Privacy means different things to different people. Here at Youtropolis, privacy means protection. That’s why we give you extensive control over what you share with others. Because privacy is a right that we value, we do not harvest, sell, or profit from the collection of your personal data. Instead, we collect only the essentials required to support you with the most positive user experience possible, and the safest.
In this Privacy Policy, we use “Youtropolis” to refer to the Youtropolis website and our iOS and Android apps, which we also refer to as our “Services”.
Some things to know up front
If you are just visiting Youtropolis, you can use our search feature to learn more about us. When you join Youtropolis, you’ll establish your “land of opportunity” (commonly known as “city” or “community”) which will require its own unique name that will also be known as your username. As the “founder” of your city, we’ll also ask for your first and last name which by choice may be your real name or pseudonym.
Youtropolis cities are public by default. When you launch your city, a public newsflash announcing the founding of your city and its motto (if added) will be published in Youtropolis Universe News and will be searchable through our city search.
Youtropolis cities reflect how their founders view their world and instigate positive change through liberation actions. To build your empire and reflect a multi-faceted You, you may create more than one city, each with its own unique identity, slogan, and call to action.
This Privacy Policy details the nature of information we collect from you, our reasons for collecting it, how it will be used or shared, and the means by which we protect it. So, let’s start with the basics.
1. What do we collect from you?
Account information
When you create an account, you’ll need to provide us with a valid e-mail address so that we can communicate with you. We’ll ask you to name your land of opportunity which will be your city/username, and because you’re the city’s founder, we’ll ask for your first and last name which may be a pseudonym.
Your city name and founder name are shared with other users on your profile page and users may search for you through our City and People search tools. Additionally, your city name appears on any content you post.
To prevent underage users from acquiring membership, we require your birthdate which we do not make public. We also collect information such as your current country and postal code to allow users to narrow their search to find other Youtropolis members in their locality or search for content such as Recycle Bin gifts within their local area. By default, your country also appears on your account’s public profile page.
Contact Information
We collect your email address for verification and authentication purposes and use it to contact you about important Services or Policies updates. We do not share your email address with anyone including third parties. We also use your email address to respond to any notices or requests we receive from you through Contact Us. These communications are important to us, so we keep the content of your message and any additional contact information you provide to us.
To help you kickstart your city’s growth, increase its notoriety, and promote your liberation, we send you important Liberation Action emails that are activity-oriented. You may opt out of these emails by following the unsubscribe link in the Liberation Action notification.
Email notifications are sent to you when tribe members and alliances post new content or send you postcards or private messages. You will also be notified whenever you achieve key Municipal Fund benchmarks and whenever polls you’ve posted reach a quorum or close. You can manage your notifications here.
We may need to contact you for Service-related communications, which may include account verification, technical or security notices, updates to our services, or Policy changes.
Activities
To reward you for certain activities you engage in, we collect information about when you join new cities or gain new tribe members, respond to Community Help questions, send or receive Youtropolis postcards, post into your landmarks, add comments, tag content, and take certain Liberation Actions.
Your Public City Information
All Youtropolis cities are public by default in the interest of expanding your social safety net. However, you may choose to place your city undercover at any time temporarily or permanently. This will prevent other users from discovering you, your city, and its posted content through Youtropolis searches, but it will limit your ability to raise your standing as a liberator.
Your public city will display the following information about you:
Location
We collect your approximate location such as postcode and country to enable city and content searches by location. This information helps you search for content such as news, pledges, and wishes within a fifty-mile radius, and allows you to discover and connect with Youtropolis members who are within your local community, and who may wish to collaborate within your safety net. We also use this information for analytics. The postcode is optional, but country is required.
We store your precise location ephemerally whenever you create an event with a street address. Our event form uses Google’s autocomplete address tool which sends your precise location to Google. Google Maps API(s) provides the locator which is governed by Google’s Privacy Policy. If the event you post includes a street address, the event’s address will be shared in the event post.
Links
As part of our services, we provide links within our postcard and Liberation Action notifications. These links facilitate many activities by directly linking you to Youtropolis web forms or landmark pages. We may track how you interact with these links to help us better understand what’s important to you and, thereby, improve our Services.
Through our Services, you may also find links to third-party applications, websites, resources, advertisers, and services. For instance, products we sell through our Souvenir Shop link directly to our store at Zazzle.com, so when you select an item to view, you will be leaving Youtropolis and you’ll navigate to Zazzle. Any purchase transaction is strictly with Zazzle and not with Youtropolis. To understand more about how Zazzle may treat your personal information, please read Zazzle’s Privacy Policy.
