Privacy Policy

Last updated: November 11, 2026

This policy explains what information FriendBurst (friendburst.com, "we", "us") collects, why, who can see it, how long we keep it, and the choices you have. It covers the whole friendburst.com site, including the blogs. We have tried to describe what the site actually does today, in plain English. If something here is unclear, please ask us.

The short version: we collect what we need to run a small social site for adults. We do not sell your information, we do not show advertising, and we do not use analytics or advertising trackers. Your privacy settings decide what other members see. FriendBurst's administrators can see everything, so that they can keep the site safe.

Contents

What we collect
Why we use it
Cookies
Who can see what: your privacy controls
What administrators can see
Astra, our AI assistant
Emails we send
Service providers and other websites
No sale of data, no advertising, no tracking
When we may share information
How long we keep information
Keeping information safe
Your choices and rights
Children
Visitors from outside the United States
Changes to this policy
Contact us

1. What we collect

When you sign up

Your email address, user name (which becomes your profile address) and display name.
Your date of birth, and your confirmation that you are 18 or older, with the time you gave it. If the date shows you are under 18, the account is not created and the details are not kept.
Your password. We never store it as written: we keep only a scrambled form (a "hash") that cannot be turned back into the password. To stop people using passwords that are already known to criminals, the sign-up page checks your password against a public list of passwords exposed in data breaches (see section 8); only a short, scrambled fragment is sent for that check, never your password.
The time you agreed to these Terms of Use and this Privacy Policy, and which versions you agreed to.

When you use the site

Your profile and what you post: profile text, profile picture, photos, videos you link, profile designs, comments, guestbook entries, status updates, bulletins, blogs, kudos, likes, favourites, and your privacy settings.
Your connections: friends and friend requests, and members you have blocked.
Private messages (Mail): the messages you send and receive, and which ones have been read.
Reports you make about content or members, and messages you send us through the Contact page.
Sign-in records: when you sign in or out, reset a password or reclaim an account, we record the event, the time and a shortened form of your IP address (the network part only, not the full address). Counters that limit repeated attempts use a scrambled form of the address.
Web server logs: like almost every website, our server keeps standard logs of the pages requested, including the full IP address, the time, the page, and the browser type. We use them to keep the site running and to deal with abuse.

From the old FriendBurst

Accounts and content from the old site were kept when FriendBurst came back. Old records can include things the old site collected, such as the last IP address it recorded for an account. We do not show those to other members.

We do not ask for your phone number, postal address or payment details. FriendBurst is free and does not take payments.

2. Why we use it

To create your account, sign you in and keep it secure.
To check that members are adults.
To show your profile and posts to the people your settings allow, and to deliver your messages.
To help returning members reclaim their old accounts.
To review new members' posts, deal with reports, and protect members from spam, abuse and harm.
To answer your questions and requests.
To keep the site working, fix problems and make backups.
To meet legal obligations.

We do not use your information for advertising, and we do not build marketing profiles.

3. Cookies

FriendBurst uses only a few small cookies, all set by friendburst.com itself and all needed for the site to work. We use no advertising or analytics cookies.

__Host-fbsid: keeps you signed in. It lasts until you close your browser, or for 30 days if you choose to stay signed in. Signing out ends it.
__Host-fbpre: a short-lived security cookie (30 minutes) used on the sign-in, sign-up, password and account pages to protect the forms against forgery.
__Host-fbmv: used only by FriendBurst administrators when they look at the site as a member sees it (see section 5). It lasts at most 30 minutes. Ordinary members never receive it.

The blogs may set the standard cookies of the blog software if you sign in to it or ask it to remember your name for comments. Cloudflare, which protects the site (see section 8), may also set its own security cookies.

