Privacy, kept simple.

Who operates this site

Hometown Commons is operated by Hometown Commons LLC ("we," "us"), registered in the State of North Carolina. This policy covers the Hometown Commons website and application.

City-level by design

Authors share a city-level home base — never a street address. Place articles pin a public, physical location (a park, a cafe, a library), not anyone's home.

Trading Post listings are the one place you can enter a real address, and it stays private. We convert it to coordinates once so radius search works, show buyers only an approximate area, and deliberately keep that address out of our server logs. It is never displayed publicly.

What we collect

• Account details — your name, email address, city-level home base, optional bio, and a hashed password (we never store the password itself).
• What you publish — write-ups, guides, listings, photos, and the tags you choose.
• Business listings — the contact details you provide for a business you claim or list: address, phone, email, website, hours.
• Messages — Trading Post chats between buyer and seller, so the conversation is there when you come back.
• Notification settings — your email preferences, and, if you turn them on, the browser push subscription for your device.
• Basic technical data — IP address, browser type, and timestamps in ordinary server logs, used for security and debugging.
• Aggregate listing activity — daily counts of profile views and contact clicks for a business listing. Counts only; we don't build a per-visitor profile.

What we do with it

We use your information to run the site: publish what you submit, deliver messages, send the transactional email you'd expect (verify your address, reset your password, moderation decisions, notifications you've opted into), review submissions, take payments for business subscriptions, and keep the place safe from spam and abuse.

We don't sell your data, and we don't run third-party advertising trackers.

Cookies

We use a small number of first-party cookies: one that keeps you signed in, one short-lived cookie used during Google sign-in, and the keys that protect form submissions. No advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

Who we share it with

Only the service providers that make the site work, and only what each one needs:

• Microsoft Azure — hosting, database, and photo storage.
• Azure Communication Services — sending the site's email.
• Stripe — business subscription payments. Card details go directly to Stripe; we never see or store them.
• Google — only if you choose to sign in with Google, which shares your name and email with us.
• Mapbox — maps and address lookup.
• Azure AI Content Safety and Azure AI Foundry — automated screening of submissions before a human reviews them.
• Your browser's push service (Apple, Google, or Mozilla, depending on your device) — only if you enable push notifications.

We'll also disclose information if the law requires it, or if we need to protect someone's safety.

Public information

Anything you publish is public by design: your display name, city-level home base, bio, write-ups, guides, listings, and photos. Your email address is never shown publicly. Trading Post chats are private between you and the other party — though moderators can read a thread that's been reported.

How long we keep it

Published content stays until you delete it or we remove it. Trading Post listings expire after 30 days unless renewed, and their chats are archived rather than deleted. Server logs are kept for a short period for security and troubleshooting.

Your choices

• Edit your profile, name, home base, and bio from account settings.
• Turn individual email notifications on or off from your notification settings.
• Delete any post or listing you've made.
• Delete your account from account settings. This permanently removes your account, your posts, and your linked sign-in identities. It cannot be undone.

If you'd like a copy of your information, or want it corrected or removed and can't do it yourself, email us and we'll take care of it.

Children

Accounts are for adults — you must be 18 or older to register. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children. Please don't post another family's child's name, photo, or details without their permission. If you believe a child has given us information, email us and we'll delete it.

Security

The site is served over HTTPS, passwords are stored hashed, and payment details never touch our servers. No system is perfect, but we take care with what you trust us with.

Changes

We'll update this page when our practices change and move the "last updated" date above. Material changes get a notice on the site.

Questions

Email support@hometowncommons.com and a real person will answer. See also our terms of service.