Privacy Policy

This policy explains what data Fossil holds, why, and the control you have over it. Fossil is built to collect as little as possible.

Age requirement

Fossil is not directed to children and is intended for users who are at least 13 years old. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13; if we learn that we have, we will delete it and close the account. We do not collect or store your age or date of birth as part of normal account use — see below for the one exception (adult-content verification), which is designed specifically to avoid storing that information too.

What we store

• Account — your username, chosen avatar, and a one-way hash of your account key. We never store the key itself.
• Two-factor — if you enable it, an authenticator secret used to verify codes and recover your account.
• Activity — games you launch, playtime, and recently played, used for your profile and stats.
• Social — your friend connections and requests.
• Discord — if you choose to link Discord, we store your Discord ID, username, and avatar so it can be shown on your profile if you turn that on (off by default). Unlinking removes this immediately. We never see your Discord messages, friends list, or servers.
• Patreon — if you choose to link Patreon, we store your Patreon ID, name, avatar, and current/lifetime pledge amount to our campaign, used to show a supporter badge and (if you turn it on — off by default) your Patreon name on your profile. Unlinking removes this immediately. We never see your payment details, other pledges, or anything else on Patreon.
• Messages — direct messages are only ever exchanged between friends. We store message content, shared games, and GIF picks so the conversation can load on any device. Deleting a message removes it from the conversation immediately; the row is kept for up to 24 hours afterward solely so it can still be reported, then permanently deleted — unless it's already attached to an open report, in which case it's kept as long as that report needs it.
• Blocking — if you block someone, we store who you blocked and when. Blocking doesn't remove them as a friend; it just stops them from messaging you or seeing your connected accounts, friends list, or playtime stats, and makes your profile show as not viewable to them. You can unblock anytime, and only you can see your own block list.
• Technical — your IP address may be used transiently to rate-limit requests and prevent abuse. We do not store IP addresses or use them for bans.
• Age verification — if you choose to verify you're 18 or older to view Adults Only rated games, the date you enter is used only for a one-time, in-the-moment age calculation and is discarded immediately after. We store only the resulting yes/no result, never the date itself.
• Search visibility — whether you've allowed your profile to be indexed by search engines. Off by default; change it any time in settings.

How we use it

Data is used solely to operate the service — authentication, your profile and stats, the social features, and abuse prevention. We do not sell your data or share it with advertisers, and there is no third-party tracking.

Automated message safety scanning

Every message you send is automatically, and only automatically, checked before it's delivered — no one reads your messages as a matter of course. Three things are checked for:

• Unsafe links — links are checked against public malware/phishing/adult- content domain lists (and a small admin-curated list) before the message sends. A match is blocked; a system notice takes its place in the conversation for both people, with a link to a resource directory.
• Self-harm or suicide language — if a message appears to be about self-harm or suicide, you're shown a warning (with the flagged part highlighted, in case it's a false positive) before it sends, along with a free, confidential, worldwide helpline directory (not a US-only number, since Fossil's users aren't all in the US). You can still send it — this exists to get people help, not to police healthy conversations — but the message is marked internally so a moderator reviewing an actual report can see it was flagged.
• Encouraging self-harm toward someone else, or illegal activity — this is blocked outright before sending, for the same reason as unsafe links: the original text is never stored, only a notice explaining that a message was blocked, plus the same resource link.

All three checks run against short keyword/phrase lists, not AI content analysis, and none of them read message history — only the message being sent at that moment. Reported messages (see below) are the only messages a human ever reviews.

Reporting messages

You can report specific messages in a conversation, optionally with a note and an evidence image. Reports (including any evidence) are visible only to admins, and only for reviewing that report. A reported message is kept even past the normal 24-hour deletion window for as long as the report is open, so it can actually be reviewed.

When admins review a report, they can remove the reported message, take action on the sender's account, or — separately, and only when they explicitly ask to — view the rest of that conversation for context. That last capability exists specifically for report review and isn't used to browse conversations otherwise.

Forensics export (admin, legal requests only)

Site admins have a tool to export a user's non-sensitive account data — profile info, connected-account usernames, friends list, badges, and play stats, individually selectable or all at once — never a password, two-factor secret, or session data, since Fossil doesn't collect that kind of data to begin with. It's for legitimate legal-request situations only: the admin must give a written reason (and may attach a supporting document, like a subpoena) before an export can run.

If your account is the subject of one of these exports, you're shown an in-app notice the next time you visit, telling you it happened, the reason given, and exactly which categories of your data were included. Every export — including the reason and any attached document — is also permanently logged and reviewable by the site owner, regardless of who ran it, specifically so misuse can be caught.

Cookies

We use a single essential, httpOnly session cookie to keep you signed in. There are no analytics or advertising cookies.

Your rights

Consistent with the GDPR and similar laws, you can access, export, and erase your data at any time from your account settings:

• Export — download everything we hold about you as JSON.
• Erasure — delete your account, which permanently removes your profile, activity, social connections, and sessions.

Deletion is immediate and irreversible. For any request you can't complete yourself, contact the site operator.

Third-party content

Library games are streamed from the Internet Archive; your use of that content is also subject to the Internet Archive's own policies.