Privacy Policy — Denville Rocks Community

Applies to: community.denvillerocks.com (the “Community,” “Service,” or “Platform”) Effective Date: 6/29/26 Last Updated: 6/29/26

1. Who We Are

This Community is operated by Cartwright Web Strategies LLC, doing business as Denville Rocks (“we,” “us,” or “our”), based in Denville, New Jersey. We provide a local online community and social network for the Denville, NJ area and surrounding Morris County region.

If you have any questions about this Policy or your personal data, contact us at privacy@denvillerocks.com.

2. Scope

This Policy explains what personal information we collect through the Community, how we use and share it, and the rights you have. It applies to visitors, registered members, and anyone who interacts with the Platform. It does not cover third-party websites we link to, or our separate properties (such as denvillerocks.com or buzzoffnj.com) except where they share data with this Community.

The Community is intended for residents of New Jersey and the United States. We do not market the Service to individuals outside the United States.

3. Plain-English Summary

We collect the information you give us when you register and participate (name, email, profile details, posts), plus standard technical data (IP address, device/browser, activity logs).
We use it to run the Community, keep it safe, moderate content, and communicate with you.
We do not sell your personal data for money, and we do not use your browsing history or behavior to serve you targeted (“behavioral”) ads.
We do use standard analytics tools (including Google Analytics) to understand how the Community is used, and we share aggregate, de-identified performance reports with advertisers and sponsors — these reports do not identify you individually.
We use a small number of trusted service providers (hosting, security, analytics, and an AI moderation service) who process data on our behalf.
Anything you post in public areas of the Community is visible to others — treat it as public.
You have rights to access, correct, and delete your data, and to opt out of certain processing. See Section 11.

4. Information We Collect

(a) Information you provide directly

Registration/account data: username, display name, email address, and password (stored in hashed form).
Profile information: anything you choose to add, such as a photo/avatar, bio, location within the area, interests, or links.
Content you post: posts, comments, photos, reactions, group memberships, messages, and other contributions (“User Content”).
Communications: messages you send to us (support requests, reports, feedback).
Optional information: anything else you voluntarily submit.

(b) Information collected automatically

Device and connection data: IP address, browser type, operating system, device identifiers, and referring/exit pages.
Usage data: pages viewed, features used, interactions, timestamps, and approximate location derived from IP address.
Cookies and similar technologies: see Section 6.
Security and moderation logs: records of activity used to detect abuse, spam, and policy violations, including data derived from our geo-restriction and security tooling (e.g., country-level location signals).

(c) Information from third parties

Service providers (hosting, security/CDN, anti-spam) may provide us technical and security information about your access.
Anti-abuse and reputation services may provide signals used to prevent spam and fraud.

We do not intentionally collect “sensitive data” as defined under New Jersey law (such as racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs, health conditions, financial account credentials, sexual orientation, citizenship/immigration status, transgender or non-binary status, genetic or biometric data, precise geolocation, or data from a known child). Please do not post sensitive information about yourself or others in the Community. If you voluntarily include such information in public posts, you do so at your own risk and make it visible to others.

5. How We Use Your Information

We use personal information to:

Create and manage your account and authenticate you;
Operate, maintain, and improve the Community and its features;
Display your profile and User Content to other members as you direct;
Enable social features (groups, messaging, reactions, notifications);
Moderate content and enforce our rules, including automated and human review to detect spam, harassment, illegal content, and other policy violations;
Communicate with you about your account, security, updates, and (where permitted) Community news;
Protect the safety and security of the Community, our members, and the public, and detect, investigate, and prevent fraud, abuse, and unauthorized access;
Comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Service.

We do not use your personal data to make solely automated decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects about you. Automated tools assist our moderation, but content actions are subject to human oversight and appeal (see Section 11 and the Terms of Service).

6. Cookies, Tracking, and Opt-Out Signals

We use cookies and similar technologies that are strictly necessary to run the Service (login sessions, security, load balancing) and functional cookies that remember your preferences.

Analytics. We use Google Analytics, a third-party analytics service provided by Google, to understand how visitors use the Community. Google Analytics sets cookies and collects information such as your IP address, device/browser details, pages visited, and on-site activity, and processes it on Google’s systems subject to Google’s privacy policy (policies.google.com/privacy). You can opt out of Google Analytics across websites by installing Google’s opt-out browser add-on (tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout). We also use Google Search Console, a webmaster/SEO tool that provides us aggregate search-performance data; it does not track individual visitors on the Community.

No targeted advertising. We do not use third-party advertising or cross-site tracking cookies to build a profile of you or to serve behavioral/targeted advertising. A user’s history and behavior on the Community will not trigger targeted ads.

Universal opt-out / Global Privacy Control (GPC). New Jersey law requires controllers to honor a recognized universal opt-out mechanism. If your browser or device sends a recognized opt-out preference signal such as Global Privacy Control (GPC), we will treat it as a valid request to opt out of any “sale” of personal data and of targeted advertising to the extent those activities ever apply to you. Because we do not sell data or run targeted advertising, this is already our default practice for all members.

You can also control cookies through your browser settings; disabling strictly necessary cookies may break core functionality such as logging in.

7. How We Share Information

We share personal information only as described here. We do not sell your personal data for monetary consideration, and we do not share your personal data to serve you targeted (cross-context behavioral) advertising.

