Privacy Policy & Consent Notice

Overview

VHS Label Generator ("we", "our", or "the Service") is a web application that helps you create custom labels for VHS tapes, audio cassettes, CDs, and other media formats. It also offers optional accounts, saved designs, a public design showcase, paid memberships, and a community chat. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and the choices you have. You can use much of the Service without an account. This policy works alongside our Terms and Conditions.

Information We Collect

Automatically Collected

• Usage Information: Events such as which format you opened and whether an export succeeded, along with performance measurements, the site that referred you, a coarse device type, and the country your connection comes from.
• Device Information: Browser type, operating system, screen resolution, and similar technical details.
• IP Address & Approximate Location: We use your IP address for security, rate limiting, and abuse prevention, and to estimate your country or region so we can set sensible defaults such as currency and paper size. Some of this is stored as a hash, and some is stored as is, as described below.
• Log & Session Data: When you sign in, we record each session and device with its IP address, browser user-agent, and sign-in time. We also keep logs of key actions such as sign-ins and uploads, which may include the page URL, IP address, and user-agent.
• Error Diagnostics: If the app hits an error or crashes, we capture diagnostic information, which may include device details and a short session replay. Replays are configured to mask text and block images and media.

User-Provided

• Search Queries: Movie titles, album names, games, and playlist URLs you search for to generate labels.
• Account Information: Your email address and, optionally, a display name, handle, avatar, and bio, plus your preferences, your agreement to our terms, and past email addresses on the account.
• Label Customizations: Text and customizations you add to your labels. If you don't save or sign in, these live in the URL and your browser. If you save a design, they are stored with your account.
• Saved Designs & Uploads: Designs you save, and images, fonts, and avatars you upload.
• Community Chat & Messages: Messages, pictures, reactions, and reports you submit in the chat, and your private messages with us.
• Support & Feedback: The content of support requests, bug reports and their attachments, misuse reports, surveys, cancellation feedback, and suggestions you send us.
• Payment Information: Your membership plan, billing history, and payment status. Card details are entered directly with our payment processor and are not stored on our servers. If you pay in Bitcoin, we keep the address and transaction, which are also public on the blockchain.

Accounts and Authentication

Creating an account (required for saving designs, memberships, and community chat) involves:

• Passwordless Sign-In: We sign you in with a one-time code sent to your email address, or with a passkey if you add one.
• Single Sign-On: We use a cookie on the .texs.org domain so you can stay signed in across our related sites.
• Session Records: Each signed-in device is recorded so that sessions can be reviewed and revoked.
• Invitations: If you sign up through someone's invite link, that person can see you joined, shown by your handle, your display name, or a masked email address.
• API & Agent Access: If you create an API key or connect an agent, we record its activity and usage against your account.

Saved Designs and Uploaded Content

When you save, upload, publish, or share:

• Saved Designs: Your design settings are stored with your account so you can open them across devices. They include your customization choices, a preview image, and the content information the design uses.
• Uploads: Files you upload are not publicly listed. They are served through time-limited links, and anyone holding such a link can open the file until it expires.
• Published Designs: If you publish to the community showcase, the design, its preview, and your public profile (such as your display name, handle, avatar, and bio) are public. They can be seen, copied, and indexed by anyone.
• Shared Links: A design's URL carries its settings. Anyone you share it with can see those settings, and we cannot recall a link once you send it.
• Deletion: You can delete saved designs and uploads from within the app. See Data Retention for what we may keep.

Community Chat (Taper Chat)

The Service includes an optional real-time community chat with an AI assistant ("HAL"), which also appears on our related sites. Chat requires signing in. If you take part:

• What We Store: Your account details, display name, avatar, the content of your messages and pictures, reactions, reports, and your acceptance of the chat house rules. Messages you delete are removed from view but may remain in our systems and backups.
• Who Can See It: Messages are visible to other people in the chat, so treat them as public. Some rooms are restricted to certain members.
• Page Tags: Each message shows other members a label and link for the page you sent it from. Moderators can also see the page's full address, which can include your design's settings.
• Private Messages: Your private thread with us is read by us and our team. It can involve the AI assistant if it is mentioned there.
• Moderation: Moderators can remove messages, mute users, and review reports. We may retain reported content for moderation and safety purposes.
• AI Assistant: When you use the assistant, your message and related context, such as the page you're on and your browser user-agent, may be sent to our AI provider. See "AI Features" below.

AI Features

We use third-party AI services for features including:

• Community Assistant (HAL): Generating replies in the chat, using the text you send it, recent conversation, and our own reference material.
• Translation: Translating chat messages when someone asks for a translation.
• Support: Helping us classify and draft replies to support messages, which involves sending the content of your message to the AI provider.

AI output can be wrong. Do not send the assistant anything you would not want processed by a third party.

