# Gold Detector Privacy Policy

**Effective Date:** April 21, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how **congenial-acorn** ("we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, stores, and shares information in connection with the Gold Detector Discord bot (the "Service").

Gold Detector is a Discord bot for *Elite: Dangerous* that monitors publicly available market-related information and sends alerts through Discord.

## 1. Scope

This Privacy Policy applies to information collected through your use of Gold Detector on Discord.

Gold Detector does not currently provide a public website, payment portal, or separate account system.

## 2. Who Operates the Service

The Service is operated by:

**congenial-acorn**  
**congenialacorndevs@gmail.com**

## 3. Information We Collect

We collect only the information reasonably necessary to operate the bot and its alert features.

### A. Discord identifiers and server configuration

Depending on how you use the Service, we may collect and store:

- Discord user IDs
- Discord server (guild) IDs
- Discord channel IDs and channel names
- Discord role IDs and role names
- server-level alert settings
- server opt-out settings

### B. User preferences

If you use commands that configure your alert preferences, we may store preferences such as:

- selected station types
- selected commodity filters
- selected PowerPlay filters
- alert subscription choices

### C. Operational delivery and cooldown data

To avoid sending duplicate alerts too frequently, we may store internal cooldown and delivery-tracking records tied to user IDs or server IDs.

### D. Public market and game-related data

Gold Detector also collects and stores publicly available game-related market information from third-party sources such as Inara.cz, including station names, system names, commodity availability, and related metadata. This information is operational content, not personal account data from end users.

### E. Operational logs

We may generate and retain operational logs related to the functioning of the bot, such as startup events, error messages, alert-delivery events, and guild join/remove events. These logs may include technical and platform-related identifiers, such as Discord server IDs, server names, user IDs involved in bot interactions, or similar operational details where relevant to the event being logged.

## 4. Information We Do Not Intentionally Collect Through the Bot

Gold Detector does not intentionally collect or store the following as part of its normal bot functionality:

- your email address;
- payment or billing information;
- message content from ordinary Discord messages;
- uploaded files, images, audio, or video;
- browser cookies or website local storage;
- geolocation data.

Gold Detector uses slash commands and does not require message-content reading for normal operation.

## 5. How We Use Information

We use collected information to:

- provide alerts and bot functionality;
- manage DM subscriptions and server alert settings;
- apply user and server preference filters;
- prevent duplicate or excessive alert delivery;
- troubleshoot, secure, maintain, and improve the Service;
- respond to technical problems, abuse, or platform issues;
- comply with legal obligations or enforce our Terms.

## 6. How Information Is Shared

We do not sell your personal information.

We may share or expose information only in the following circumstances:

### A. With Discord

Because Gold Detector operates through Discord, information used by the bot necessarily interacts with Discord's platform and APIs.

### B. With infrastructure providers

The Service is hosted on infrastructure provided through Google Cloud in the United States. Data processed by the bot may therefore be stored or processed on systems operated for us by that provider.

### C. With third-party data sources

Gold Detector retrieves public market-related information from Inara.cz and similar public sources as needed to operate the Service. We do not send your Discord user profile data to Inara.cz as part of the bot's normal alert workflow.

### D. For legal or protection reasons

We may disclose information if we believe disclosure is reasonably necessary to:

- comply with law, regulation, legal process, or governmental request;
- protect the rights, property, safety, or security of the Service, users, Discord communities, or others;
- investigate abuse, fraud, misuse, or security issues.

### E. Business transfers

If operation of the Service is transferred to another operator or entity, information related to operation of the Service may be transferred as part of that transition, subject to applicable law.

## 7. Data Retention

We retain different categories of information for different periods.

### A. DM subscription records

If you subscribe to direct-message alerts, your Discord user ID may remain stored until:

- you unsubscribe;
- delivery to your account repeatedly fails in a way that causes automatic removal; or
- we manually delete the data.

### B. User preference records

If you configure alert preferences, those preference records may remain stored even after you unsubscribe from DM alerts. This is intentional and is designed to preserve your settings in case you later re-subscribe.

### C. Server configuration records

Server-level settings, including configured channels, roles, and related preferences, may remain stored after the bot is removed from a server unless and until they are manually deleted. The Service does not currently perform automatic cleanup of all server configuration data upon bot removal.

### D. Cooldown and operational records

Cooldown and related operational records may be retained as long as they are needed to prevent duplicate alerting and support bot operation, after which they may be overwritten, pruned, or removed in the ordinary course of operation.

### E. Logs

Operational logs are generally retained by the hosting system's journal service for up to approximately **2 weeks**, but may be rotated or removed sooner if storage limits are reached.

### F. No routine backups

We do not currently maintain routine backups of the bot's local JSON data files as part of normal operation.

## 8. Your Choices

Depending on how you use the Service, you may have the following options:

- **Stop DM alerts:** use the relevant unsubscribe command in the bot.
- **Clear alert preferences:** use the relevant preference-clearing command, where available.
- **Opt a server out of alerts:** server administrators may use the relevant server opt-out command.
- **Remove the bot from a server:** server administrators may remove Gold Detector from the server at any time.
- **Request deletion:** you may contact us at **congenialacorndevs@gmail.com** to request deletion of information associated with your use of the Service, subject to technical feasibility, legal obligations, and our need to protect the Service and prevent abuse.

Because the bot does not currently include a full self-service export or deletion portal, some requests may need to be handled manually.

## 9. International Processing and Location

Gold Detector is hosted in the **United States**. If you use the Service from outside the United States, your information may be processed and stored in the United States or other jurisdictions where our service providers operate.

By using the Service, you understand that your information may be transferred to and processed in jurisdictions that may have different data-protection laws than your own.

## 10. Security

We use reasonable measures to protect information used by the Service, but no method of storage or transmission is completely secure.

Gold Detector stores its operational data in local files on its hosting environment and uses Discord's platform and standard encrypted network connections for normal API communications. However, we cannot guarantee absolute security.

## 11. Children's Privacy

Gold Detector is intended for users who are permitted to use Discord under Discord's own rules and applicable law. We do not knowingly design the Service to collect personal information directly from children outside the context of Discord platform use.

If you believe information relating to a child has been provided to us inappropriately, contact **congenialacorndevs@gmail.com**.

## 12. Third-Party Platforms and Services

Your use of Gold Detector also involves third-party services, especially Discord. Their privacy practices are governed by their own policies, not ours.

We encourage you to review the privacy policies and terms of Discord and any third-party services you use in connection with the bot.

## 13. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we may provide notice through the bot, a support server, a repository, or another reasonable channel. The updated Privacy Policy will become effective when posted unless a later date is stated.

## 14. Contact

For privacy questions or requests, contact:

**congenial-acorn**  
**congenialacorndevs@gmail.com**