StoryForge Privacy Policy
Last Updated: June 8, 2026
Effective Date: June 15, 2026
StoryForge Inc. ("StoryForge," "we," "us," or "our") operates the website at https://www.storyforge.com and the related applications, features, and services (collectively, the "Services"). This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, how we use and share it, the choices you have, and the rights you may have under applicable law.
This Privacy Policy is incorporated into and forms part of our Terms of Service. Capitalized terms not defined here have the meaning given in the Terms of Service.
By using the Services, you acknowledge that you have read this Privacy Policy. Where we rely on your consent to process personal information, we will ask for that consent separately and you may withdraw it as described below.
1. Who We Are and How to Contact Us
StoryForge Inc. is the controller of the personal information described in this policy, except where we act as a processor or service provider on behalf of another party.
Mailing address: 15994 Hyland Pointe Ct., Apple Valley, MN 55124, USA
Privacy contact: admin@storyforge.com
2. Who This Policy Applies To
The Services are operated from the United States and are available to users in many countries. This policy applies to all users. Where local law grants you specific rights, those rights are described in Section 12 and the region-specific sections that follow.
Age requirements. You must be at least 13 years old to use the Services. Users who are at least 13 but under 18 (or the age of majority in their jurisdiction) ("Minors") may use the Services only with verifiable parental or guardian consent, as described in Section 9. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13.
3. Information We Collect
We collect the following categories of information.
Information you provide directly:
Account and profile data: email address, username, and any optional profile details you choose to add. We do not collect your legal name or postal address, and account credentials (including your password) are managed by our authentication provider, Amazon Cognito.
Optional demographic information: where you choose to provide it, information such as gender, racial or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, and disability or health-related information. This is always voluntary, provided through an explicit opt-in, and treated as sensitive information (see Section 13).
Content: stories, chapters, comments, feedback, messages, images, and other material you submit ("User Content").
Communications: messages you send to us, support requests, and survey responses.
Financial information: where you purchase Credits, create paid Feedback Bounties, or use cash-out functionality, our payment providers collect payment, identity, and tax information. StoryForge generally receives limited transaction data and does not store full payment card numbers.
Information collected automatically:
Usage and engagement data: pages and stories viewed, time spent, scroll and reading progress, clicks, searches, feedback given and received, bounty activity, Circle participation, Daily Task completion, and similar interactions ("Behavioral Data").
Device and technical data: IP address, browser type and version, device identifiers, operating system, referring pages, and diagnostic data.
Cookies and similar technologies: as described in Section 8.
Information from third parties:
Payment and identity verification providers (transaction status, verification results).
Analytics providers.
Authentication providers, where you sign in through a third party.
4. How We Use Information
We use personal information for the following purposes:
To provide, operate, secure, and maintain the Services, including authentication, hosting your User Content, and operating Feedback Bounties, Credits, Quills, and cash-out features.
To personalize your experience and surface relevant stories, prompts, and community features.
To communicate with you about your account, transactions, updates, and support.
To monitor feedback and communications within the community to keep the platform safe, and to detect and prevent fraud, abuse, and policy violations.
To analyze usage and improve the Services, including testing, debugging, and developing new features.
To create de-identified and aggregated insights about reading and engagement trends, and to license or sell those insights to third parties such as publishers, literary agents, and researchers, as described in Section 6.
With your separate, specific consent, to share identifiable information about you and your work with a publisher, agent, or similar third party for the purpose of evaluating or pursuing a publishing opportunity, as described in Section 6.
To comply with legal obligations, enforce our Terms, and protect the rights, safety, and property of StoryForge, our users, and others.
5. Legal Bases for Processing (EEA, UK, and Similar Jurisdictions)
Where data protection law requires a legal basis, we rely on the following:
Performance of a contract: to provide the Services you request (Section 4, purposes 1–3).
Legitimate interests: to secure the Services, prevent fraud and abuse, and improve the Services (purposes 4–5), and to create aggregated and de-identified insights (purpose 6), balanced against your rights and interests. You may object to processing based on legitimate interests as described in Section 12.
Consent: to share identifiable information with a publisher or agent on your behalf (purpose 7), for certain cookies and tracking (Section 8), and where otherwise required. You may withdraw consent at any time without affecting prior processing.
Legal obligation: to comply with applicable law (purpose 8).
