Privacy notice

Who runs this site

Desktop Safari Live is run by DesktopSafari. In this notice, “we” means DesktopSafari. You can reach us at desktopsafari@gmail.com.

What we collect, and why

Watching the stream. The video comes from our own server. When your browser requests the page or the video, our servers and our hosting provider necessarily receive technical details such as your IP address and browser type. See “Server logs” below. We also show how many people are watching right now; that is a live count and nothing about individual viewers is saved for it.

Live chat. To chat you pick a display name. We store your name, each message, the time, and your random browser ID with every message. Anyone in chat can see your name and messages, and people who join see the most recent messages. We do not store your IP address with your messages. If someone breaks the chat rules, we may block a browser ID or an IP address that we enter by hand.

Polls. When you vote we store which option you chose, the time, and your random browser ID, so that each browser gets one vote per poll. We do not ask who you are. The same browser ID is attached to your chat messages, so while both exist we could tell that they came from the same browser.

Email updates. If you sign up on the Contact page, we collect your email address and the categories you chose. We use it only to send you those updates. We do not ask for your name.

Support page notice. Our support page has its own signup, for an email when ways to support the stream become available. We collect your email address and the fact that you chose the “Support page announcements” category, nothing else. The address is held in Resend, in a list kept separate from our other update lists, and we use it only to tell you about the support page. Every email has an unsubscribe link; unsubscribing stops the emails, and you can email us to have the address removed completely.

The contact box. If you send a suggestion, we store the text of your message. We don’t ask for your name or email, so only include what you are happy for us to read. The message is also emailed to us.

Name ideas (suggestion events). When we run an event, we store each idea you send, which frog it is for, and the time. Ideas are never shown publicly, but we may show a name we choose. A simple word filter flags some ideas for a closer look; flagged ideas are still saved. We don’t ask for your name or email.

Spam protection. To stop the forms being flooded, we keep a short record of your IP address, which form was used, and when. Forms also contain a hidden field that people never see; automated programs often fill it in, and those submissions are quietly dropped.

Server logs. Our video and chat server records, for each request other than video files: your IP address, the time, the address requested, the result, the page you came from, and your browser and device description. We use this to keep the service running, to spot abuse (much of it is automated scanning), and to block people who break the rules. Our server’s firewall and login logs also record the addresses of blocked or failed connection attempts. Our hosting provider keeps its own request logs.

Where it is stored and who else handles it

We use these services to run the site. They handle your data on our behalf:

• Vercel hosts the website and its features (polls, forms, the admin tools), so it handles page requests.
• Supabase is our database and image storage. Chat, votes, contact messages and name ideas live here.
• Resend sends our emails and holds the list of people who signed up for updates.
• DigitalOcean runs our video and chat server, located in New York, USA.
• Google (Gmail) receives the contact-box messages and poll results that are emailed to us. Poll results contain only totals.
• GoDaddy is where the site’s domain name is registered and its address lookups are handled.

The “Support us” button is just a link: for now it opens our own support page, and once our Ko-fi page is open it will open Ko-fi in a new tab. Nothing from Ko-fi is loaded on this site, and Ko-fi only gets involved if you click through to it, under its own privacy policy. We do not load third-party scripts, fonts, ads or analytics.

These providers store data in their own locations and under their own policies. We can’t promise how long they keep their own logs.

How long we keep it

If we need to look into abuse or a problem, we may keep the relevant records longer than this while we do.

Browser storage and cookies

Visitors don’t get any cookies from this site. We do use two items in your browser’s local storage:

• A random browser ID. It is created the first time you open the site. It lets us give each browser one vote per poll, tell chat users apart, and apply bans. It is sent to our site with polls and chat.
• Your chat name. Saved only if you join chat, so you don’t have to type it again.

Nothing else is stored. (The site’s administrator, and only the administrator, gets a login cookie after signing in.) You can clear this any time in your browser settings; the next visit will create a new random ID.

Your choices

• You can watch without chatting, voting, or signing up for anything.
• Every update email has an unsubscribe link. To have your address removed completely, email us.
• You can ask us to delete your chat messages. Tell us your chat name and roughly when you wrote them so we can find them.
• You can ask us to delete a contact-box message or a name idea if you tell us what it said.
• Once a vote has been unlinked from its browser ID, we can no longer tell which vote was yours, so we can’t remove it individually.
• You can ask what we hold about you. We’ll do our best to find and share it, within the limits of what we can identify.

Email desktopsafari@gmail.com for any of this.

Children

The site is for a general audience. Chat is intended for people aged 13 and older. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you think a child under 13 has used chat or sent us their email address, please contact us and we will delete it.

Changes to this notice

If we change how the site handles data, we’ll update this page and its “last updated” date. See also our terms.