Other members / the public. User Content and profile fields you post in public areas are visible to other members and, depending on settings, to the public and search engines.
Service providers (processors). We use vendors who process data on our behalf under contract and only on our instructions, including:
- Hosting and infrastructure (e.g., our managed hosting/CDN providers) for storing and delivering the Service;
- Security and anti-abuse providers for spam filtering, threat detection, and bot prevention;
- Analytics providers (currently Google Analytics) to measure and improve how the Community is used, as described in Section 6;
- An AI-based content-moderation service. We use a third-party large-language-model provider (currently Anthropic, via the Claude API) to help automatically review public Community content for spam, abuse, and policy violations. Limited content and associated metadata may be transmitted to this provider solely to return a moderation assessment. We instruct our providers not to use this data to train their models and to process it only to perform the moderation service for us. [Confirm with your provider’s then-current data-use and zero-retention terms.]
- Email/notification delivery providers for transactional and Community emails.
Advertisers and sponsors (aggregate reports only). We provide advertisers and sponsors with aggregate, de-identified reports about the Community’s reach and engagement (for example, total page views, audience size, or general interest categories). These reports do not identify you individually and are not used to target ads to you based on your behavior.
Legal and safety. We may disclose information when we believe in good faith it is necessary to comply with law or legal process, enforce our Terms, protect the rights, property, or safety of the Community, our members, or the public, or respond to an emergency.
Business transfers. If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets, information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to this Policy.
With your consent or at your direction.

A current list of the categories of service providers, and the categories of data shared with each, is available on request at privacy@denvillerocks.com.

8. User-Generated Content Is Public

The Community is a social platform. Content you post in public groups, feeds, profiles, and comments is visible to others and may be copied, cached, screenshotted, or indexed by search engines beyond our control. Direct/private messages are visible to the recipient(s) and may be reviewed by us for safety and policy enforcement. Do not post anything you would not want to be public, and do not post personal information about other people without their consent.

9. Children’s and Minors’ Privacy

The Community is an adults-only service. You must be at least 18 years old to register or use it. The Community is not directed to or intended for minors, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18.

If we learn that we have collected personal information from anyone under 18 — and in particular from a child under 13, consistent with the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) — we will delete it and close the associated account promptly. If you believe a person under 18 has registered or provided us personal information, contact us at privacy@denvillerocks.com and we will take appropriate action.

Restricting the Community to adults keeps it outside COPPA’s parental-consent obligations and outside the scope of state minor-protection laws aimed at platforms serving children.

10. Data Retention

We keep personal information for as long as your account is active and as needed to provide the Service, then for a reasonable period afterward to comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, prevent abuse, and enforce our agreements. We maintain a written data-retention practice and delete or de-identify data when it is no longer needed. Public User Content may persist after account closure where it has been quoted, shared, or is necessary for the integrity of community discussions, unless you request deletion (see Section 11).

11. Your Privacy Rights (New Jersey Residents)

New Jersey residents have rights under the New Jersey Data Privacy Act (“NJDPA”). Although the NJDPA’s mandatory thresholds may not currently apply to a community of our size, we extend the following rights to all members as a matter of practice:

Access / Confirm — confirm whether we process your personal data and obtain a copy of it.
Correct — correct inaccuracies in your personal data.
Delete — request deletion of personal data we hold about you.
Portability — obtain a copy of your data in a portable, readily usable format.
Opt out — opt out of (i) the sale of personal data, (ii) targeted advertising, and (iii) profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects. We do none of these, so there is nothing to opt out of, but the right is available.

How to exercise your rights. Email privacy@denvillerocks.com with your request. We may need to verify your identity (for example, by confirming control of your account email) before acting. You may use an authorized agent to submit a request on your behalf; we may require proof of the agent’s authority.

Our response. We will respond within 45 days. If we need more time, we may extend by an additional 45 days and will tell you why within the first 45-day period. Verified deletion and other requests will be honored promptly and consistent with applicable law.

Appeals. If we decline your request, you may appeal by replying to our decision or emailing privacy@denvillerocks.com with “Appeal” in the subject line. We will respond to your appeal within 45 days with a written explanation. If your appeal is denied, you may contact the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs (within the Office of the Attorney General), which enforces the NJDPA. (Note: the NJDPA does not provide a private right of action.)

Non-discrimination. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights.

12. Data Security

We maintain administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information, including encryption in transit (HTTPS/TLS), hashed password storage, access controls, server hardening, and monitoring for abuse and intrusion. No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. You are responsible for keeping your password confidential.

13. Data Breach Notification

If a security incident affects your personal information, we will notify affected individuals and any required authorities as required by the New Jersey breach-notification law (N.J.S.A. 56:8-161 et seq.) and other applicable law, without unreasonable delay.

14. Third-Party Links and Content

The Community may contain links to, or content from, third-party websites and services we do not control. This Policy does not apply to those third parties. We encourage you to review their privacy policies.

15. United States Processing

The Service is operated in the United States and intended for U.S. (primarily New Jersey) residents. By using the Service, you understand your information will be processed in the United States.

16. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will update the “Last Updated” date and provide notice through the Community or by email before the change takes effect. Your continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the updated Policy.

17. Contact Us

Questions, requests, or complaints: privacy@denvillerocks.com.