Cohnect — Privacy Policy

The short version (not a substitute for the full policy): Cohnect does not ask for your name, email address, or any account. There is no mailing list. When you tap “I sent it” on the site, or run the /sent command in our Discord community, we store a one-way scrambled code instead of anything that identifies you — enough to stop the same person counting twice, not enough to know who you are. Our community lives on Discord, which is an independent company with its own privacy practices we don’t control.

1. Who We Are

Cohnect (“Cohnect,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) is a free editorial publication operated by Grant Toney as a sole proprietor. This Privacy Policy explains how we handle information in connection with the website at cohnect.com and its features (the “Service”). Questions: CohnectSupport@pm.me.

This policy covers only the Service. It does not cover Discord Inc., any third-party website we link to, or any other service, each of which has its own privacy practices we neither control nor are responsible for.

2. What We Do Not Collect

We want to be specific, because the absence is the point:

• No email addresses. There is no newsletter signup, no mailing list, and no email delivery provider. We do not send email to readers.
• No accounts. There is no registration, login, profile, or password for readers.
• No names, phone numbers, addresses, or payment information. The Service is free and we accept no payments.
• No comments, messages, or user-submitted content on the website.
• No third-party advertising, ad networks, or advertising cookies, and we do not sell, rent, or share personal information with anyone for advertising or any other purpose.
• No message contents. The prompts and templates we publish are used entirely on your own device, in your own messaging apps. Messages you write or send never pass through us, and we have no way to see them, store them, or know who you contacted.

3. What We Do Collect

a) Human Count events (website). When you tap the “I sent it” button, we record: the fact that an action was reported, which issue it relates to, the time, and a one-way cryptographic hash derived from your IP address combined with a secret value. The hash lets us prevent the same visitor from counting repeatedly for one issue. We do not store your IP address alongside it, and the hash cannot practically be reversed to identify you.

b) Human Count events (Discord). When you use the /sent command in our community, Discord sends us your Discord user ID. We immediately convert it to a one-way hash combined with a secret value and store only that hash, plus the issue number and timestamp. We do not store your raw Discord ID, username, display name, avatar, messages, or any other Discord profile information.

c) Server and technical logs. Like nearly all websites, our hosting provider automatically records standard technical information when pages are requested — such as IP address, browser type, requested page, referring page, and timestamp. These logs exist for security, abuse prevention, and reliability, are not used to build profiles of individuals, and are retained only for a short period in the ordinary course.

d) Messages you choose to send us. If you email CohnectSupport@pm.me, we receive whatever you include in that message and keep it as long as needed to respond and maintain our records.

4. Cookies and Analytics

We do not use third-party analytics services, tracking pixels, advertising cookies, or cross-site trackers. We may use strictly necessary local storage or cookies for basic site function (for example, remembering that you already tapped “I sent it” on a page). We honor “Do Not Track” signals to the extent that we have nothing to track in the first place.

5. Why We Process This Information

We process the limited information above to: display and operate the weekly issues; operate and protect the integrity of the Human Count; keep the Service secure and prevent abuse, spam, and automated manipulation; respond to messages you send us; and comply with legal obligations. Where the law requires a legal basis (such as the UK/EU GDPR), we rely on our legitimate interests in operating and securing a free publication, on your consent where you voluntarily submit information, and on legal obligation where applicable.

6. Sharing

We do not sell or rent information, and we do not share it for advertising. We share information only with:

• Service providers who operate the Service on our behalf — our website host and database provider — who process data solely to provide those services to us.
• Legal recipients, if we are required to by law, subpoena, or valid legal process, or where we believe disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect our legal rights or the safety of any person.
• A successor, if the Service is transferred to another operator, in which case this policy will continue to apply to the transferred information until updated.

7. Discord

Our community is hosted on Discord, an independent third-party platform. Discord Inc. is not affiliated with, partnered with, or endorsed by Cohnect, and we are not affiliated with or endorsed by Discord Inc.

When you join and use our Discord community, your information is collected and processed by Discord under Discord’s own Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, which govern your relationship with Discord, not with us. We do not control Discord’s data practices, retention, or security.

Within our community, we can see the same things any server operator can see — public messages in the server, member lists, and profile information you have made visible. We do not export, mine, or store that information, and the only data our systems retain from Discord is the hashed value described in Section 3(b). We are not responsible for information you choose to share with other members, including information shared in direct messages between members, which we cannot see.

8. Retention

Human Count events are retained indefinitely in hashed form because they constitute the running total; they contain no identifying information. Server logs are retained briefly for security purposes. Email correspondence is retained as long as reasonably needed.

9. Security

We take reasonable technical measures to protect the limited information we hold, including hashing identifiers with a secret value, restricting administrative access to authenticated administrators, and serving the site over encrypted connections. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. Our best protection is that we hold almost nothing worth taking.

10. Your Rights

Depending on where you live (including under the GDPR, UK GDPR, and California privacy laws), you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or restrict processing of your personal information, to object to processing, to data portability, and to be free from discrimination for exercising these rights. California residents are entitled to know that we have not sold or shared personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we do not process sensitive personal information.

To exercise any right, email CohnectSupport@pm.me. Please note an important practical limit: because Human Count records contain only irreversible hashes and no identifiers, we generally cannot locate, verify, or link any record to you, and therefore may be unable to fulfill access or deletion requests for that data. EU/UK residents have the right to lodge a complaint with a local supervisory authority.

11. Children

The Service is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Our Discord community is intended for adults 18 and older and is additionally subject to Discord’s own age requirements. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will delete what we can identify.

12. International Visitors

The Service is operated from the United States. If you access it from elsewhere, any information processed will be handled in the United States, where privacy laws may differ from those in your country. By using the Service, you understand that your information may be processed in the United States.

13. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will post the revised version with a new effective date. Your continued use of the Service after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

14. Contact

Privacy questions or requests: CohnectSupport@pm.me