Privacy Policy

Last updated: June 29, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains what GBFans.com collects, why we keep it, and how you can exercise your rights under the EU/UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA), and similar US state privacy laws.

The data controller responsible for your personal data is GBFans LLC ("GBFans.com," "GBFans," "we," "us," or "our"), 25587 Conifer Road, Unit 105 PMB 704, Conifer, Colorado 80433, United States. For any privacy question or request, contact [email protected].

GBFans.com is operated from the United States and shows third-party advertising. If you use the site from outside the United States, please also read "International data transfers" and "Cookies, advertising, and your choices" below.

What we collect

  • Account information. Email, display name, and any profile fields you fill in (bio, location, interests, social links, avatar).

  • Content you submit. Wiki edits, news/blog posts, gallery uploads, profile comments, product reviews, event listings.

  • Order / payment records. If you make a purchase, we capture the email, name, shipping/billing address, phone, and IP address at the time of the order along with the line items. We do not store full card numbers; payment is tokenized through PayPal.

  • Location and maps. If you use map features or add a location to an event or your profile, we process that location, and our maps provider processes your IP address and map interactions to render maps and tiles.

  • First-party analytics. Anonymous session and pageview data tied to a cookie-based identifier so we can understand traffic patterns and fix broken pages.

  • Advertising data. When ads are shown on the site, our advertising partners and their vendors may collect cookie and device identifiers, IP address, and ad-interaction data through cookies and similar technologies. See "Cookies, advertising, and your choices."

  • Cookies and similar storage. Authentication cookies (Clerk), a first-party analytics identifier, advertising cookies and identifiers, and any preferences you set on the site. See "Cookies, advertising, and your choices."

Why we keep it

  • To run the site. Authentication, content attribution, and showing you what you posted.

  • To complete orders. Shipping, customer support, returns, fraud prevention.

  • To fund the community. We show third-party advertising to help cover the cost of running the site.

  • Legal obligations. We retain order, tax, and accounting records to meet US and EU tax/audit requirements. Deletion requests do not cover this data, see below.

  • Community continuity. Wiki articles, news posts, gallery uploads, and other community-submitted content are licensed to GBFans.com under our Terms of Service so the platform can keep displaying them after an account is closed. We anonymize the author rather than deleting the contribution. This is the same model used by Wikipedia, Stack Overflow, and Discourse.

Our legal bases (EU and UK)

Where the GDPR applies, we process your personal data on the following bases: to perform our contract with you (running your account and completing your orders); for our legitimate interests (operating, securing, and improving the site, preventing fraud and abuse, and basic first-party analytics); to meet legal obligations (tax and accounting records); and with your consent (advertising cookies and marketing email), which you can withdraw at any time.

Your rights

  • Right to access / portability. Request a copy of the personal data we hold on you in a structured machine-readable format (JSON).

  • Right to erasure ("right to be forgotten"). Request that we anonymize your account. We rewrite your email and display name to a non-identifying sentinel, hard delete tracking and profile data (notification preferences, push subscriptions, contribution scores, analytics sessions, saved address book, saved payment methods, marketing list subscriptions), revoke saved PayPal tokens and active subscriptions on PayPal, and ask Clerk and Discourse to forget you. Per GDPR Art. 17(3), we keep legally-required records (orders/payments) and your community-contributed content (anonymized).

  • Right to correct. Update profile fields via the dashboard, or email us if a non-editable field is wrong.

  • Right to restrict or object. You may ask us to restrict processing of your personal data, or object to processing we carry out on the basis of legitimate interests, including profiling for advertising.

  • Right to withdraw consent. Where we rely on your consent (advertising cookies, marketing email), you can withdraw it at any time.

  • Opt out of marketing. Every marketing email carries an unsubscribe link. Use it.

  • Opt out of "sale" / "sharing" and manage cookies. See "Cookies, advertising, and your choices" below.

  • Right to complain. EU and UK users may lodge a complaint with their local data protection authority.

How to make a request

Send an email to [email protected] from the email address on your account. Include:

  • What you want: access (export), correction, or erasure.

  • For erasure: any specific gallery uploads or photos you want hard-deleted (rather than anonymized in place). The default for community content is anonymize-don't-delete; we delete only what you explicitly ask us to delete.

We respond within 30 days of verifying your identity (the statutory window under GDPR / most US state laws). Identity verification is intentional friction, deletion is irreversible.

We will not delete order, tax, or accounting records, even on request, because they are required for legal and audit reasons. The captured email/name/address/phone/IP on those rows stays as-is. Everything else listed under "What we collect" is in scope.

Cookies, advertising, and your choices

We use a few types of cookies and similar technologies:

  • Essential. Authentication (Clerk) and security cookies needed to run the site and keep you signed in. These are always on.

  • Analytics. A first-party, cookie-based identifier so we can understand traffic and fix broken pages.

  • Advertising. We show third-party display advertising through one or more advertising partners and their vendors. These ads use cookies and identifiers (such as cookie and device IDs and your IP address) to show and measure ads, and in some cases to personalize them. Our advertising partners and vendors may change over time.

EU and UK visitors. We request your consent through a cookie consent notice before setting advertising or other non-essential cookies, and you can review the current advertising vendors and change or withdraw your choices at any time through our cookie settings.

US state privacy choices. We do not sell your personal information for money. Because we show third-party advertising, our use of advertising cookies and identifiers may be treated as a "sale" or as "sharing" for cross-context behavioral advertising under the CCPA/CPRA and similar state laws. You can opt out by using the "Your Privacy Choices" control on our site, by turning on a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal in your browser (which we honor), or by emailing [email protected].

International data transfers

GBFans.com is operated from the United States, and the service providers listed below are primarily located in the United States. If you use the site from the EU, the UK, or elsewhere, your personal data will be transferred to and processed in the United States and other countries. Where required for those transfers, we rely on appropriate safeguards, such as the European Commission's and the UK's Standard Contractual Clauses.

How long we keep things

  • Active account data: as long as the account exists.

  • Marketing list subscriptions: until you unsubscribe or request deletion.

  • Order, tax, accounting records: retained per US/EU tax and audit requirements (typically 7 years minimum). Not in scope for deletion requests.

  • Analytics sessions: tied to a cookie-based anonymous identifier; rotates when you clear cookies or switch devices.

  • Advertising and consent records: advertising cookies expire according to each advertising partner's and vendor's retention periods; we keep records of your consent choices as long as needed to show we honored them.

  • Audit / security logs: retained for legitimate security interests.

Who we share with

We use a small number of third-party services to run the site. None of them are given more data than they need:

  • Clerk, authentication. Holds your email, login history, and any session metadata.

  • PayPal, payment processing. Holds your billing details for any orders you place.

  • Plunk (self-hosted via AWS SES), transactional and marketing email.

  • Google Cloud Storage, image and file storage. Holds the bytes of files you upload.

  • Cloudflare, content delivery and security. Sits in front of the site and processes IP addresses and request data to deliver content and protect against attacks and abuse.

  • Mapbox, maps. Renders maps and processes your IP address and map-interaction data to show map tiles and locations.

  • Discourse, discussion forum at forum.gbfans.com. Holds your forum username and posts.

  • Meilisearch, site-wide search. Holds author names, titles, and excerpts so search can find things.

  • Advertising partners and their vendors. Serve third-party display advertising and may process cookie and device identifiers and IP address to show and measure ads. The specific partners and vendors may change; you can review the current list through our cookie settings.

Children

GBFans.com is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe we've collected information from a child, email us at [email protected] and we'll remove it.

Contact

Privacy questions, complaints, and data subject requests: [email protected].