Other Members may also post links within their posts. These third-party links may provide access to business entities, individuals, or Members who post links or offer products, content, resources, and services to you on or through our Services. These third-parties are not owned, endorsed, or controlled by Youtropolis, and they may require, use, and share your data according to their privacy policy. This may include collecting personal data from you, such as IP address or cookie identifiers. Should you choose to provide any personally identifiable data to any third-party, we urge you to exercise caution, and encourage you to investigate or become familiar with any third-party prior to providing such data.
Analytics
Youtropolis may collect statistics about usage trends. For instance, to help us improve our services, we may analyze how Members collaborate with each other or interact with specific Services we offer. We may also monitor high-traffic city pages to understand current trends or to identify and stop spam. At our discretion, we may share this data publicly, in which case it will be anonymized so as not to disclose and personally-identifiable information.
Log Data
We receive certain information about you when you visit our website, log in, or interact with our services. This is standard log data that generally includes your IP address, browser type, operating system, session ID, language preference, referring web pages, pages accessed, date and time of access, search terms, and device information such as mobile app version used. We use this data to diagnose and prevent server issues, as well as track unusual activity such as potential server threats. The data generated also provides us with statistical insights that help us improve our services.
Cookies
A cookie is a small text file we store on your computer or mobile device. Cookies enable enhanced feature functionality and personalization within the site. Using both session and persistent cookies, we can give you multiple choices for personalizing your experience. As an example, certain cookies function to recognize you when you return to the site and remember your personal preferences.
We use cookies that are also considered strictly necessary because they allow you to browse the site, use key features, and access secure areas. These cookies provide account security. You can set your browser to decline cookies or alert you whenever a website attempts to place a cookie on your computer, but disabling cookies may prevent some important services and features, including security features, from functioning properly.
Metadata
Youtropolis uses metadata such as user-generated tags to facilitate content searches. For instance, we use profile tags and content tags to facilitate bridge-building between Members. Specifically, profile tags function to generate interest in your city and grow your population. Content tags appear prominently on all Youtropolis universal landmarks to help you narrow your search to topics that are of interest to you, or to allow other users to search content tagged by you. Tags also facilitate content searches based on what’s most popular or trending.
Any tags generated by you will give your city visibility. Adding tags to your profile or content is optional, so if you prefer to maintain a low profile, you should not tag your profile or content.
We may receive metadata from your device’s camera and photos if you grant Youtropolis permission to collect images such as when you include images in your posts. Such image files may include metadata detailing how, where, when, and by whom the files were generated and how they were formatted, and this data might be accessible to Members or others who can access them.
Address Book
When you send Youtropolis postcards and invitations to friends and family from your account, you are given the option to manually enter each recipient’s email address or upload selected recipients’ email addresses from your external address book. Youtropolis collects and stores recipients’ email data for the purpose of ensuring postcard and invitation notifications are received and viewed by the recipient, and to help detect and prevent abuse of our postcard service. We never use this private data for any other purpose.
2. What information is shared?
What We Share
We do not disclose any personally-identifiable data without your consent. For instance, when you purchase a Youtropolis product through a third-party such as Zazzle or PayPal, you are consenting to providing personally-identifiable information to those parties in order to complete your transactions. To understand more about how they may use your information, you can find their privacy policy links below under the section entitled “What Third-Parties May Share.”
When you invite friends to join Youtropolis, or when you send Greeting postcards to friends, we’ll send your recipients a Youtropolis email notification on your behalf with our return email address. This way recipients will never see your personal email address. Instead, your name will appear within the content of the email. As an example, if the sender’s name is PJ Socks, the message will say, “PJ Socks [youtropolis@youtropolis.com] has sent you a postcard from Youtropolis.”
We also publicly share:
Service Providers
We may share your personal information with service providers who help us operate our Services, and do so subject to the confidentiality and security obligations inherent in this Privacy Policy. These services may include data processing, fraud prevention, cybersecurity, hosting, and payment processing. Such service providers use your private personal data solely on our behalf and in accordance to fulfilling our stated needs.
What You Share
Here are some ways in which your Content may be shared by you or by others:
What Third-Parties May Share
Third-parties may store cookies on your devices. For instance, if you use the AddThis sharing tool to share your Youtropolis posts on other social sites, AddThis may add a cookie when you click a share button. Members may also share content originating from a third-party website. For example, if a Member’s post includes an embedded YouTube video, YouTube (in hosting the video) may set a cookie on your browser when you visit the page.