4. Who can see what: your privacy controls

FriendBurst is built for signed-in members. Member lists, search, Mail and most other features need you to be signed in.
On Privacy Settings you choose, for each part of your profile (your profile, basic info, friends, comments, photos, videos, status updates and more), who can see it: "Anyone signed in", Members Only, Friends Only or No One. You also choose who can send you a message, and under Birthday whether your birthday, year and age are shown.
Important: the widest choice, shown as "Anyone signed in", currently also lets people who are not signed in see that part of your profile if they open your profile address. If you want something seen by members only, choose Members Only or narrower.
When you upload a photo you choose Everyone, Friends or Only me. "Everyone" photos can also be seen by people who are not signed in.
New members start with a more private setup: for example, only friends can message you at first, and the year of your birthday is hidden. For newly joined members, the site currently shows less to people who are not signed in.
Blogs on the blog pages can be read by anyone, including people who are not signed in.
Your user name, display name and profile picture may be shown to other members in lists, comments and friend requests.
Anything you post where others can see it can be copied or shared by them; please think before posting.
Blocking a member stops them contacting you. Messages you exchanged before the block stay in both people's Mail.
Old accounts that have not been reclaimed show other signed-in members only a limited preview; see the Terms of Use.

5. What administrators can see

FriendBurst's administrators can see, and act on, everything on the site, including content you have marked private and private messages. They use this access to keep the community safe, review new members' posts, investigate reports and suspected breaks of the Terms of Use, help members, and fix problems.
Administrators can also open the site "as a member sees it" in a look-only view, to check what a member sees or to track down a problem. In that view nothing can be changed, nothing is marked as read, and the text of private messages is hidden. It ends automatically after 30 minutes.
We do not give out what administrators see, except as described in section 10.

6. Astra, our AI assistant

"Astra - AI assistant" is an AI, not a person, and is always labelled that way. Astra helps the team with support and moderation, works under the site owner's direction, and has administrator access for that work.
When Astra helps with a support request, a report, or reviewing content, the text and content involved are processed by an AI model run by an outside provider: [OWNER TO FILL: name of the AI provider(s) used to run Astra]. We do not use your content to advertise to you.
If you would rather a person handle your request, say so in your message.

7. Emails we send

FriendBurst sends only the emails needed to run your account:

a link to confirm a new account;
password reset links;
links to reclaim an old account;
a one-time "welcome back" invitation sent in November 2026 to email addresses on old accounts when the site came back. It included a link to unsubscribe from any further invitations.

We do not send marketing email or newsletters, and the site does not email you about activity such as comments or messages. Emails come from noreply@friendburst.com and are sent by FriendBurst's own mail server. We will never ask for your password by email.

8. Service providers and other websites

We use a small number of outside services to run FriendBurst. They receive only what they need for the job:

Cloudflare sits in front of the site to deliver pages and protect it from attacks. All visits pass through Cloudflare, which therefore sees IP addresses and the pages requested. On the sign-up, password reset and reclaim pages, Cloudflare's Turnstile check runs in your browser to tell people from bots.
Have I Been Pwned (Pwned Passwords): when you choose a password at sign-up, we send the first 5 characters of a scrambled form (SHA-1 hash) of it, so we can warn you if it has appeared in a known data breach. Your password itself and your other details are never sent.
Backblaze stores our backups. Backups are encrypted before they leave our server.
YouTube: videos are shown with YouTube's privacy-enhanced player (youtube-nocookie.com). On profile pages nothing loads from YouTube until you press play; in some other places the player may load when the page opens. Once a video loads or plays, YouTube's privacy policy applies.
Pictures stored on other sites: some older posts, especially on the blogs, show pictures that are stored on other websites (for example Photobucket). When you open such a post, your browser may load the picture from that site, which then sees your IP address.
The AI provider that runs Astra (see section 6).

Our hosting server and mail server are run for FriendBurst; account emails are not sent through an outside email service. Links to other websites in members' posts lead to sites we do not control; their own privacy policies apply.

