Privacy Policy

Last updated September 29, 2026

Gameroni is run by Jason Venter, based in Oregon, USA. This page explains what the site collects about visitors and account holders, why, how long it's kept, and what you can do about it. Questions or requests go to contact@gameroni.com.

The short version

• Reading Gameroni doesn't require an account, and nothing about you personally is recorded when you do.
• Detailed visitor statistics are collected only if you allow analytics in your cookie settings, and even then they can't identify you.
• IP addresses are never stored by the site itself. (The contact form keeps a scrambled code made from yours to stop spam, as explained below, and it can't be turned back into the address.)
• Your information is never sold, or handed over to advertisers or data brokers.
• Chat messages, and any images or files attached to them, are erased after 90 days.
• Advertising partners such as Google can set their own cookies only if you allow advertising in your cookie settings. Otherwise, you'll see only Gameroni's own ads, which don't track you. In Europe, the UK and Switzerland, Google asks you itself, as explained under Advertising.
• If you create an account, you can change or delete it yourself at any time. In the event that your account is banned or suspended, you can still delete it. Simply sign in with your password and follow the link shown. If you can't sign in at all, contact us from the address on the account and we'll delete it for you.

What's collected from every visitor

Article and blog post view counts. Each time an article or blog post is read, its view count for that day goes up by one. Nothing else is recorded: no cookie, no IP address, no details about you or your device. (Views by a post's own writer and by Gameroni staff aren't counted. That check uses only whether you're signed in, and nothing is saved.)

Server logs. Like nearly every website, the web server keeps routine logs of requests (IP address, time, page requested, and browser type) to keep the site secure and working. These logs are used only for that purpose and are deleted automatically after 30 days.

Ad counts. Each time one of Gameroni's own ads is shown or clicked, that ad's total for the day goes up by one, so we know how ads are performing. As with view counts, nothing about you is recorded.

What's collected only if you allow analytics

If you turn on analytics in your cookie settings, each page you visit also records:

• which page it was, and the name of the site that sent you there (for example, "reddit.com", never the full address)
• your country, found by looking up your IP address in a list kept on our own server; the address itself is used only for that lookup and is never saved
• your screen size, your browser's language setting, and a general description of your device (for example, "Windows, Chrome, desktop")
• a random ID created by your own browser and kept in its local storage, so that several pages visited by the same person can be counted as one visitor. It isn't linked to your name, your account, or anything else.
• what you type into the site's search box, and how many results it found

Visit-by-visit records are kept for 90 days. After that they're combined into daily totals (such as "40 visits from Canada on May 3") and the individual records are deleted. Search terms are kept only as the words searched and how many results appeared, with nothing to show who searched.

If you later turn analytics off, collection stops and the random ID is removed from your browser.

If you create an account

• Always: your username, email address, and password (stored only in scrambled form, so nobody at Gameroni can read it).
• If you choose to add them: your first and last name, a short bio, a profile photo, and links to your social media or website.
• Whether to show your name: your first and last name appear around the site only if you check the box for that on your profile page. Otherwise your username is shown in their place. You can change this at any time, and the change applies everywhere at once, including past articles and posts.
• For security: a count of recent failed sign-in attempts, and, if you choose "stay signed in," a sign-in record that lasts 30 days.
• Your cookie choices, with the date you made them, as a record that you gave (or declined) consent.
• If your account is suspended or banned: when it happened, who did it, until when, and the reason.

Your email address is used to verify your account, reset your password, and send notices about your account or your submissions. It's never shown publicly or used for marketing. Accounts that aren't verified within 24 hours are deleted automatically.

Your username is always public. It appears on your comments, your blog, and your author page, and in their web addresses.

Writers and editors: your byline (your name if you've chosen to show it, otherwise your username), bio, photo, and social links appear publicly on your articles and author page. Editorial notes and earlier versions of articles are kept so the editorial team can track changes.

Staff records: when staff change an account (its level, a suspension, a ban, a new username), the change is noted in a log with who made it and when, so the team can see what happened.

Comments and reports

When you post a comment, Gameroni stores what you wrote, where you posted it, what it replies to, and when it was posted or last edited. Comments appear publicly with your username and profile photo.

