Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

lounge is run by [operator name]. This policy explains what we collect, why, and the choices you have. We handle personal information in line with Japan’s Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI).

2. What we collect

Account: your email address, display name, and a scrambled (hashed) version of your password — we never see the password itself.

What you add: shelves, reads and their dates, ratings, reviews, custom shelves, profile details (languages, countries, certifications, links), photos and covers you upload, group posts, and feedback you send.

Technical: your IP address, used only to limit repeated sign-in and sign-up attempts, kept for at most a day. If you choose to include it, feedback stores the page you were on and your browser name.

3. Why we use it

To run your account and show your shelves and profile the way your privacy settings allow; to send password-reset emails you ask for; to keep the site safe from abuse; and to improve lounge from your feedback. We don’t sell your information, show ads, or use tracking or advertising cookies.

4. Cookies

We use a sign-in cookie to keep you signed in, and a cookie that remembers your interface language. Nothing else.

5. Who else handles it

Our hosting provider stores the site and database. Password-reset emails are sent through Resend (USA). Book details are looked up on openBD, Open Library, Google Books and the National Library of Korea using only the ISBN. Some cover images load directly from those sites, so they see your browser’s IP address, as for any image on the web.

6. Your choices

Privacy settings decide who sees each part of your profile, and whether search engines may list it. You can download all your data as a file, correct your profile at any time, and delete your account: your profile disappears at once and everything is erased after 30 days. Backups that may still contain it are deleted within a further 14 days.

7. Security

Connections are encrypted (HTTPS), passwords are hashed with bcrypt, reset links expire after an hour and work once, and access to the servers is restricted.

8. Contact

For questions or requests about your personal information (access, correction, deletion, stopping use), contact [contact email].