Privacy policy
Our privacy policy below explains what data we collect about you, why we collect it, and how we use it.
Child protection
- In order for people under the age of 18 to join this website, a parent or guardian must approve it. A notice will be sent, by e-mail, to the e-mail address given when a member under the age of 18 joins, which will provide notice on how to approve the membership. This is done for compliance with law across various jurisdictions. The parent or guardian has the option to agree to the collection and use of the member's information without consenting to the disclosure of the information to third parties. The parent or guardian can review the member's personal information, ask to have it deleted and refuse to allow any further collection or use of the member's information. This may be done by contacting the staff in the same way as was done to approve the membership originally.
Cookies
We may store the following cookies on your computer…
| Name | Reason |
|---|---|
| cms_autosave_* | References to auto-saved incomplete content |
| cms_session__8d458f27cadeff53845a2b269a527366 | Identifies your session so that we temporarily can uniquely link your requests together (deleted when your web browser is closed) |
| font_size | To remember your font size choice |
| has_cookies | To detect whether cookies are enabled, so we know whether to enable/disable features that need it |
| last_chat_msg_* | Your most recent non-posted message in a chatroom, so we can prevent data loss if you accidentally reload the page |
| last_visit | When you visited the website last, used for tracking what content is new |
| mwn_member_id & mwn_member_hash | The "remember me" feature for passwords |
| mwn_member_id_invisible | Whether you logged in into invisible mode |
| software_chat_prefs | Chatroom display preferences |
| tray_*, hide*, og_* | Values (yes/no) for remembering what things have been turned off/closed |
| use_wysiwyg | Whether the WYSIWYG text editor is enabled |
- If you wish to see what exact cookies are saved, or delete cookies, you may do so using standard tools built into your web browser.
General
- We include a mechanism allowing users to unsubscribe from all e-mails sent by our website software. A 'List-Unsubscribe' header is sent in every e-mail delivered from our website, as-is an unsubscribe link in the body of every e-mail. Note that these tools only unsubscribe users from e-mails sent through our website. They do not include other facilities (e.g. direct e-mails from staff or e-mails sent from other software or services).
| Action | Reason |
|---|---|
| We may occasionally send bulk e-mails about Midwest Nudists, or matters relating to nudism to our members. We will not send bulk e-mails or allow others to send bulk e-mails, which we believe would be considered spam. | To keep you informed, and for sales/marketing activity. |
| We do not have any special handling of the "Do Not Track" header. | We do not track individual users for advertising purposes, although third-party services we rely on for unrelated functionality may do so. |
Information disclosure
- We will not share private details other than what can be seen in your forum profile and content submission, unless for a reason covered in this policy, or legally required to do so.
| Action | Reason |
|---|---|
| Your online status may be shown publicly. Additionally, your last activity time will be shown publicly. | Online status helps foster community communication. |
| Some of the information you submitted with your account profile will be displayed publicly. This will not include information that many would consider confidential, but rather basic details such as your Username. | This is fundamental to the social networking capabilities of this website. |
| The staff reserve the right to read any Private Topics and posts placed on this website. Any form of conversation made through this website should be considered viewable by staff. All private-posts and posts, unless deleted by specific request, are stored on the server. | Information may be reviewed if we feel we have cause for an investigation. Situations involving investigations can be anything at our discretion, for example, to investigate specific incidents of our services being used in violation of our rules. |
| If you delete your account and have one or more formal warnings, then your username, e-mail address, and IP address will be put in a blacklist. | This is to help prevent a moderation loophole where a member could delete their account and create a new account to wipe their disciplinary records. Usernames and e-mails on the blacklist cannot be used for new or existing accounts. And anyone with a blacklisted (but not banned) IP address cannot create new accounts. |
Information disclosure (eCommerce transactions)
| Action | Reason |
|---|---|
| Address and order data will be sent to PayPal at checkout. | For PayPal to correctly take and process your payment for Midwest Nudists. |
Information storage
- Members may choose which profile fields display publicly.
- If you believe data we hold is incorrect and you cannot amend this yourself, you can contact us to request that we make corrections.
- Contact us if you want a copy of all the personal data we have stored on you. We can locate your data by username, e-mail address, IP address, or member ID – specify all that you have so we can maximize deletion. Raw server logs will generally not be included, unless you specifically request it.
- Contact us if you wish to have personal data deleted/anonymised from our database. We can delete/anonymise data by username, e-mail address, IP address, or member ID – specify all that you have so we can maximize deletion.
Exceptions:
- Some raw log data, or data in backups, will remain with us until it is automatically deleted.
- Editorial data, such as content you've submitted, will not be deleted as standard – but you may request that we delete/alter particular content if you specifically identify it.
- Logged security incidents, or bans, from/on your personal data, will generally not be cleared unless there is what we consider a good reason.
