Privacy Policy

AnyBottle is an independent website where people write short letters, set them adrift, and sometimes receive a reply. This policy covers www.anybottle.online and the same site when it is served from another address we operate.

To ask a privacy question, or to ask us to delete your account or a letter, write to dhlptx00@gmail.com or use the Contact page.

We collect only what the site needs in order to show letters and keep an account.

• Account. If you sign in with Google, we receive your Google account id, email address, name, and profile photo. We store them so bottles, replies, and bottles you keep can stay with you.
• Letters and replies. The text you write, the signature you choose, the seal you pick, and the time you wrote it. A letter can be read by anyone who opens that bottle. Your email is not printed on the letter. Replies are shown to people who are signed in.
• Contact messages. If you write through the contact form, we store your name, email address, and message so we can read it and reply.
• Technical data. The service that hosts this website may keep ordinary connection logs, such as IP address, browser type, the time of the request, and the page requested. We use that to keep the site working and to look into abuse.

Signing in uses your Google account. Google's privacy policy describes what Google does with that account: https://policies.google.com/privacy.

A cookie is a small text file a website stores on your browser. AnyBottle uses first-party cookies of its own, and advertising partners may set their own cookies when an ad is shown. You can block or delete cookies in your browser. If you block the cookies below, Google sign-in will not stay signed in.

• anybottle_session. Keeps you signed in. It lasts 30 days. It is httpOnly, which means page scripts cannot read it. It holds a signed record of your Google account id, email, name, and profile photo address. We use it to recognize your account. We do not use this cookie to build an advertising profile.
• anybottle_oauth_state. Set for about 10 minutes while you sign in with Google. It ties the return from Google to the sign-in we started, so someone else cannot finish a login for you.
• anybottle_oauth_next. Set for about 10 minutes during sign-in. It remembers which page of this site to open after Google sends you back.

These three cookies are set by AnyBottle. They keep sign-in working and bring you back to the page you were on. Advertising cookies, described in the next section, are separate and are set by the advertising partner.

AnyBottle may display advertisements, including ads provided by Google AdSense and other third-party advertising partners. Ads help support the website. The letters stay separate from the ads, and the advertiser is responsible for the page an ad opens.

Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a person's prior visits to this website or other websites. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads based on visits to this site and other sites on the Internet.

Advertising cookies can be used to:

• remember that a browser visited this website
• serve ads and measure whether an ad was seen or clicked
• limit how often the same ad is shown
• show ads that relate to earlier visits to this site and to other sites

Those cookies are set by the advertising partner, not by the anybottle_session cookie. They may be third-party cookies. Google and its partners may use the DoubleClick cookie and similar advertising cookies for this purpose. Google's description of advertising cookies is here: https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads. How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services is here: https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

You can opt out of personalized advertising:

• Google Ads Settings: https://adssettings.google.com
• About Ads (Digital Advertising Alliance): https://optout.aboutads.info
• Network Advertising Initiative: https://optout.networkadvertising.org
• Your Online Choices (Europe): https://www.youronlinechoices.eu

Opting out of personalized ads does not turn ads off by itself. You may still see ads, and those ads may be less related to your earlier visits. Browser controls that block third-party cookies will also limit many advertising cookies.

• to show the site, store letters, and deliver a bottle to a reader
• to keep you signed in and show your shore, including replies you wrote
• to read and answer contact messages
• to remove content that breaks the Terms, and to protect the site from abuse
• to understand, in aggregate, whether the site is working
• to show and measure advertising, as described above

We do not sell your personal information. We do not trade email addresses with advertisers.

Other services process information only so the site can run:

• Google, when you choose Sign In, and when Google serves or measures an ad.
• The database that stores accounts, letters, replies, and contact messages. That database is hosted in the Asia Pacific region (Tokyo).
• The host that publishes this website, which may store the connection logs described above.
• An advertising partner, when their ad or cookie is placed on a page.

The sign-in cookie lasts 30 days unless you sign out sooner. The two cookies used only during Google sign-in last about 10 minutes. Letters, replies, and your account record stay until you delete a bottle you cast, or until you ask us to delete them. Contact messages stay long enough for us to reply and to keep a record of the request. Advertising cookies last for the period chosen by the partner that set them.

You can sign out at any time. You can take back a bottle you cast from your shore. You can ask us, at dhlptx00@gmail.com or through the Contact page, to delete your account, a letter, or a reply. When we delete an account, we delete the Google profile we stored and the bottles, replies, and kept bottles tied to it.

You can control cookies in your browser, and you can opt out of personalized advertising at the links in the Advertising section.

AnyBottle is a general website and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13, and we do not knowingly use children's information for personalized advertising. If you believe a child has signed in or written a letter, contact us and we will delete it.

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted on this page with a new date. Continued use of the site after the date of an update means the updated policy applies.