Who We Share Information With

We share information only as needed to run the Service, or as described here:

• Service Providers: Companies that work on our behalf, including providers of hosting, content delivery, databases and storage, error monitoring, email delivery and inboxes, AI, and location lookup. We may change these providers at any time.
• Payment Processors: Companies that process membership payments and handle billing, fraud prevention, and disputes.
• Content Sources: Movie, TV, game, and music catalogs that supply posters, artwork, and track information. We send them what is needed to fetch your results, such as the search you typed. Some artwork and web fonts load directly from those sources and from font and content delivery services to your browser, so they can see your IP address and browser details under their own privacy policies.
• Other People: Anything you publish, share, or post in the chat, as described above.
• Legal, Safety, and Rights: We may disclose any information we believe is needed to comply with the law or a valid legal request, respond to claims including copyright and misuse reports, enforce our Terms, prevent fraud or abuse, or protect the rights, property, or safety of us, our users, or others.
• Business Transfers: If the Service or its assets are sold, merged, or transferred, information may be transferred with them.

How We Use Your Information

• To provide, maintain, and improve the Service
• To fetch media information based on your searches
• To generate QR codes and short links
• To authenticate you and keep accounts secure
• To store and sync your saved designs and uploaded files
• To operate the community chat, showcase, and AI features
• To respond to support requests, bug reports, and misuse reports
• To send transactional email and, if you opt in, newsletter email
• To process payments, referrals, and rewards
• To detect, prevent, and investigate fraud, abuse, and violations of our Terms, including by connecting accounts through signals such as IP address and payment details
• To comply with the law, and to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims
• To analyze usage and diagnose problems

Where the law requires a legal basis, we rely on: performing our contract with you (your account, designs, uploads, memberships, chat, and support); our legitimate interests (security, abuse and fraud prevention, measuring and diagnosing the Service, and defending legal claims); your consent (newsletter email and anything else we specifically ask you to agree to); and our legal obligations (such as tax and accounting records). You can object to processing based on legitimate interests at any time.

Email and Marketing Communications

We send two kinds of email:

• Transactional: Sign-in codes, email-change verification, welcome, billing notices, account messages, and replies to your support requests. These are part of operating the Service and your account.
• Marketing / Newsletter: Only if you opt in. Every marketing email includes an unsubscribe link, and you can opt out at any time. We may measure whether marketing emails are opened and clicked.

Incoming support emails and our replies are stored so we can track, answer, and improve support.

Data Storage & Security

• Where Data Is Stored: Accounts, designs, chat messages, uploads, and related records are stored on cloud infrastructure operated by our service providers.
• International Transfers: We operate from the United States, and your information may be processed in the United States and other countries where we or our providers operate, which may have different data protection laws from yours. Where the law requires it, we rely on a recognised transfer mechanism such as an adequacy decision or standard contractual clauses. You can ask us for details at privacy@texs.org.
• Local Processing: Label artwork is mostly rendered in your browser. If you don't save a design or sign in, your customizations generally live in the URL and your browser.
• URL Parameters: Your customizations can be captured in the URL, allowing you to bookmark and share designs.
• Short Links: When you generate a QR code, we may create a short URL stored in our database.
• Security: We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect information, but no system is completely secure and we cannot guarantee the security of any information. You use the Service and send us information at your own risk.

Data Retention

We keep personal data for as long as it is needed for the purposes described in this policy:

• Account & Saved Content: Generally kept while your account is active. Deleting your account deletes your saved designs and uploaded files and cancels any active subscription.
• Chat Messages: Deleting a message removes it from view, but chat history may be retained in our systems and backups.
• Logs & Analytics: Session, activity, and usage records are retained for security and product improvement.
• Payments: Billing records are retained for accounting, tax, and dispute purposes.
• Legal and Safety Holds: Even after you delete something, we may keep information where needed to comply with the law, resolve disputes, enforce our agreements, or prevent fraud and abuse, including records of terms you accepted and reports about you. Residual copies may also remain in backups for a time.

To request deletion of personal data that isn't removed automatically, contact us at privacy@texs.org.

Your Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights under privacy laws such as the GDPR or CCPA. Subject to those laws and their exceptions, these may include the right to:

• Access the information we have about you
• Request correction or deletion of your data
• Object to or restrict certain processing, withdraw consent, or request a portable copy of your data
• Complain to your local data protection authority
• Delete your account and saved content in the app
• Opt out of marketing email using the unsubscribe link
• Cancel your subscription at any time
• Contact us at privacy@texs.org to exercise any of these rights. We may need to verify your identity, and we may decline a request where the law allows

Cookies & Local Storage

We use a small number of cookies and browser storage: an essential cookie to keep you signed in across our sites, and your browser's local and session storage to keep your session, remember preferences such as theme, sound, and paper size, detect crashes, count usage within a visit, and note how you found us during that visit. We do not use advertising cookies. You can control cookies through your browser preferences, but blocking essential cookies may prevent you from signing in. Embedded content and artwork from other services may be subject to those services' own practices.

Children's Privacy

This Service is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, please contact us and we will delete it.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page, and for material changes we will give reasonable notice, such as a notice on the Service or by email. Your continued use of the Service after a change takes effect means the updated policy applies to you.

Contact

For privacy-related questions or requests, please contact us at: