Privacy policy

Who is responsible

bored.kids is run by Synthetic Media LLC, a Florida limited liability company (“we”, “us”). We are the controller responsible for the personal information described here. You can reach us through the contact form. You can also email hello@boredkids.net.

What we collect

Messages you send. When you use the contact form, for example to list a product, update a listing or ask for something to be removed, we store what you type: the product name, link, age range, your message and, only if you add it, your email address. To stop spam we also store a short code made by scrambling your IP address together with the date. We don’t store the IP address itself.

Reviews and other posts. If you post a review, rating, comment or other content for the site, we store it with the name or display name and any email address you give. Anything you post may be published, with that name, for anyone to see, and may be copied by others once it is public, so don’t include personal information you want kept private, and never include information about a child.

Votes. When you tap a heart, we store one vote: the product, the time, a random ID your browser makes up for itself and keeps in its own storage, and a short code made by scrambling your IP address together with the date. The code changes every day, can’t be turned back into your IP address, and only helps us stop floods of automated votes. Tapping the heart again deletes that vote. The site only ever shows each product’s total, and votes aren’t linked to your name or email address.

Your shortlist. The list of products you’ve hearted is kept in your own browser’s storage. Each heart also counts as a vote, as described above, but the list itself is never sent to us. Clearing your browser data removes it.

Technical data. Our host, Cloudflare, receives the technical details every website sees, such as your IP address, browser type and the pages you request, so it can deliver the site and protect it from attacks. We don’t use this to profile you.

Cookie choices. Our cookie consent banner comes from Consently, and its script loads on every page. When it loads, Consently receives your IP address and browser details, and it keeps the choices you make in a cookie or your browser’s storage so it doesn’t ask again on every page. You can change your choices at any time from the banner’s settings.

Visitor statistics. For visitors outside the European Union, our pages also load Cloudflare Web Analytics, which counts page views and measures how quickly pages load. To do that it receives the address of the page you view, the site that sent you, your browser and device type, and your IP address, which it uses to work out your country. It doesn’t set cookies, build a profile of you or follow you across other websites, and we see only totals, never individual visitors. It isn’t used for visitors in the European Union, and the site works the same if a browser blocks it.

We don’t run accounts or advertising cookies. Cloudflare may set a strictly necessary security cookie to tell people from bots. Your browser’s own storage also holds your shortlist and the random voting ID described above.

You don’t have to give us any personal information to browse the site.

Why we use it

We use this information to read and reply to your messages, publish and moderate listings, reviews and other posts, act on update and removal requests, count votes, keep the site secure and working, understand in total how the site is used and how fast it loads, and meet legal obligations.

Where privacy law asks for a legal basis (for example the EU and UK GDPR), we rely on: our legitimate interest in running a useful, safe directory and answering the people who write to us, for messages, posts, votes, security and visitor statistics; your consent when you choose to give us your email address, which you can withdraw at any time by asking us to delete it; and legal obligations where the law requires us to keep or share something. We don’t make decisions about you by automated means that have legal or similarly significant effects.

Who we share it with

We don’t sell your personal information or share it for advertising. Content you post for publication is public. Otherwise we share personal information only with service providers that help us run the site, such as Cloudflare for hosting, storage and visitor statistics, Consently for the cookie consent banner, and our email provider when we reply to you; if the law requires it; to protect our rights or anyone’s safety; or as part of a sale, merger or reorganisation of our business.

Links to other sites

When you follow a link to a provider or app store, that site’s own privacy policy applies. If the link is an affiliate link, the provider or affiliate network may use cookies to record that you came from bored.kids so it can pay us a commission. Commission reports we receive don’t normally identify you.

How long we keep it

We keep messages for as long as we need them for the reason you sent them, and vote records for as long as the counts are shown, then delete them. The scrambled spam-protection code can’t be turned back into an IP address. Published content stays up until we or you remove it. You can ask us to delete your message or remove something you posted at any time; we may keep copies where the law allows or requires, for example to deal with a complaint.

Children

bored.kids is made for adults and is not directed at children under 13. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from children. If you think a child has sent us something, tell us and we will delete it.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to ask what personal information we hold about you, to correct or delete it, to object to or restrict how we use it, to withdraw consent, or to receive a copy. Send requests through the contact form; we may ask for details to confirm the request is yours, and we answer within the time the law where you live sets. We won’t treat you differently for using these rights. If you are in the EU, the UK or another place with a data protection authority, you can also complain to it.

California residents

In the last 12 months we have collected these categories of personal information: identifiers (an email address, if you give one, and the random voting ID your browser makes); internet activity (the votes you cast, the technical data our host receives, and the pages you view); and the content of messages and posts you send. We get it from you and your browser, use it for the purposes in “Why we use it”, keep it as described in “How long we keep it”, and disclose it for business purposes only to the service providers named in “Who we share it with”.

We don’t sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we haven’t done so in the last 12 months, including for anyone under 16. We don’t collect sensitive personal information. Because we don’t sell or share, there is nothing to opt out of, but we treat a Global Privacy Control signal as a request to opt out anyway.

You have the right to know what we collect, use and disclose, to delete and correct it, to opt out of sale or sharing, and not to be discriminated against for using these rights. You or someone you authorise can make a request through the contact form.

Do Not Track

We don’t track you across other websites, so the site behaves the same whether or not your browser sends a Do Not Track signal.

Where it is processed

We are based in the United States, and our service providers, such as Cloudflare, may process information in the United States and other countries. Where the law requires a safeguard for information sent from the EU, the UK or elsewhere, we rely on those our service providers offer, such as the EU–US Data Privacy Framework or the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses.

Security

We take reasonable steps to protect what we hold, but no website or storage system is completely secure.

Changes

We may update this policy by posting a new version here with a new date.