Privacy Questions and Answers

This notice describes how SWAPD.co (or SWAPD for short) collects and uses data about you. SWAPD is a community marketplace for intangible items such as websites, domains, social media, and influence. In this document, we will refer to SWAPD.co as “SWAPD,” “service,” “site,” “forum,” “marketplace,” and collectively as “we” or “us.”

How does SWAPD collect data about me?

SWAPD collects data about you:

  • When you browse SWAPD
  • When you create and use an account
  • When you post, send private messages, and otherwise participate in our website

SWAPD collects data only when you use our website, whether you use the site using a web browser on your own computer or use SWAPD apps for mobile devices. SWAPD does not buy or otherwise receive data about you from data brokers.

What data does SWAPD collect about me, and why?

When you visit SWAPD, whether you have an account or not, our service uses cookies, server logs, and other methods to collect data about what pages you visit and when.

SWAPD uses data about how you use the website to:

  • Optimize the site so that it’s quick and easy to use
  • Diagnose and debug technical errors
  • Defend the service from abuse and technical attacks (abusive users and/or attacks)
  • Compile statistics
  • Compile statistics on the kinds of software and computers visitors use

SWAPD usually stores data about how you use the site in an identifiable form for just a few weeks. In special circumstances, like extended investigations about technical attacks, SWAPD may preserve log data longer for analysis.

SWAPD account data

Many features of SWAPD require a member account. For example, members will need an account to post a new listing. To sign up for a SWAPD account, SWAPD requires your name, a username, an e-mail address, a link to your social profile, and a phone number.

SWAPD uses your account data to identify you on the site and to create pages specific to you, like your profile page. With the exception of a member’s username and first/last name, things like email addresses, phone numbers, and social profiles are hidden from the general public.

ID Verification

Sometimes SWAPD will require identity verification from members who engage in a transaction on our website. This includes collecting photos/scans of government-issued IDs. The collected IDs are used for verification purposes only, and they’re removed from SWAPD servers within seven business days of confirmation from staff. The collected IDs are kept on an off-site server, inaccessible to any third parties. SWAPD keeps sensitive information, such as user IDs, off of our main servers to protect user privacy in case of a breach.

Phone number

SWAPD uses your phone number to verify memberships. SWAPD uses a third party for these verifications (Twilio.com) - Twilio is a cloud communications platform that provides software developers with building blocks to add communications to web and mobile applications. To view Twilio.com’s privacy policy please visit: Website Privacy Notice | Twilio

How does SWAPD use your email?

  • notify you about posts and other activity on the site
  • reset your password and help keep your account secure
  • contact you in special circumstances related to your account
  • contact you about legal requests, like DMCA takedown requests

You may provide additional data for your account, like a short biography, your location, profile picture, or your birthday, on the profile settings page for your account. SWAPD makes that data available to others who can access the site. You don’t have to provide this additional information, and you can erase it at any time.

SWAPD stores your account data as long as your account remains open.

SWAPD collects data about posts and other activity on the site.
SWAPD collects the content of your posts, plus data about bookmarks, likes, and links you follow in order to share that data with others through the site. SWAPD publishes your activity to other members.
SWAPD also collects data about private messages that you send through the site. SWAPD makes private messages available to senders and their recipients and also to site administrators and staff.
SWAPD stores your posts and other activity as long as your account remains open.

Where does SWAPD store data about me?

SWAPD hosts store data in data centers in multiple jurisdictions, such as the United States and the European Union.

Does SWAPD comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation?

SWAPD respects privacy rights under Regulation (EU) 2016/679, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Information that GDPR requires SWAPD to give can be found throughout this privacy notice. So can information about specific rights, like access, rectification, erasure, data portability, and objection to automated decision-making.

Where can I access data about myself?

You can see your account data at any time by visiting your account page on the site. To protect your data in case of a breach, your phone number and stored ID (if any) are only accessible via a request to the site admin. Your account page also lists your posts and other activity on the site. Your account activity page also includes a link to download all of your activity in standard comma-separated values format.

How can I change or erase data about me?

You can change your account data at any time by visiting the profile settings page for your account. To entirely erase your data, contact the site admin or email support@swapd.co. Closing your account starts the process of erasing or anonymizing SWAPD records of data you provided for your account. You are also able to edit and erase your posts. When you edit posts, SWAPD will keep all versions of your posts. Administrators can view old versions of posts and optionally make them visible to other site visitors.

Does SWAPD make automated decisions based on data about me?

In rare cases, SWAPD classifies posts as spam automatically.
SWAPD uses data about your posts and other activity to make automated decisions about whether your posts to SWAPD are spam. When the software decides that a post is likely spam, the site refuses to accept the post.

SWAPD uses data about posts and activity to set trust levels automatically.
Depending on the current setup of the site, SWAPD may use data about your posts and activity to award you badges and calculate a trust level for your account. Your trust level may affect how you can participate in the site, such as whether you can upload images, as well as give you access to moderation and management powers in the forum. Your trust level, therefore, reflects forum administrators’ confidence in you and their willingness to delegate community management functions, like moderation.

Does SWAPD share data about me with others?

SWAPD shares account data with others, as mentioned in the section about account data. SWAPD shares data about your posts and other site activity with others, as indicated in the section about account data.

Apart from making data available to 3rd party services used to manage the site, SWAPD does not sell or give information about you to other companies or services. The companies behind the 3rd party apps we use may collect data about you on their own, for their own purposes. Some of these services may be used to collect information about your online activities across different websites.

SWAPD shares data with the following services/3rd parties

AKISMET - Privacy Policy – Automattic

Askimet reduces site spam.

Google Analytics - Global Terms of Service - Google Analytics

Google Analytics compiles visitor statistics.

DiscourseHosting - Communiteq Privacy Policy - Communiteq

This is the company we rent servers from.

CloudFlare Inc. - Cloudflare's Privacy Policy

CloudFlare speeds up our service by placing our website in the cloud, and it also acts as protection against attacks.

Twilio LLC - Website Privacy Notice | Twilio

Twilio is used for phone verifications of our members.

Apple Push Notification Service - Legal - Privacy Policy - Apple

This service is used to send notifications to your phone from our iOS mobile application.

Google Cloud Messaging - https://policies.google.com/privacy

This service is used to send notifications to your phone from our Android mobile application.

Crypto Payments - CryptoPayments.net

This service is used to process incoming/outgoing payments on SWAPD.

VEYYO Sp. z o.o. - VEYYO.com

VEYYO’s agents are responsible for transfers and daily operations, including payments and invoicing.

How can I contact SWAPD about privacy?

You can send questions and complaints to: support@swapd.co
Or, if you are a member, send a message to the administrators.