Privacy Policy

1 Who we are

Netcade (netcade.com) is the internet arcade — an indie platform for games, videos, and music where creators publish and monetize their work. This policy covers the website and the Netcade Client. For questions or requests, email [email protected].

2 What we collect

• Account data — username, email, password (stored as a hash, never plain text), and your avatar.
• Content and activity — what you upload and its metadata; views, plays, playtime, likes, comments, reviews, library items, and search queries.
• Commerce records — purchases, sales, wallet balance and ledger history, payout requests, and membership status.
• Technical data — IP address, browser and device type, used for security, spam and fraud prevention, and aggregate analytics.
• Comments & reviews — the text you post plus the IP and user-agent captured for spam detection.

What we deliberately don't collect: full card or bank numbers (Stripe and PayPal handle payment details on their systems), and the identity documents used for payout verification (collected directly by our payout partner, Trolley).

3 How we use it

• To run the Service — hosting, playback, uploads, purchases, wallets, payouts, and memberships.
• To pay creators, and to share anonymous, aggregate performance insights (views, playtime) with them so they can improve their content.
• To keep the platform safe — spam filtering, fraud detection, abuse prevention, and rate limiting.
• To meet legal obligations, such as tax and accounting records for sales and payouts.
• To send service messages (receipts, security notices, payout updates). We don't send marketing email unless you opt in.

4 Cookies & your choices

We use cookies for login sessions, security, preferences, view counting, and analytics. You can review and change consent anytime via Cookie Settings (in the site footer). The categories:

• Strictly necessary — login, security, and basic site features. Always on.
• Preferences — remembers settings like layout choices.
• Analytics — anonymous usage and content performance (shared with creators in aggregate).
• Marketing — personalised or remarketing pixels, only if enabled.

Embedded third-party content (for example an external video) behaves as if you visited that site directly and may set its own cookies under its own policy.

5 Payments & payout data

• Purchases are processed by Stripe (and PayPal where offered). We receive transaction identifiers and status — never your card number.
• Payouts are processed by Trolley, which collects identity-verification (KYC) and tax details directly under its own privacy policy. We receive verification status and payout state.
• We keep sales, wallet-ledger, and payout records because accounting and tax law requires it — see Retention below.

6 Who we share data with

We do not sell personal data. We share it only with service providers that operate parts of the platform, each receiving only what it needs:

• Stripe / PayPal — payment processing.
• Trolley — creator payouts and identity verification.
• Cloudflare — hosting, content storage and delivery, and security filtering.
• Spam & abuse services — comment-spam scoring and bot detection (e.g., Akismet, Cloudflare Turnstile).
• Gravatar — if you use a Gravatar-linked email for your avatar, an anonymized hash is sent to that service.

We may also disclose information when required by law or to protect Netcade and its users. If you request a password reset, the reset email may include the requesting IP address as a security notice.

7 Data retention

• Account and profile data — kept while your account exists.
• Financial records (sales, ledger, payouts) — retained as required by tax and accounting law, even after account deletion.
• Deleted content — removed from public access immediately; storage copies roll off on a scheduled basis.
• Comments and moderation metadata — may be retained for moderation continuity.

8 Your rights

You can access, correct, export, or delete your personal data — from your account settings or by emailing [email protected] from your account email. We answer within 30 days, usually much faster.

• EU / UK — our legal bases are contract performance (running the Service), legitimate interests (security and fraud prevention), and legal obligation (financial records). You may also complain to your data-protection authority.
• California — we do not sell or "share" personal information as defined by the CCPA/CPRA, and we honor access and deletion requests as above.

9 Security

All traffic is encrypted (TLS), passwords are hashed, payment credentials never touch our servers, and access to production systems is restricted. No system is 100% secure — if a breach ever affects your data, we will notify you as the law requires.

10 Children

Netcade is not directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their personal information. If you believe we have, email us and we will delete it.

11 Changes & contact

We'll post updates to this policy here and refresh the date at the top; material changes get announced on the site. Privacy questions and requests: [email protected].