Privacy Policy

The short version

You do not need to provide your name or create an account to ask or answer a question.

Questions are publicly visible only while they are active. Answers are not published as a public archive and are available to the person who asked the question through private access.

We use Vercel Web Analytics to understand basic aggregate usage of the site.

We do not sell your questions or answers or use them for advertising.

Don’t include private or sensitive information in questions or answers.

Information we collect

When you use ask the world, we may process:

• questions and answers you submit;
• timestamps, status, queue information, a broad question-stream label, and other details needed to run the service;
• a public question identifier, a deletion deadline, and protected private-access information;
• limited technical identifiers used for rate limiting and duplicate-answer prevention;
• a report record when an asker reports an answer;
• cookies needed for private asker access and duplicate-answer prevention; and
• page-view and device information through Vercel Web Analytics on non-private pages.

We do not require a public username, profile, biography, follower list, or similar social identity. Content rejected by the application’s automated safety and privacy checks is not saved in the application database.

Questions and answers

A question may be displayed publicly while it is the active question for its applicable stream. Answers are intended for the person who asked the question and are not shown in a permanent public archive.

If an asker reports an answer, the answer is hidden from their private page and a report record is stored until the question is deleted.

ask the world does not determine whether an answer is correct or whether it was submitted by a person. Responses may be inaccurate, incomplete, contradictory, automated, or otherwise unreliable.

Private access links

When you ask a question, the service gives you a private link so you can return to the question and its answers without creating an account. Anyone who obtains that link may be able to view or export the answers, report answers, or delete the question. Keep it private.

We use technical safeguards designed to keep the private access secret out of ordinary request URLs and avoid storing the raw secret in our database. Your browser may retain the private link in its history or bookmarks, so treat the entire link like a password.

Technical and abuse-prevention information

We use limited technical information, including IP-derived identifiers, to enforce rate limits and reduce abuse. The application does not store raw IP addresses in its database.

We also use a browser session identifier to reduce duplicate answers. A protected version is stored with the answer. These measures provide abuse friction; they do not verify identity or humanity.

Our application logs contain only general error details and are designed not to include question or answer text, private-link secrets, raw moderation matches, or raw IP addresses. Our infrastructure providers may receive ordinary request information, including IP addresses, and keep their own security and operational logs.

We do not claim that use of ask the world is perfectly anonymous.

Location

Each question has a broad geographic stream label. The current public asking interface uses Worldwide automatically. The application does not request browser geolocation or collect GPS coordinates.

Vercel may receive an IP address while providing hosting and may derive coarse location information, such as country, region, or city, for Web Analytics. We do not publicly display a respondent’s IP address or precise location with an answer.

Cookies and browser storage

We use service cookies for private asker access and to reduce duplicate answers. These cookies are used to operate and protect the service, not for advertising.

They may remain in your browser for up to about a year unless you clear them sooner, but private access stops working when the underlying question is deleted.

Analytics

Vercel Web Analytics is enabled on non-private pages. It helps us understand basic aggregate use of ask the world. It may receive a timestamp, page or route, filtered query parameters, referrer, coarse IP-derived location, browser, operating system, device type, and analytics-script version.

Private asker pages under /q/... are excluded. We do not send custom question or answer interaction events, and question or answer text is not sent as an analytics event.

Vercel says Web Analytics identifies a visitor using a hash based on the incoming request instead of analytics cookies, and that the visitor session is discarded after 24 hours. Vercel still processes technical information to provide hosting and analytics, so we do not describe this as perfectly anonymous.

We use analytics to understand and improve the service, not to build advertising profiles.

How we use information

We use this information to run the question queue, deliver answers to askers, maintain private access, prevent duplicate submissions and abuse, moderate content, keep the service reliable, understand basic aggregate usage, and comply with legal obligations where necessary.

We do not use your questions or answers to build advertising profiles. We do not sell your questions or answers.

Service providers

Vercel

Vercel provides hosting, web infrastructure, and Web Analytics for askthe.world. Vercel may process technical information associated with requests to and use of the site.

Neon

Neon provides the managed PostgreSQL database infrastructure used to store questions, answers, and related service data.

Namecheap

The askthe.world domain is registered through Namecheap, which also provides its DNS infrastructure. We do not use Namecheap to store questions or answers.

These providers may use their own infrastructure and service providers. Their handling of information is also subject to their own agreements and privacy practices.

We do not use questions or answers for advertising.

How long we keep information

Questions and answers are intentionally temporary. A queued question remains in the live database while it waits to become active unless the asker deletes it. Questions stop being publicly visible when their active period ends.

When an active question expires, it receives a deletion deadline based on the service’s retention setting. Daily maintenance removes it after that deadline, so cleanup may happen later than the exact deadline. Its answers, reports, private-access record, and related technical identifiers are removed from the live database with it.

Infrastructure providers may retain backups, security records, analytics information, or operational logs for additional periods under their own retention practices. Do not rely on ask the world as permanent storage. If an answer matters to you, save or export it before it expires.

Delete now

If you still have private access to your question, you can use Delete now to remove the question, its answers, reports, and related records from the live service. The private link will stop working.

Deletion from the live service does not necessarily mean immediate removal from infrastructure backups, analytics records, security records, or operational logs maintained by service providers. The current analytics integration does not send question or answer text, but Delete now does not separately erase aggregate page-view records.

Your choices

You can use ask the world without creating an account. You can choose not to ask or answer. While private access remains available, you can delete your question and its associated answers from the live service.

You should not submit information that you do not want processed as part of the service.

Children

ask the world is not intended for children under 13. If we learn that personal information from a child under 13 has been submitted in a manner that requires deletion under applicable law, we may remove it.

Security

We use reasonable technical measures designed to protect the service and limit unauthorized access. No internet service can guarantee absolute security, anonymity, or confidentiality.

Private access links should be treated like passwords: anyone who receives one may be able to access the associated answers and asker controls.

Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as the service changes. When we make material changes, we will update the date at the top of this page.

Contact

Questions about this Privacy Policy or your information can be sent to hello@askthe.world.