• Deleting your own comment erases its text right away. A placeholder keeps its spot in the thread so that replies to it still make sense.
• Reporting a comment records who reported it, the reason chosen, and any note added. Reports are seen only by staff.
• Moderation: staff can remove comments, and so can a blog's owner on their own blog. Each step taken on a comment (removed, kept, restored) is recorded with who took it and when. If a comment is removed, its text is kept for 90 days in case the decision needs a second look, then erased. The record of the steps is kept.

Blogs

If you write a blog on Gameroni, your posts, the images you upload to your blog library, and the colors and layout you choose for your blog are stored so they can be shown. Published posts are public, credited as described above. Drafts are seen only by you. Posts scheduled for later are seen only by you and Gameroni staff until they go live.

Blog owners can stop particular members from commenting on their blog. The site stores who blocked whom, and when. If staff take down a post, it's hidden from readers, and the reason is kept with it so it can be reviewed or restored.

Notifications

When something happens that concerns you, such as a reply to your comment or a message for you in chat, the site stores a notification for you: what happened, who did it, and a link to it. Notifications are erased 90 days after you've seen them, or after a year if you never do.

Pitches (writers and editors)

Writers at contributor level and above can pitch article ideas to the editors, and editors can assign articles to writers. Each pitch stores its title, type, and notes, who pitched or assigned it, who accepted or passed on it and when, its due date, and a thread of every step taken on it and every comment left there. All contributors, editors, and staff can see every pitch.

Pitches that were passed on or dropped are erased, thread and all, once nothing has happened on them for 30 days. Other pitches are kept as a record of the articles written from them.

Chat

Members with a verified account can use Gameroni's chat. For each person, it stores:

• Your messages, with any image or file you attach, the reactions you add, and whom you @mention. Messages in a channel are seen by everyone who can use that channel. Direct messages are seen only by the people in them. Nobody else can open them on the site, staff included, unless a message is reported (see below). Images and files can be opened only by people who can see the message.
• Link previews. When a message includes a link, Gameroni's server visits that page to fetch its title, description, and picture, and shows them under the message. Your browser doesn't contact the linked site to do this. A preview is kept only while a message still shows it. A YouTube video in a preview loads from YouTube, in its privacy-enhanced mode, only if you press play.
• Your status (such as Busy or On vacation, and until when, for up to 90 days) and the time you last used chat, which is how the site knows when to show you as Idle.
• Your place in each conversation: when you joined it, the last message you've read, and whether you've muted it. While you type, others in the conversation see that you're typing. That note is erased within a day.
• Pins: who pinned a message, and when.
• Blocks: whom you've blocked in chat, and when. The person you block isn't told.

Chat messages, with their images and files, are erased 90 days after they're posted. A thread is erased as a whole, 90 days after its latest reply. Deleting one of your own messages erases its text and attachment right away, leaving "Message deleted" in its place.

Reporting a chat message records who reported it, the reason chosen, and any note added, and keeps a copy of the message's text so moderators can read it even if the writer deletes it. Moderators also see the few messages just before it, for context, even in a direct message. The writer isn't told who reported it. Moderators' decisions are recorded with who made them and when. The report and its copy of the text are kept until a moderator decides, then erased 90 days later.

The contact form

Messages sent through the contact form are stored with the email address you give, the topic, the title, and the message itself, plus your account if you were signed in when you sent it. Staff replies are sent to that address by email, and a copy of each is kept with the message, along with who sent it and when.

To limit spam, the form also stores a scrambled code made from your IP address. It lets the site count how many messages come from the same place, but it can't be turned back into the address. Messages, replies, and these codes are all erased 90 days after the message arrives.

If an address is used to send spam or abuse, staff can block it. The site then keeps that email address (with who blocked it and when) so it can turn away later messages from it. Blocked addresses stay on that list until staff remove them.

Cookies and browser storage

Advertising

Gameroni shows ads in hopes of generating sufficient revenue to pay for operating expenses and to compensate our contributors. There are two kinds:

• Gameroni's own ads, including ads placed directly by sponsors, are shown to everyone. They use no cookies and record nothing about you. Only a daily total of how often each ad was shown and clicked is kept.
• Ads from partner networks such as Google AdSense appear only if you allow advertising in your cookie settings. If you don't, their code isn't loaded at all.