6. Aggregated and De-Identified Insights; Sharing With Publishers and Agents
A core part of StoryForge's business is understanding how readers engage with fiction. This section explains how we use data for that purpose.
6.1 Aggregated and De-Identified Insights
We create reports, analyses, and data products that describe reading and engagement trends in aggregate (for example, how readers across a genre engage with certain story structures, pacing, or themes). We may license or sell these insights to third parties, including publishers, literary agents, and researchers.
Before any data is used in these insights or shared with a third party for this purpose, we aggregate and de-identify it so that it does not identify, and cannot reasonably be used to identify, any individual user. We commit to:
removing or obscuring direct and indirect identifiers and applying minimum-group-size thresholds so that no individual can be singled out;
maintaining reasonable technical and organizational measures to prevent re-identification; and
not attempting to re-identify de-identified data, and contractually prohibiting recipients from attempting to do so.
De-identified and aggregated information is not "personal information" under most privacy laws and is not subject to the access, deletion, and similar rights that apply to personal information.
We do not include the data of Minors (users under 18) in these insights, and we do not sell or share Minors' personal information.
We also build these insights only from the data of users we can identify as located outside the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland. Where we cannot confirm that a user is located outside those regions, we exclude that user's data from these insights. We may expand the regions included in the future; if we do, we will update this policy and comply with the additional legal requirements that apply to the added regions before including that data.
6.2 Sharing Identifiable Information With Publishers or Agents (With Your Consent)
Separately, you may choose to have StoryForge share identifiable information about you and your work (such as your username and any name you choose to provide, the title and content of your work, and your reading and engagement metrics) with a specific publisher, agent, or similar third party in connection with a potential publishing opportunity.
We will only do this with your separate, specific, informed, and freely given consent. We will contact you by email from an @storyforge.com address, and that request will identify the specific publisher or agent and the information we propose to share. You may decline, and you may withdraw consent at any time before the information is shared. If you do not respond, we will treat that as declining, and we will not share your information. Minors may not consent to this sharing; where a Minor's work is involved, the parent or legal guardian must provide consent.
6.3 What We Do Not Do
We do not sell your identifiable personal information for advertising. We do not share your private messages or non-public content as part of our insights products.
7. How We Disclose Information
We disclose personal information as follows:
With other users: in accordance with your sharing settings and the features you use (for example, public stories, comments, and Feedback Bounty activity).
Service providers: companies that perform services for us, such as hosting, payment processing, identity and tax verification, analytics, and communications. They may use the information only to perform services for us.
Publishers, agents, and researchers: aggregated and de-identified insights (Section 6.1), and identifiable information only with your consent (Section 6.2).
Legal and safety: to comply with law, respond to lawful requests, enforce our Terms, and protect rights, safety, and property.
Business transfers: in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets, subject to this policy.
8. Cookies and Tracking Technologies
We use cookies and similar technologies for essential functions, preferences, security, and analytics. Where required by law, we obtain consent for non-essential cookies through a consent banner or preference center, and you can change your choices there. You can also control cookies through your browser settings, though some features may not work without them.
We use Google Analytics and Squarespace Analytics. Information about these providers and opt-outs is available through their respective privacy disclosures.
9. Children and Minors
We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we learn we have done so, we will delete it.
Users who are at least 13 but under 18 (or the local age of majority) may use the Services only with verifiable parental or guardian consent. A parent or guardian who provides consent agrees to this Privacy Policy on the Minor's behalf and may review, request deletion of, or withdraw consent for the Minor's information by contacting us at admin@storyforge.com.
We apply additional protections to Minors' data:
We do not include Minors' data in aggregated insights products and do not sell or share Minors' personal information (Section 6.1).
We limit profiling and targeted processing of Minors' data to what is necessary to provide and secure the Services.
10. International Data Transfers
StoryForge is based in the United States, and we process personal information in the United States and other countries. Data protection laws in these countries may differ from those in your country.
Where we transfer personal information out of the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, we rely on appropriate safeguards, which may include:
the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and its UK and Swiss extensions, if and where StoryForge is certified; and/or
Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission (and the UK Addendum), together with supplementary measures where appropriate.
You may request a copy of the relevant safeguards by contacting admin@storyforge.com.