- Pending transactions with you, such as outstanding invoices or non-delivered orders, or records of your ongoing earned benefits, will generally not be cleared unless there is what we consider a good reason.
| Action | Reason |
|---|---|
| User metadata is logged when website activity happens. Metadata may include dates/time, IP address, web browser name, operating system, and account IDs. Log data is automatically deleted on a schedule. Your most recent IP address and visit time will remain a part of your member account. | So we can track success and failure, and audit user behavior for security and stability, and to generally help us maintain a good user experience. |
| Information entered manually into the system, or explicitly authorized, will typically be retained – although you may request removal. | This information is key to either material published on the website, or the integrity of user accounts. |
| IP addresses that have been banned will be permanently stored, as will data about suspicious activity. | We need to be able to permanently ban IP addresses which appear to be abusing our systems. |
| Use of the shopping cart may cause non-logged-in-user's sessions to stick around for a longer than normal period of time. | To keep the contents of the shopping cart from being lost. |
Information transfer
| Action | Reason |
|---|---|
| IP addresses, e-mail address, and usernames, may be checked against the Stop Forum Spam web service, which involves these details being transmitted within a service request. If spam activity is detected then the same details may be reported to the service, and used by the service to produce blocks on other websites. | To reduce spam. |
| IP addresses may be checked against multiple block lists, which involves these details being transmitted within a service request. | To reduce spam. |
| Web traffic coming to and from Midwest Nudists may be proxied through the Cloudflare web service. Please see the Cloudflare Privacy Policy. | Cloudflare may be used for improving the security and performance of the site and web servers. |
| We may use external services to probe IP addresses for geographical location, and for Internet Service Provider names, and other assorted metadata, which may allow the third-party IP-data companies to see what websites you have been active on. Tracking by the companies is not known or intended, but we cannot guarantee it is not happening. | For us to learn more about users for marketing, security, and relationship purposes. |
| We embed web code from third-party companies. Tracking by the companies is not known or intended, but we cannot guarantee it is not happening. | Web code may be used for many purposes such as displaying non-default fonts or providing interactive page functionality |
| Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter may track your page views. | Code from these networks embedded so you can easily share content onto social networks, and in some cases see how many shares have already been made. |
Contact Us
For any privacy questions, concerns, or requests (such as to download, anonymise, or delete your data), you may:
Other Information
Data Breach Procedure
In the event Midwest Nudists becomes aware of a data breach of the site or services, we will execute the following procedure:
- A mass email will be sent to all members explaining what we know about the breach and what they should do to protect their account and data.
- All member accounts will be locked out. This means the next time a member logs in, they must reset their password before they can use the site. This involves clicking a link that will be sent to their email; they cannot simply change their password on the website. This is a security measure in the event a hacker has possession of their credentials.
- Midwest Nudists will permanently ban all members and IP addresses known to be involved in the breach. And those members and IP addresses will be reported to blacklist services to make others aware.
- In the event of a criminal offense, Midwest Nudists will cooperate with law enforcement and press charges against those involved in the breach to the maximum extent of the law.
Third-Party Services
The following is a list of third-party services used by Midwest Nudists:
- Cloudflare - All web traffic to and from Midwest Nudists is proxied securely through Cloudflare. Cloudflare manages our DNS records and provides DDoS protection, additional web security, cache and performance improvements, and static pages when the site goes offline.
- We determine that the risk of using Cloudflare to our Privacy standards is low. Cloudflare has strict protections and access protocols over the data proxied through them. While Cloudflare has exercised censorship, they have only been known to pull services from websites with a deep and proven history of endangering people's lives.
- Namecheap - Namecheap is where we purchase the midwestnudists.org domain name, and they provide WHOIS protection to help prevent abuse.
- Namecheap's domain registration is very reputable. And Namecheap actively fights against good causes such as scams, spam, and fraud. Therefore, we consider Namecheap to be low risk.
- OVH Cloud US - This is the company which provides the dedicated server / web hosting for Midwest Nudists (it is currently hosted on the same server as PDStig, LLC and a few other sites hosted by PDStig, LLC).
- We consider OVH Cloud US to be low-moderate risk. OVH is a well-known company globally and has millions of customers. However, according to reviews, their customer service is sometimes sub-par. The admins of Midwest Nudists (and PDStig, LLC) try avoiding the need for customer service as much as possible by fixing / doing whatever they can themselves.
- PDStig, LLC - This is the sole-member company of the head admin for Midwest Nudists. Development work, maintenance, and web hosting for Midwest Nudists is provided via this company/individual.
- We consider PDStig, LLC to be low-moderate risk. The role of the company is to provide the necessary services that run Midwest Nudists without having any additional agenda. Since the developer of PDStig, LLC is also the head admin of Midwest Nudists, it is possible for a Conflict of Interest to arise. Should that happen, or at any time as desired by the community, Midwest Nudists can be separated and run under its own organization / name (and optionally with someone else as the head admin) instead of under PDStig, LLC.
- Uptime Kuma via PDStig, LLC / DigitalOcean - Midwest Nudists is monitored by an instance of Uptime Kuma, managed by PDStig, LLC and hosted on a DigitalOcean Droplet, to alert the admins when the site goes down.
- We consider this low risk. Uptime Kuma simply loads the front page of Midwest Nudists as a guest to check if it is online. It also checks DNS records with Cloudflare. No personal details are fetched / transmitted.
This policy was last revised on 23rd Apr 2025, 6:44 AM. Material changes to this policy will be posted as a news update to Midwest Nudists.