Effective date: July 1, 2026
Short version: we collect as little as we can get away with, we don’t sell your data, and founding and paid members see no ads. Your posts and username are public — everything else we keep minimal. The details are below.
Board Rats (“Board Rats”, “we”, “us”) runs a surf community forum and directory at boardrats.com. This policy explains what we collect, why, and what you can do about it. We collect the minimum necessary to operate the service.
Who we are
Board Rats is operated by WP Hatch, Inc., PO Box 910083, San Diego, CA 92191. For any privacy question, email [email protected].
What we collect
- Account info. When you join, we collect your email address, a username, and a password (stored hashed). Your username and anything you post are public.
- Forum activity. Posts, replies, direct messages, likes, and profile details you add live in our forum software (Discourse). Public posts are visible to anyone. Direct messages are not end-to-end encrypted and may be accessed by staff for moderation, abuse investigation, or to comply with the law.
- Single sign-on. You log in through your Board Rats (WordPress) account, which passes your username and email to the forum to create or match your forum account.
- Payment info. Card payments are handled by Stripe. We never see or store your full card number — Stripe does. We keep a record of your membership level and billing status.
- Technical data. IP address, browser/device info, and cookies (see below). Our network provider (Cloudflare) and forum software log requests for security and abuse prevention, generally retained for up to 90 days unless needed longer for a specific security or legal reason.
- Analytics. We use Google Analytics (GA4) to understand aggregate traffic. You can opt out with a browser extension or by blocking analytics cookies.
- Advertising data. Reading is free and supported by advertising. When ads are active, third-party ad networks (such as Google AdSense) may set cookies and collect online identifiers (such as IP address, device identifiers, and browsing activity) to serve and measure ads. Founding members and paid members are not shown ads.
How we use it
To run your account and the forum, process membership payments, send transactional email (account, billing, notifications), keep the site secure, prevent abuse, serve advertising to non-paying users, and improve the product. We do not sell your personal information for money. When advertising is active, some sharing of online identifiers with ad networks may be considered a “sale” or “share” under certain state privacy laws; see “Your choices and rights” below for how to opt out.
Who we share it with (sub-processors)
We use these service providers, each only for the function listed:
- Cloudways / DigitalOcean — hosting (WordPress and the forum)
- Cloudflare — CDN, DNS, security (may retain logs per its own policies)
- Stripe — payment processing
- Resend — transactional email delivery
- Google Analytics — aggregate website analytics
- Google AdSense — advertising to non-paying users
We may disclose information if required by law, valid legal process (such as a subpoena or court order), or to protect the rights, safety, or property of Board Rats or others.
Cookies
We use cookies for: keeping you logged in (essential), remembering preferences, analytics, and — when ads are active — advertising. Essential cookies are required for the site to work. You can block non-essential cookies in your browser. When advertising is active, you can review or change your advertising consent choices at any time through our consent banner (“Manage options”), or manage ad personalization through the controls described under “Your choices and rights.”
Your choices and rights
You can edit or delete most profile information from your account settings. You can request a copy of your data or ask us to delete your account by emailing [email protected]; note that some records (e.g. billing) may be retained as required by law, and posts may remain if deletion would break conversations (we can anonymize them).
Depending on where you live (e.g. EU/UK/California), you may have additional rights to access, correct, delete, or port your data, and to object to or opt out of certain processing. To exercise any of these, email [email protected]. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights. If you are in the EEA or UK, you can give or withdraw consent for advertising cookies at any time through our consent banner.
California residents
If you are a California resident, you have the right to: know the categories of personal information we collect and the purposes for collecting it; access or receive a copy of your personal information; correct inaccurate information; delete your information (subject to legal exceptions); and opt out of any “sale” or “sharing” of your personal information for targeted advertising. The categories of personal information we collect are described in “What we collect” above. We do not sell personal information for money. When advertising is active, our use of ad-network cookies may constitute “sharing” for targeted advertising under California law; to opt out, adjust your choices in our consent banner (“Manage options”), block advertising cookies in your browser, use a recognized browser opt-out signal (such as Global Privacy Control), or email [email protected]. We do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of users under 16.
Data breach
If we experience a data breach affecting your personal information, we will notify you in accordance with applicable law.
Data retention
We keep account and content data while your account is active. If you delete your account, we remove or anonymize personal data within a reasonable period, except where we must retain it for legal, tax, or security reasons.
Children
Board Rats is intended for adults 18 and older and is not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has created an account, contact [email protected].
Links to other sites
Our site and ads may link to third-party websites we don’t control. We’re not responsible for their privacy practices. Review their policies before sharing information.
Changes
We’ll update this page and revise the effective date when this policy changes. Material changes will be announced on the site.
Contact
Questions: [email protected].