11. Data Retention
We retain personal information for as long as needed to provide the Services and for the purposes described in this policy, then delete or de-identify it, unless a longer period is required for legal, tax, accounting, fraud-prevention, dispute-resolution, or backup purposes.
De-identified and aggregated data may be retained and used indefinitely.
12. Your Privacy Rights
Depending on where you live, you may have some or all of the following rights:
to access the personal information we hold about you;
to correct inaccurate information;
to delete your information;
to restrict or object to certain processing, including processing based on legitimate interests;
to data portability;
to withdraw consent where processing is based on consent; and
to opt out of the "sale" or "sharing" of personal information and of certain targeted processing.
To exercise these rights, contact admin@storyforge.com or use the in-product privacy controls. We will verify your request and respond within the time required by applicable law. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.
If you are in the EEA, UK, or Switzerland, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority.
You may appoint an authorized agent to submit requests on your behalf where the law permits.
13. United States State Privacy Disclosures
This section provides additional disclosures for residents of U.S. states with applicable privacy laws (including California, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Texas, and others).
Categories of personal information. In the past 12 months we have collected the categories described in Section 3, including identifiers (such as username and email address), internet and network activity (your reading and engagement behavior), and, where you choose to provide it, the optional sensitive information described below. Account credentials are managed by our authentication provider (Amazon Cognito); we do not have access to your password. Payment and financial information is collected and held by our payment processor (Stripe) in connection with transactions; we do not store full payment card details.
Sale and sharing. We do not sell your identifiable personal information for money in the conventional sense, and we do not use it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We do license and sell aggregated and de-identified information that does not identify you and excludes Minors, sensitive information, and EEA/UK/Swiss users (Section 6.1); aggregated and de-identified information generally falls outside the statutory definitions of personal information. Separately, we share identifiable information with publishers or agents only with your consent (Section 6.2). To the extent any of this constitutes a "sale" or "share" under applicable law, you may opt out using the "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information" control on the platform or by contacting admin@storyforge.com.
Sensitive personal information. Some users voluntarily provide optional demographic information, which may include racial or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, and disability or health-related information. Under California and other state privacy laws (and as special category data under the GDPR), this is sensitive information, and we treat it accordingly:
We collect it only when you choose to provide it, through an explicit opt-in. You are never required to provide it to use the Services.
We use it only for limited internal purposes, such as operating and improving the Services and understanding the composition and inclusiveness of our community in aggregate. We do not use it to infer additional characteristics about you.
We do not sell or share your sensitive information, and we do not include it in the aggregated and de-identified insights we make available to third parties (Section 6.1).
You may withdraw your consent, and request correction or deletion of this information, at any time by contacting admin@storyforge.com or using your profile settings.
Because we use sensitive information only for these limited purposes and do not use it to infer characteristics or for purposes that would require a separate right to limit, we do not currently offer a "Limit the Use of My Sensitive Personal Information" control. [Confirm with counsel that the current uses fall within permitted purposes so that the limit-use link is not triggered. If StoryForge later uses sensitive information for the insights product or any inference-based purpose, this section and the related controls must be revisited and that use will require its own consent.]
Sensitive data opt-in (non-California states). Where state law requires opt-in consent before processing sensitive data, we obtain that consent through the voluntary opt-in described above and do not process sensitive information without it.
Minors. We do not sell or share the personal information of users under 18, we do not include their information in our aggregated insights, and we do not knowingly process the personal information of users aged 13 to 17 without verifiable parental or guardian consent (Section 9).
California residents may also request information about disclosures for direct-marketing purposes under California's "Shine the Light" law by contacting admin@storyforge.com.
14. Security
We use reasonable technical and organizational measures designed to protect personal information. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. Please notify us promptly at admin@storyforge.com if you believe your account has been compromised.
15. Third-Party Links
The Services may link to third-party sites and services we do not control. This policy does not apply to those sites, and we encourage you to review their privacy policies.
16. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will post the updated policy with a new "Last Updated" date, and where required by law we will provide additional notice or obtain consent. Material changes affecting how we use previously collected data for new purposes will be made consistently with applicable law.
17. Contact Us
Questions or requests about this Privacy Policy may be sent to admin@storyforge.com or to StoryForge Inc., 15994 Hyland Pointe Ct., Apple Valley, MN 55124, USA.