9. No sale of data, no advertising, no tracking

We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information. FriendBurst shows no advertising and uses no advertising networks, analytics services or tracking pixels. Members may not add trackers to their profiles either (see the Terms of Use).

10. When we may share information

Apart from the service providers above, we share personal information only:

when the law requires it, or in response to valid legal process from police, courts or government;
when we believe it is needed to protect someone from serious harm, or to protect the safety of members or the site;
to deal with copyright complaints (for example, a DMCA notice may be passed to the member concerned);
with your permission.

[OWNER TO FILL: what happens to member information if FriendBurst is ever sold, merged or closed]

11. How long we keep information

Your account and content are kept while your account exists. When you ask us to delete your account, we remove it from the site. [OWNER TO FILL: how long after a deletion request the account is fully erased]
Items you delete (for example a photo or comment) are removed from the site. We have not yet set a fixed time after which every deleted item is erased from our storage. [OWNER TO FILL: retention period for deleted items]
Mail Trash: messages you move to Trash are permanently deleted from your Mail after 7 days. The other person keeps their own copy.
Unfinished sign-ups expire after 24 hours if the email link is not used.
Sign-in records are deleted after 90 days. Attempt counters are deleted after 2 days. Expired sessions and used links are removed regularly.
Web server logs are archived; we have not yet set a period after which they are deleted. [OWNER TO FILL: web server log retention period]
Backups are made nightly and kept; we have not yet set a period after which old backups are deleted, so deleted information can remain in backups. [OWNER TO FILL: backup retention period]
Old accounts that are never reclaimed are kept for now; see the Terms of Use.

12. Keeping information safe

We take reasonable steps to protect your information: the whole site uses encrypted connections (HTTPS); passwords are stored only as strong hashes; sign-in cookies are protected from scripts and other sites; the sign-in system runs separately from the rest of the site; forms are protected against forgery and repeated guessing; access to the server and the database is limited; members' profile code is filtered; and backups are encrypted. No website can be perfectly secure, so please use a strong password that you use nowhere else. If we learn of a security problem that affects your information, we will tell affected members as the law requires.

13. Your choices and rights

See and change your information: you can view and edit your profile, photos and privacy settings at any time. To change your user name or email address, ask the site owner: Account Settings has a link for this.
Get a copy: you can ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
Correct it: ask us to correct anything that is wrong.
Delete it: you can delete your own posts and photos, and you can ask us to delete your account. There is no self-service delete button at the moment; the team handles each request by hand.
Emails: you can unsubscribe from the welcome-back invitation using its link. Account emails (confirmation, password reset, reclaim) are sent only when you or someone using your address asks for them.
How to ask: use the Contact page when signed in, or Account help if you cannot sign in. To protect you, we may need to confirm that the request really comes from the account owner.

Depending on where you live, you may have further rights under your local law. You can use the same route to exercise them.

14. Children

FriendBurst is for adults only. It is not meant for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If the date of birth at sign-up shows someone is under 18, no account is created and the details are not kept.
The old FriendBurst allowed some younger members to join. Old accounts whose owners were under 18 when they joined are not shown to other members, and their old content stays hidden.
If you believe someone under 18 is using FriendBurst, or that we hold information about a child, please tell us and we will deal with it.

15. Visitors from outside the United States

FriendBurst is run from the United States and our server is in the United States [OWNER TO FILL: confirm the country FriendBurst is run from and where its server is located]. If you use FriendBurst from another country, your information will be transferred to, stored and processed in the United States, where privacy laws may differ from those where you live. Our service providers may process information in other countries too.

16. Changes to this policy

We will update this policy when the way the site handles information changes. We will change the "Last updated" date at the top, and announce important changes in News & announcements on the site.

17. Contact us

Questions or requests about your privacy? Signed-in members can use the Contact page; your message goes to the FriendBurst team and the answer comes to your Mail. If you cannot sign in, see Account help.

The previous version of this Privacy Policy (October 16, 2010) is available on request.