Privacy Policy

Effective October 22, 2026

1. Who we are
2. What we collect
3. How we use it
4. What's public
5. On your device
6. Other services
7. When we share
8. How long we keep it
9. Your choices
10. Deleting your account
11. Children
12. Security
13. Changes
14. Contact

Who we are

Mewster (mewsterblog.com) is a cat-themed microblog run by the sysop of Eat My Shorts! BBS. This policy covers the Mewster website, the web app you can add to your home screen, and the Mewster iPhone app. They all use the same server and the same accounts.

What we collect

When you create an account

• Handle and display name.
• Email address, used to verify your account and to confirm password and email changes.
• Password, stored only as a one-way bcrypt hash. We never store or see the password itself.
• Profile details you choose to add, such as a bio or avatar picture.

When you use Mewster

• Mews and hisses (posts and replies), including their text, any images you upload, and when you posted or edited them.
• Likes, follows and blocks.
• Whiskers (direct messages) you send and receive.
• Reports you file about mews, and reports others file about yours.

Automatically

• Server logs. Like most web servers, ours records the IP address, time, and page or API address of requests. We use these to keep the service running and to deal with abuse.
• Error reports. If something breaks, the website and apps may send us a short technical report: what failed, the app or browser version, and the time. If you're signed in, the report also notes which account it came from. These reports never include your password or the text of your mews or whiskers, and we use them only to fix bugs.

We don't use advertising, analytics or tracking tools, and we don't build profiles of you across other sites or apps.

How we use it

• To run Mewster: show your posts, deliver your whiskers, count likes and followers, and send your alerts.
• To email you about your account: verification links, password resets and email-change confirmations. We don't send newsletters or marketing.
• To keep Mewster safe: reviewing reports, removing content that breaks the Community Rules, and blocking abusive accounts.
• To fix problems, using server logs and error reports.

What's public

Anyone can read Mewster, even without an account. That includes your handle, display name, avatar, bio, mews, hisses, images you post, like counts, and follower and following counts. Share links let anyone open a single mew, and public pages may be picked up by search engines. Please don't post anything you want kept private.

Whiskers are visible only to you and the other cat in the conversation. They are sent over an encrypted connection but are stored on our server without end-to-end encryption. Staff look at them only when needed to investigate a report, abuse or a technical problem.

Your email address is never shown to other users.

On your device

• Website and home-screen app: your browser's local storage keeps your sign-in token and your light/dark theme choice. We don't use tracking cookies.
• iPhone app: your sign-in token is kept in the iOS Keychain, your theme choice in the app's settings, and images in a temporary cache that iOS can clear.

Signing out removes the sign-in token from that device.

Other services

• YouTube. When a mew contains a YouTube link, the website loads the video player from youtube-nocookie.com, and the iPhone app loads the video's preview picture from YouTube. YouTube receives your IP address when that happens, under Google's privacy policy. In the iPhone app, nothing is sent to YouTube until the preview loads, and the video itself opens in YouTube or Safari.
• Images and links in mews. If a mew shows an image hosted on another website, that site receives your IP address when your device loads it.
• Email delivery. Account emails pass through ordinary email servers on their way to your inbox.

When we share

We don't sell, rent or trade your information. We share it only when the law requires it, or when it's needed to protect someone's safety or to stop abuse of Mewster.

How long we keep it

• Account information and content: for as long as your account exists, unless you delete individual mews sooner.
• After you delete your account: your personal data is removed from the live service straight away, and your mews are reduced to “User Deleted” placeholders (see Deleting your account).
• Server logs, error reports and backups are kept only as long as needed for security and recovery, then rotated out. Deleted data can remain in a backup until that backup is overwritten.
• Records kept for security and moderation: when an account is deleted we log the handle, the time and the IP address it was deleted from, and reports sent to the moderators may name the account they were about. These logs are only seen by the sysop and roll over automatically.

Your choices

• Edit or delete any mew you've posted.
• Block any cat to hide their mews and stop them contacting you.
• Change your email or password from Settings.
• Ask us what we hold about you, or ask us to correct it (see Contact).

Deleting your account

You can delete your account yourself from Settings → Delete account on the website, in the home-screen app, or in the iPhone app. You'll be asked for your password to confirm.

Deleting your account signs you out on every device and permanently removes:

• your profile, login, email address, password and profile picture;
• the words and images of every mew and hiss you posted;
• your likes, follows and blocks, and other cats' follows of you;
• whiskers you sent or received;
• your alerts.

What stays: so that conversations still make sense, each of your mews remains in place as an empty placeholder that reads only “User Deleted”, shown as from a “deleted account”, with its original date. It no longer carries your name, handle, words or images, and it can't be liked, searched or traced back to you. Replies other cats wrote to your mews stay, because they're their posts; if another cat quoted one of your mews, the quote now reads “User Deleted” too. Mentions of your old @handle inside other cats' own words are their content and stay as they wrote them.

This can't be undone, though your handle becomes free and you can sign up again later. If you can't sign in, contact us and we'll help.

Children

Mewster isn't meant for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child under 13 has an account, contact us and we'll delete it.

Security

Mewster uses encrypted HTTPS connections, stores passwords only as bcrypt hashes, and limits who can access the server. No system is perfectly secure, though. Use a password you don't use anywhere else.

Changes

If we change this policy, we'll update it here and change the effective date at the top. If a change is significant, we'll also post about it on Mewster.

Contact

Questions or requests about your data: send a whisker to Mewster staff (the accounts with the gold ★ Official badge), or reach the sysop through Eat My Shorts! BBS.