Privacy Policy

Community Seed ("we", "us", or "our") operates the Community Seed Silent Auction website at auction.communityseed.org (the "Site"). This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and protect your information when you use the Site. Bidding is also governed by our Terms and Conditions.

1. Information We Collect

Bidder Information

To place a bid, you must provide an email address. We do not ask for your name, a password, a phone number, or a mailing address. Your email address is used to identify your bids and to contact you about them.

If you win an item, we will ask for your name when we contact you so that the item can be released to you at pickup.

Bidding Information

When you place a bid, we record:

• The item you bid on
• The amount of your bid
• The date and time of your bid
• The email address the bid was placed under

Technical Information

For security and to understand how the auction is being used, we automatically collect:

• Page view statistics. When you view the auction homepage or an item page, we record the event along with the referring website (if any). Your IP address and browser identifier are stored only as a truncated, salted hash that changes daily; we do not store your IP address in these statistics and cannot reconstruct it from them.
• Security events. If a request fails a security check (for example, a failed administrator login or too many requests in a short period), we log the date, time, IP address, and browser type associated with that request.
• Web server access logs. Our web server records the time of each request, the requesting IP address, browser type, and the page requested, as is standard for web servers. These logs are used only to diagnose problems and manage abuse.

We do not use any third-party analytics, advertising, or tracking services.

2. Cookies

The Site sets a single session cookie so that you do not have to re-enter your email address on every page. This cookie expires after 24 hours or when you log out, is only sent over encrypted connections, and is not shared with any third party. We do not use tracking or advertising cookies.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use your information only for the following purposes:

• Running the auction: To record and display bids, determine winning bidders, and enforce the Terms and Conditions.
• Notifications: To email you when you have been outbid and when you have won an item.
• Completing your purchase: To contact winning bidders to arrange payment and pickup of items.
• Security: To detect and prevent unauthorized access, abuse, or attacks on the Site.
• Understanding the auction: To see, in aggregate, how many people viewed the auction and which items drew interest, so that we can run better auctions in the future.

We do NOT use your information for:

• Marketing or promotional purposes
• Selling or sharing with third parties
• Advertising or third-party analytics
• Any purpose other than operating the Community Seed Silent Auction

4. Information Sharing & Disclosure

We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information with third parties, except as described below.

Other Bidders

Each item's page shows its bid history so that bidders can see the current state of the auction. In that history, your email address is partially masked (for example, st***@example.com). Other bidders never see your full email address.

Community Seed Volunteers

Community Seed administrators who run the auction can see the full email address associated with each bid. When we contact a winning bidder to arrange payment and pickup, we ask for their name, and we pass that name (but not the email address) to the volunteer who hands over the item.

Service Providers

We do not use any third-party service providers to operate the Site. Email notifications are sent from Community Seed's own mail server.

Legal Requirements

We may disclose your information if required by law, court order, or legal process, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Community Seed, our members, or others.

5. Data Security

We implement reasonable security measures to protect your information:

• All connections to the Site are encrypted (HTTPS)
• Session cookies are restricted to encrypted connections and to this Site only
• Administrator passwords are stored only as salted hashes
• Administrative functions are restricted to authorized administrators
• Requests are rate-limited to deter automated abuse
• The Site runs on a server maintained by Community Seed with regular security updates

However, no method of transmission over the Internet or electronic storage is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security.

6. Data Retention

Bid records and the email addresses associated with them are retained after an auction closes. We keep them to document the outcome of each auction for our financial records and to administer future auctions. We do not currently have a fixed deletion schedule for these records; you may request deletion as described in Section 7.

Page view statistics contain no directly identifying information and may be retained indefinitely.

Security event logs and web server access logs are retained for as long as they are useful for diagnosing problems and investigating abuse.

7. Your Rights

You have the following rights regarding your information:

• Access: You can request a copy of the information we hold about you by contacting us.
• Correction: You can request correction of the email address associated with your bids by contacting us.
• Deletion: You can request deletion of your email address and bid records by contacting us. Note that a bid you have placed remains binding under the Terms and Conditions, and we may need to retain records of completed transactions for financial and legal purposes.

8. Age Requirement

Because a bid is a binding financial commitment, the Site is intended only for adults. You must be at least 18 years old to place a bid. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe we have collected information from someone under 18, please contact us and we will remove it.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of material changes by posting the new policy on this page with an updated "Last Updated" date. Your continued use of the Site after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

10. Contact Us

If you have questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us:

Community Seed
Email: info@communityseed.org
Subject: Privacy Request

We will respond to privacy-related inquiries within 30 days.