Viesearch Privacy Policy

At Viesearch, we recognize the importance of your privacy and are committed to protecting it through transparent data practices.

We understand that your trust is essential to maintaining a strong relationship with you, and we strive to handle your information with care and transparency. By using our services, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to comply with our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, Submission Guidelines, and Community Standards (collectively referred to as the "Terms").

Policy Guidelines

Viesearch staff is committed to upholding the highest level of respect for your privacy and will not tolerate any violations thereof. In order to promote safety and trust, all members, editors, and staff are required to read and comply with the Terms.

In the event that we receive any complaints, we will conduct a thorough investigation and fully cooperate with authorities. Any violations of this policy will result in immediate suspension of the associated account and removal of all related data.

Please be advised that any use of Viesearch in violation of the Terms may result in liability for any expenses incurred by Viesearch to reverse any actions taken by our ISP, law enforcement agencies, or other related services.

Information We Collect

Searches: When you search on Viesearch, keywords are stored in a high-performance memory buffer to provide real-time trending data before being persisted to our database. This information is collected anonymously and is not associated with any individual user profile.
Website Submissions: When you submit a website, you provide details such as the website's title, description, and URL. Our systems automatically extract metadata and perform automated checks for safety and standards compliance upon approval.
Account Registration: When you register, you provide a username, email address, and password. Optionally, you may upload an avatar image. Emails are used for essential account management, vital security alerts, and system-wide notifications. Editors can fully customize their notification preferences at any time within their settings. Registration using disposable or temporary email domains is strictly prohibited. No sensitive personal information is requested or collected.
Traffic Logs: We log request metadata including requested URLs, timestamps, and browser user agent strings. To protect your privacy, user IP addresses are instantly hashed with a secret salt. This allows us to track service stability and monitor for abuse without storing personally identifiable IP addresses in our logs.

How We Use the Information We Collect

To display trending and popular searches.
To create and display website listings in search results.
To provide account-related features such as alerts, which can be managed at any time.
To protect against abusive automated traffic and maintain service reliability.

Communication Preferences

We respect your inbox and allow you to fully customize your email notification preferences. Within your Communication Settings dashboard, you can opt in or out of the following notifications at any time:

System Updates: Notifications regarding new features, enhancements, or architectural updates on Viesearch.
Submission Updates: Immediate alerts when your website submissions are approved, activated, or require administrative attention.
Promotional Offers: Standard announcements, special editor discounts, or promotional campaigns.
Interactions & Mentions: Direct email alerts when another editor interacts with your profile or tags your @username in a status update or comment.
Global Unsubscribe: You can completely opt-out of all non-essential notifications using the Unsubscribe from all option. Critical security, password resets, and essential transactional notices will still be delivered to maintain account integrity.

No Personalized Tracking or Profiling

Viesearch does not use any personalized algorithms or profiling. We do not build databases or profiles of individual users beyond the limited data points described above. All users receive the same search experience without personalization or targeted recommendations.

Cookies and Similar Technologies

Viesearch uses a single secure session cookie for authenticated editors. This cookie is used exclusively for account management and session persistence, and is stored securely in our session store. We do not use cookies for third-party tracking, profiling, or personalized advertising.

Viesearch does not share any user data with third parties, including service providers, analytics partners, or advertisers. All information collected is used solely to provide and maintain the Viesearch service and to ensure its stability and reliability.

Our Legal Basis for Data Processing

Consent: By using Viesearch, users provide consent to the processing of the data described in this policy.
Contractual Necessity: Processing account information is necessary to provide and maintain user accounts and related services.
Legitimate Interests: Logging traffic metadata and monitoring for service abuse is based on our legitimate interest in ensuring the security and stability of Viesearch.

How Long We Keep Your Information

We retain information only as long as necessary to provide Viesearch services and fulfill the purposes outlined in this policy. When data is no longer required, it is automatically and securely deleted or anonymized by our background maintenance systems.

Traffic Metadata & Request Logs: Raw request metadata (excluding PII) is automatically pruned from our systems after 24 hours.
Visitor Tracking: Anonymized unique visitor hashes expire automatically after 48 hours. Path-specific "seen" tracking fragments expire after 24 hours.
Platform Statistics: Granular usage statistics are subject to a tiered retention policy: hourly data (24h), daily data (30 days), weekly data (1 year), and monthly data (2 years). Aggregated yearly totals are maintained for long-term growth analysis.
Website Submissions: Public listing data remains active as long as the resource is part of the index. You may edit or permanently delete your submissions at any time from your account dashboard.
Pending Suggestions: Category suggestions pending review are automatically removed after 7 days if not approved.
Account Information: Profile data is retained until you choose to modify or permanently delete your account.
Email Validation & Hard Bounce Purge: Outbound email delivery is continually validated. If a permanent delivery failure (hard bounce or recipient not found report) is encountered, the associated account, profile metadata, and entire platform footprint (including all submitted listings, likes, comments, and votes) are instantly and permanently pruned from the database to prevent index decay.

Data Security Measures

Viesearch implements multiple measures to protect your information:

Data in Transit: All communication between your browser and our servers is encrypted using HTTPS/TLS.
Data at Rest: Collected data is securely stored, including anonymized or non-sensitive data, to prevent unauthorized access.
Access Controls: Internal policies and technical controls ensure that only authorized personnel with a legitimate need can access user information.
Password Security: Account passwords are encrypted using bcrypt, a robust industry-standard hashing algorithm, ensuring your credentials remain secure.

User Rights

Right to Access: Users can request access to the information we hold about them.
Right to Rectification: Users can request correction of any inaccuracies in their data.
Right to Erasure: Users may request deletion of their data (the "right to be forgotten").
Right to Data Portability: Users may request their data in a structured, machine-readable format.
Right to Object: Users may object to certain types of processing, where applicable.

All rights can be exercised directly by editors within their Settings and Account Settings dashboards (specifically by editing profile details and submitted listings, requesting an archive under the Data Portability & Download section using the Download My Data button, or requesting permanent erasure under the Delete Account section using the Delete Account button), or by contacting us directly via the Contact form.

Children's Privacy

Viesearch does not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 16. We also do not permit adult or otherwise age-restricted content on our platform. If we become aware that a child under the applicable digital consent age has provided us with personal information, we will delete such information as soon as possible. Parents or guardians who believe their child has provided information to Viesearch may contact us to request deletion.

Policy Changes

If this Privacy Policy is updated or changed, members will be notified by email with a link to this page. If you disagree with the updated policy, you may delete your account and associated data at any time.

Contacting Us

If you need to contact us after reading our Help section, please use the Contact option available on our website, send us an email at support@viesearch.com, or direct mail us at:

Viesearch
16 Hudson Ave. #3201
Glens Falls, NY 12801