As mentioned earlier in our “Links” section, because we do not control how third-party companies may collect or share your personal information, we encourage you to read any third-party’s privacy policy if you choose to visit their site through a link posted on Youtropolis.
As of the date of this Privacy Policy, we partner exclusively with these third-party services and offer their privacy policy links below:
In the Event of Legal Requests:
If we receive a legal request such as a court order or subpoena to disclose information about any User, whether visitor or Member, we may comply with the law if we believe in good faith that the law requires us to do so, or if we believe that disclosing such information is reasonably necessary to protect ourselves, you, or others, or to detect and prevent bodily harm, injury or death, or to protect the safety or integrity of our platform, including to help prevent spam, abuse, or malicious actors on our Services, or to explain why we acted to close or remove a Member account, or remove content from our Services. Such information, if necessary, may be disclosed within any jurisdiction both domestic or foreign.
In the Event of Change of Ownership:
In the event that Youtropolis is acquired by another company, in whole or in part, any information we have collected from our Users may be among the assets sold and transferred. You acknowledge and agree that such transfers of your information may occur through acquisition, merger, or in the unlikely event of bankruptcy, dissolution, or liquidation. As set forth in our User Agreement, you will continue to own your Content, and the acquirer may continue to use your information as set forth in this Privacy Policy.
3. Information you control
In Youtropolis, freedom rules. That means you are free to share as much or as little about yourself as you like. It also means you can control who sees your stuff and who doesn’t, who you maintain alliances with, and more. Here are the details:
Profile Control
Through your Profile pages:
Population Control
Through your Tribe & Alliances Management pages:
Content Control
Through your Younited Front teaser pages:
Through your Post pages:
Messaging and Notifications Control
Through your Private Message Inbox page:
Through your Setting pages:
4. Account Management
Modify Your Account Settings
When you registered your account, you provided us with certain personal data that we associate with your account. If you would like to edit, modify, or otherwise change this information for any reason, please follow these links:
Account Closure
If you choose to close your account for any reason, you may do so by following the instructions provided here. Once we receive your request, your account will be closed within 72 hours. This is a permanent action that cannot be undone. With your account closed, your public City, Profile content, including City Name, Motto, Call to Action, Private Messages, and all posted content, excluding any comments you previously posted on other Members’ posts, will no longer be viewable. For audit purposes, Youtropolis may retain archived backups of your personally-identifiable information and User Content for up to one year.
Contact Us
We welcome any questions you have regarding our Privacy Policy. Feel free to contact us here, or email us directly at: privacy@youtropolis.com
You may also contact us through the following postal address:
Youtropolis, Inc.
PO Box 8234
Long Beach, CA, 90808
Attn: Privacy Inquiry
As stated in our User Agreement, any questions or concerns you submit to us through messages, emails, "Contact Us" link, or other channels of communication, shall become the property of Youtropolis upon their submission. If Youtropolis deems it appropriate, it may publish or utilize such content, at its discretion, in any way, and for any purpose whatsoever.
5. Account Security
Youtropolis stores your information on restricted database servers. We use commercially reasonable technological safeguards to protect any personally-identifiable information we collect about you. For instance, when you input such information, it is encrypted by our secure server software (TLS). We also require a unique password to authenticate your identity and grant you access to your account. However, despite the safeguards we’ve put into force, you understand that we cannot fully guarantee, nor should you expect, that the information you provide to us will always remain secure.
Though we take industry-standard precautions to safeguard your information, please remember that you also play a significant role in protecting your privacy. Any content or comments posted by you to the Website, or shared by you through posting to a third-party website, should never include personal information that you don’t want other users or third parties to view, or that could jeopardize your security. Also, please be sure to sign off after each session to protect against unauthorized access to your account password.
6. Children
Youtropolis does not knowingly or intentionally solicit or collect any information from children under the age of 13. If you are under the age of 13, you are not eligible to use this Website. If you believe that we have collected information from or about a child who is under the age of 13, please contact us at support@youtropolis.com. In the event we discover that a child under age 13 has provided us with information, we will delete such information as soon as possible.
7. Privacy Policy updates:
This Privacy Policy is effective January 15, 2022. Youtropolis may update or modify this Privacy Policy from time to time. At such time, we will notify you in accordance with our User Agreement. Your continued use of the Website will be subject to the updated Privacy Policy and will constitute your acceptance of its modifications. It is recommended that you review our Privacy Policy whenever possible to keep in mind the nature of the personally-identifiable information we collect, how we use it, and to whom we disclose it.