Privacy

The short version: Trove does not track you for advertising and does not follow you across other websites. It does not buy, sell, or rent personal information, and it does not share personal information for targeted advertising. Trove uses only the information and browser storage needed to provide, secure, and remember the service you ask it to provide, plus an anonymous count of how many people visit which pages.

Information Trove keeps

When you create an account, Trove stores your email address and a one-way hash of your password. It never stores your password in readable form. Trove also stores the film information you choose to add: your collection, viewings, dates, ratings, watchlist, tracked people, preferences, and any account features or integrations you enable.

If you import a file, Trove processes its film titles, viewing dates, ratings, and related fields to update your collection. Large files may be held temporarily in pieces while the import is assembled; those pieces are deleted when assembly finishes. Trove retains the resulting collection data, not the original uploaded file.

Trove processes limited technical information when necessary to run and protect the service. This can include request times, IP addresses used briefly for sign-in and abuse rate limits, error information, and security signals used to prevent automated account creation. Hosting providers may also keep short-lived server logs for reliability and security. Trove does not use this information to build advertising profiles or follow your activity across websites.

Audience measurement

Trove counts page views so it can see which pages are used and whether the site is working. This is handled by Vercel Web Analytics and is deliberately minimal: it sets no cookie, stores no identifier in your browser, does not record an IP address, and does not build a profile or follow you to any other website. What it produces is an aggregate count, such as how many people opened the Scout page today, and it cannot be traced back to you or to your account. Browsers and extensions that block analytics scripts will simply leave you out of the count, which changes nothing about how Trove works for you.

How information is used

Trove uses account and collection information only to operate the service: authenticate you, build and display your collection, calculate Scout, Radar, badges and statistics, process your edits and imports, restore account access, prevent abuse, diagnose failures, and send service messages such as password-reset emails.

Trove does not buy personal information. It does not sell or rent your information, and it does not use it for third-party advertising, behavioral advertising, or marketing profiles.

Cookies and browser storage

Trove uses only first-party cookies and local browser storage needed for the site to function or remember a choice you made:

• Session cookie: a signed, secure, HttpOnly cookie keeps you signed in for up to 30 days.
• Preference cookies: small values remember that you dismissed the cookie notice and how you last sorted your collection. They last for up to one year.
• Local storage: your browser can remember the grid or list view you chose and hold recent edits briefly while newly generated pages catch up with the database.
• Browser cache: your browser may keep private copies of site assets and account pages for speed. Trove asks the browser to clear account-page caches when you sign out.

There are no advertising cookies, analytics cookies, or cross-site tracking cookies. The page-view counting described above is cookieless and stores nothing in your browser. Blocking the session cookie will prevent sign-in; blocking preference storage may cause choices to reset between visits.

Service providers and outside services

Trove uses a small number of processors to provide the service: Vercel for hosting, automated-signup protection and anonymous audience measurement, Neon for database hosting, and Resend for account email. They receive only the information needed to perform those jobs and process it under their own terms and privacy commitments. Trove does not permit them to use account or collection information for advertising.

Film information and images come from TMDB. Loading a poster from TMDB's image service, or following a link to TMDB or another outside site, sends that service the ordinary technical information involved in a web request and is governed by that service's privacy policy.

Retention, access, and deletion

Trove keeps your account and collection while your account remains active so the service can provide them to you. Short-lived import pieces, security counters, reset tokens, and browser overlays expire or are removed when they have served their purpose. Limited backups and operational logs may remain for a reasonable period before automatic deletion.

You may ask to access, correct, export, or delete your account information. Deleting an account removes its account-specific collection data, subject to limited security, legal, backup, and fraud-prevention retention where required.

Security

Trove uses reasonable technical safeguards, including HTTPS, hashed passwords, signed session cookies, access controls, and rate limits. No online service can promise absolute security, but Trove minimizes what it collects and does not store information it does not need.

Children

Trove is not directed to children under 13, and children under 13 should not create an account or provide personal information.

Contact and changes to this policy

Trove is operated by Paul Carpenter. During the closed beta, send a privacy question or request through the same contact who provided your invitation. A dedicated privacy contact will be published here before public sign-up opens.

If Trove materially changes what it collects or how information is used, this page will be updated before that change takes effect and the effective date above will change. Material changes may also be announced in the service or by account email.