personally identifiable information for this — only standard server logs (IP, user-agent, timestamp).

When you create an account, we store:

• Email address (for login and essential communication);
• Display name (the nickname you set);
• Hashed password (bcrypt; the plaintext is never stored);
• Account creation and last-login timestamps.

When you use the bookmark feature, we record which articles you saved and when.

When you purchase a membership, payment is handled by Stripe. We never see your card number or card details. We only store:

• Whether the payment succeeded (to grant access);
• The time of the payment;
• The Stripe-issued customer ID (for support lookups and dispute handling).

2. Why we collect it

We use the data only to:

• Provide the service you bought (sign-in, reading, bookmarks);
• Send essential service communications (account confirmation, payment receipts);
• Handle payment exceptions and disputes;
• Detect and prevent abuse or fraud.

3. Third-party services

We use the following third-party providers, each of whom carries their own privacy obligations:

• Stripe (payments) — collects card and billing-address data; see stripe.com/privacy;
• Vercel (web hosting) — processes HTTP requests and logs;
• Supabase (database) — stores the account and bookmark data above;
• Cloudflare R2 (image storage) — hosts the journal’s static media.

We do not sell or transfer your information to advertisers or data brokers.

4. Cookies

We use functional cookies (login session, language preference). No third-party tracking or advertising cookies. We do not currently run any analytics tooling.

5. Data retention

Accounts, bookmarks, and payment records are kept until you delete your account. You can request deletion at any time; once deleted, all personally identifiable data is erased (payment records are retained by Stripe per their policy for tax / dispute reasons, and our link to them is severed).

6. Your rights

Regardless of jurisdiction, you have the right to:

• See what information we hold about you;
• Correct inaccurate information;
• Request deletion of your account and related data;
• Export your data.

To exercise any of these, email support@thethirdshore.com. We respond within a reasonable time.

7. Security

We use HTTPS in transit, bcrypt-hashed passwords, and offload all card data to Stripe. No online system is ever fully secure; if an incident affects your data we will notify you promptly.

8. Children

The journal is intended for adult readers. Please do not create an account if you are under your local age of majority.

9. Changes

This policy may be updated. We will notify members of material changes on the site.

10. Contact

For privacy questions: support@thethirdshore.com.