Privacy Policy

Effective Date: May 20, 2026

Welcome to MapHive! This Privacy Policy describes how MapHive ("we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, and shares information about you when you use our website and services (collectively, the "Services"). Our Services are provided under the MIT License.

Information We Collect

We collect information you provide directly to us, information we collect automatically when you use our Services, and information from third-party sources.

Information You Provide to Us:

• Account Information: When you register for an account, we collect your username and a hashed version of your password. We also store your registration date and user tier (e.g., regular user, trusted user, admin).
• Profile Information: You may choose to provide additional information for your profile.
• User Content: We collect the content you submit to the Services, including:
  • Map locations you create (including details, coordinates).
  • Reviews you write.
  • Discussion threads you start.
  • Messages you post in discussion threads.
  This includes information about your ownership of this content. You may have the option to submit some content anonymously.
• Communications: If you contact us directly, we may receive additional information about you.

Information We Collect Automatically:

• Log Information: When you use our Services, we automatically collect certain log information, including a hashed version of the IP addresses you have logged in from.
• Usage Information: We may collect information about your interactions with our Services, such as the pages you view, links you click, and other actions you take.
• Device Information: We may collect information about the device you use to access our Services, including hardware model, operating system and version, and unique device identifiers. (Note: This is a general practice).
• Cookies and Similar Technologies: We may use cookies and similar tracking technologies to track activity on our Services and hold certain information. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our Services.

Information About Your Account Status:

• We store information regarding whether your account is banned and details pertaining to any such ban.

How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for various purposes, including to:

• Provide, operate, and maintain our Services;
• Improve, personalize, and expand our Services;
• Understand and analyze how you use our Services;
• Develop new products, services, features, and functionality;
• Communicate with you, either directly or through one of our partners, including for customer service, to provide you with updates and other information relating to the Service, and for marketing and promotional purposes (with your consent, where required);
• Process your transactions;
• Send you technical notices, updates, security alerts, and support and administrative messages;
• Find and prevent fraud and abuse; and
• For compliance purposes, including enforcing our Terms of Service, or other legal rights, or as may be required by applicable laws and regulations or requested by any judicial process or governmental agency.

Sharing Your Information

We may share the information we collect in the following circumstances:

• With Your Consent: We may share your information with your consent or at your direction.
• Publicly Shared Information: Information you choose to make public, such as map locations, reviews (unless anonymous), and discussion threads/messages, will be accessible to others.
• Service Providers: We may share your information with third-party service providers who perform services on our behalf, such as hosting, data analysis, payment processing, customer service, and marketing assistance. These service providers are obligated to protect your information and are restricted from using it for any other purpose.
• Legal Requirements: We may disclose your information if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a legal obligation, protect and defend our rights or property, prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Services, protect the personal safety of users of the Services or the public, or protect against legal liability.
• Business Transfers: We may share or transfer your information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company.

Data Retention and Deletion

We retain your personal information for as long as necessary to provide the Services and fulfill the transactions you have requested, or for other essential purposes such as complying with our legal obligations, resolving disputes, and enforcing our agreements.

Please note that deleted messages, threads, reviews, and map locations may be retained in our system for a period for administrative, backup, or legal purposes, even if they are no longer publicly visible on the Services.

Your Choices

• Account Information: You may update or correct your account information at any time by logging into your account.
• Cookies: Most web browsers are set to accept cookies by default. If you prefer, you can usually choose to set your browser to remove or reject browser cookies.
• Anonymous Contributions: Where available, you may choose to contribute content anonymously.

Security of Your Information

We take reasonable measures to help protect information about you from loss, theft, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. However, no internet or email transmission is ever fully secure or error-free. Please keep this in mind when disclosing any information to us via the Internet.

Children's Privacy

Our Services are not directed to individuals under the age of 13 (or a higher age as required by applicable law in your jurisdiction). We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, we will take steps to delete such information.

MIT License

MapHive is provided under the MIT License. The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has, therefore, high license compatibility. The MIT License permits reuse within proprietary software provided that all copies of the licensed software include a copy of the MIT License terms and the copyright notice. The MIT License is also GPL-compatible, meaning that the GPL permits combination and redistribution with software that uses the MIT License.

Please note that while the software is provided under the MIT license, this Privacy Policy governs how we handle your data when you use the MapHive services.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make changes, we will notify you by revising the "Effective Date" at the top of this policy and, in some cases, we may provide you with additional notice (such as adding a statement to our homepage or sending you a notification). We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about our information practices and the choices available to you.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at [Insert Contact Email or Method Here - e.g., privacy@maphive.example.com].