What Namefold keeps, and for how long.

What you give us

• The exchange: its name, and if you add them, the date, budget and note.
• Names: the first names or nicknames the organizer types. Please do not use full names, email addresses or phone numbers.
• Rules and options (who should not draw whom), and the draw itself, so each link can show its match.
• Wish lists that people write for their giver.
• Each envelope's record: when it was first opened, how many times its match has been shown and when it was last shown, when its link was replaced, and when the organizer turned on the full list. The envelope shows its record to whoever opens it; the organizer page shows the first opening and link changes.

There are no accounts, no email addresses and no passwords. Namefold sends no email and no text messages.

Who can see it

• The organizer page shows the details, names, rules, every person's link and whether they have opened it. It does not show who drew whom unless the organizer turns on "Show the full list" (every envelope then says so). It never lists wish lists.
• A person's link shows the details, their own match and that person's wish list, and lets them write their own.
• The organizer holds every link, because they send them out. With a person's link the organizer can open that envelope, see the match and read what that person wrote, as anyone holding the link can. That is why every envelope keeps the record above and shows it.
• Anyone holding a link can use it. Links are long random codes; we store only a scrambled fingerprint of each one, plus each person's link locked with the organizer's link, so a copy of our database alone holds no working link.
• WeldonPC, which runs the server, can see the stored data when maintaining the site. We do not look at exchanges except to fix a problem, and we never sell or share them.

How long it is kept

• Everything in an exchange is deleted automatically 30 days after the exchange date, or 120 days after it was made if it has no date. With Keep for next year (Plus) it is kept 400 days after the date.
• The organizer can delete the whole exchange at any time; it is gone at once and its links stop working.
• Database backups, made every night and just before and after each update of the site, are kept on the server for 14 days and then deleted.
• WeldonPC also backs up the whole hosting account (this site's database and the backups above included) four times a week to a separate backup server, where the last 14 copies are kept (about three and a half weeks). So anything deleted (an exchange, a counter) can stay in a backup for up to about six weeks.

Counters and logs

• To stop abuse, the site counts requests per day using a scrambled (salted hash) form of your internet address; the counts are deleted after two days.
• The web server keeps a standard access log (address, time, page requested, browser) for security, deleted on a rolling schedule. Private links are part of the page address, so they appear in that log.
• Namefold sets one cookie, which protects its forms against forged submissions. There are no analytics services and no tracking cookies.

Advertising

The home, how-it-works and pricing pages show one banner ad from AdEngine (adengine.us), the small ad network run by WeldonPC, the company behind this site. For now the ads are for WeldonPC's own services. There are no ads on the start page, the organizer page or anyone's envelope.

To show an ad, your browser loads a script from adengine.us, asks it for one banner, loads the banner image, and reports once that the page was viewed and once that the banner was shown. Like any website, adengine.us receives your IP address, your browser type and the address of this site with those requests.

• No cookies, no profile. AdEngine sets no cookies, gives you no ID and does not track you from site to site.
• How your IP address is used. adengine.us looks up the approximate city for your IP address in a location database kept on its own server (nothing is sent to anyone else), so that ads meant for one area are shown only there. It also uses the address to count each ad view or click only once and to leave out robots and WeldonPC's own office traffic. The address is not stored with the counts; the temporary entries made from it expire within six hours and are cleared from the server within two days.
• What is kept. Daily totals only: page views for this site, and views and clicks for each ad. The adengine.us web server also keeps a standard access log (IP address, time, address requested, referring site, browser) for security; it is deleted on a rolling schedule.
• Clicking an ad passes through adengine.us, which counts the click, and then opens the advertiser's site, which has its own privacy policy.
• Nothing about you is sold or shared.

Payments

Payments are not switched on yet (preview). When they are, they will go through PayPal; Namefold will receive only what is needed to know a plan was paid for (no card numbers).

Children

Namefold is made for adults who organize an exchange. Family exchanges often include children; a parent should write a child's wish list, and a child's name on the list should be a first name or nickname only.

Questions

Namefold is a WeldonPC product. Contact WeldonPC through weldonpc.com/contact.