Privacy

Last updated 5 September 2026

What’s collected, who else sees it, and how to get rid of it. Nothing is sold, and there are no ad trackers.

If you just look around

• A random id in your browser. Stored in your browser under hr_vid. It counts you once towards the “online” and “visitors” numbers, and it makes sure one person clicking a tower’s website link ten times only counts once that day. It isn’t linked to your name and I can’t identify you from it.
• Your country. Taken once from the request as a two-letter code and added to a running tally. Your IP address is not stored.
• A session recording, through Microsoft Clarity. It records mouse movement, clicks, scrolling and the pages you visit so I can see where people get stuck. Clarity is a Microsoft product and their privacy statement applies to what they hold.
• Other things kept in your browser only: hr_keys:… holds invite keys you’ve used, and hr_intent briefly remembers a purchase you started before signing in. Clearing your site data removes both.

If you sign in

• Your email address and name, handled by Clerk, who run sign-in. I see your email so I can attach it to a purchase and write to you about it.
• Your signed-in identity is passed to Microsoft Clarity, including your email, so a recorded session can be matched to an account. If you’d rather that didn’t happen, tell me and I’ll delete the association.

If you subscribe or participate in a spotlight

The weekly Downtown Dispatch is opt-in. We store your email preference, consent date, and delivery status, and use Resend to deliver it. Every edition includes an unsubscribe link. Buying a tower does not subscribe you. We retain your preference to avoid emailing you after you unsubscribe.

Owners can separately opt in to company spotlights and provide an introduction for reviewed use on Downtown, in the Dispatch, and on our socials. Private floor content and invite keys are not included.

Tower visits and company website clicks use the random browser ID, tower, UTC date, and a source label such as directory or Dispatch. Owners see aggregate counts; they do not see browser IDs. These counts are approximate and are not verified people.

If you buy something

• Card details never touch Downtown. Dodo Payments takes the payment as merchant of record. I receive a payment reference, the amount, and whether it succeeded or failed, plus the reason a failure was given.
• The order itself: your email, the plot, floors, the website and sector you entered, and the amount.
• Everything you write on your tower is public on purpose: company name, logo, website, sector, floor titles and lines. Floors you mark top secret are hidden from everyone without the key, but they are not encrypted and I can read them.

Where it lives and who else sees it

The database is Postgres hosted by Railway. The site runs on Vercel. Sign-in is Clerk, payments are Dodo Payments, analytics is Microsoft Clarity, and outbound email goes through Resend. Company logos are fetched from Google’s favicon service using your domain. That’s the whole list. Nothing is sold, rented, or shared with advertisers.

How long it’s kept

Towers and their floors stay while the tower exists. Orders are kept as long as I need them for tax and accounting. The “online” heartbeat rows are deleted after a day. Session recordings expire on Clarity’s own schedule.

Your choices

Write to raj@downtown.company and I’ll send you a copy of everything attached to your email, correct anything wrong, or delete your account and take your tower down. One person reads that inbox, so allow a few days. Clearing your browser’s site data for downtown.company removes the random id and anything else stored locally. Blocking Clarity in your browser stops the recordings and nothing on the site breaks.