In Europe, the UK and Switzerland, Google's ads work a little differently. There, Google's own consent message asks what you allow, using a tool Google has certified for those places, and Gameroni's cookie banner isn't shown. Google's code is loaded so that the message can appear. If you don't agree to cookies in it, Google may still show ads that are chosen without cookies or information about you, such as ads that fit the page you're reading. You can change your answer at any time from "Cookie settings" at the bottom of every page. Gameroni's own optional analytics stay off for you unless you turn them on there.

If you do allow advertising: third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to this website or other websites. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to users based on their visits to this site and/or other sites on the Internet. These partners receive information directly from your browser, such as your IP address, device details, and the pages where their ads appear, and they handle it under their own privacy policies. Google explains its part at How Google uses information from sites that use its services.

You can opt out of personalized advertising at any time in Google's Ads Settings, or for many other ad companies at www.aboutads.info. You can also turn advertising off in your cookie settings, which stops partner ads on Gameroni altogether.

Embedded videos

Some articles include videos from YouTube or Vimeo. When a page containing one loads, your browser connects to that service, which receives your IP address and may use cookies under its own privacy policy. YouTube videos are embedded in YouTube's "privacy-enhanced mode," which limits its use of cookies until you play the video.

What Gameroni doesn't do

• Sell or rent anyone's information, or hand it over to advertisers or data brokers
• Use Google Analytics, Facebook pixels, or any other third-party tracking, apart from partner advertising, which runs only if you allow it
• Build profiles of visitors or try to identify them across other websites (advertising partners may do this if you allow advertising, as explained above)

Why this is allowed (legal bases)

For visitors in the EU, UK, and similar places, the legal grounds are:

• Your account, comments, blog, chat, pitches, and notifications: it's needed to provide the account and features you asked for.
• Reports, blocks, moderation records, and staff records: legitimate interest in keeping discussions civil and the site safe, and in being able to review decisions.
• Contact messages and the spam code: legitimate interest in answering you and in keeping the form free of spam.
• Analytics and partner advertising: your consent, which you can withdraw at any time in your cookie settings. For Google's ads, you give or refuse it in Google's own consent message.
• View counts, ad counts, server logs, and security records: legitimate interest in running a secure site and knowing which articles are read and how ads perform, done in ways that don't identify anyone.

Where the data is kept

Gameroni's server is in the United States, and all of the information described here is stored there. Emails are sent from that same server. No one else receives it, apart from the companies that host and connect the server, and only as needed to keep it running. If you allow advertising, partner networks such as Google also receive information directly from your browser, as described under Advertising above.

Your choices and rights

• Change your cookie choices any time on the cookie settings page.
• See or correct your information: most of it is on your profile page, where you can edit it.
• Delete your account yourself from your account dashboard. This removes:
  • your account, profile, photo, sign-in records, and cookie-choice records
  • your blog, with all of its posts and the images in its library
  • drafts and submissions that haven't been published, along with any changes still waiting for an editor's approval
  • the text of your comments (each one keeps its spot in its thread as "no longer available") and the notes on any reports you made
  • messages you sent through the contact form, with their replies
  • your chat messages, with their images and files (each one keeps its spot in its conversation as "Message deleted"), the copies of their text kept with any reports, and your chat status, reactions, read markers, mutes, and blocks
  • your pitches, with their threads (comments you left on other writers' pitches stay, but no longer show who wrote them)
  • your notifications
  Articles you've published stay on the site but are credited to "Site Contributor" instead of you. Staff records about your account stay, but no longer say who you were. Your username is held for about six months so that nobody else can take it over and be mistaken for you, and after that anyone can use it.
• Anything else, including a copy of your information or questions about how it's used: email contact@gameroni.com. You'll get a reply within 30 days.

If you're in the EU or UK and believe your information has been mishandled, you also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority. California residents: Gameroni doesn't sell or share personal information as California law defines those terms.

Age requirement

You must be at least 16 to create an account. Accounts found to belong to anyone younger are deleted.

Changes to this policy

If what Gameroni collects changes, this page will be updated and its date changed above. For changes that affect analytics or advertising, you'll be asked for your cookie choices again.

Credits

IP geolocation by DB-IP.