Privacy Policy

What we collect, why, who we share it with, and the choices you have.

Last updated October 2, 2026

📝 Draft. Mogost is still in testing, and this page is a plain-English draft that's being reviewed before launch. If something here is unclear, ask us.
The short version
  • We collect what we need to run your account, your stores and your orders.
  • We don't sell your personal information, and we don't build a profile of you to aim ads at you.
  • Sellers you buy from see what they need to fill your order (like your name and shipping address).
  • You can change your information or close your account any time.

1. Who we are

Mogost ("we", "us") runs the website mogost.com, a marketplace and social community for buyers and independent sellers. Questions about privacy? Contact us.

2. What we collect

Things you give us

  • Account details: your name, username, email address and password (stored only as a scrambled "hash", so we can't read it).
  • Profile and store details: photo, bio, website, store names, logos, banners, descriptions, city and state, and policies.
  • What you post: listings, photos, posts, comments, auction bids, buyer's requests and offers, and reports.
  • Orders: what you bought or sold, shipping name and address, notes to sellers, and order history.
  • Messages you send to other members.
  • Campus: your school email address, used only to confirm you're a student. It's never shown to other people.
  • Contact form: your name, email and message.

Things collected automatically

  • Cookies: a session cookie that keeps you signed in while you browse, an optional "keep me signed in" cookie (30 days), and a cookie that remembers a guest's shopping cart. We don't use advertising or tracking cookies.
  • Security records: failed sign-in attempts (with a scrambled version of your IP address, not the address itself) to stop people guessing passwords. These are deleted after 30 days.
  • Search words: we keep the words people search for and how many results they got, without recording who searched, to improve search and, later, show ads that match the search, not the person.
  • Basic counts: things like how many times a product was viewed or saved.

3. How we use it

  • To run Mogost: your account, stores, listings, orders, messages, notifications and Campus.
  • To send you emails about your account and activity (receipts, new orders, password resets, auction results).
  • To keep Mogost safe: stopping spam, scams and bots, reviewing reports, and enforcing our Terms.
  • To improve Mogost and fix problems.

4. Ads

Mogost is supported by advertising. Our promise: no personal ad targeting. We don't build a profile of you from what you browse, buy or post, and we don't sell or rent your personal information to advertisers. Ads may be matched to the page or the search words on screen, not to who you are.

5. Who we share it with

  • Other members: your public profile, stores, listings, posts and comments are visible to others. Campus posts are visible only to verified students at your school.
  • Sellers you buy from get what they need to fill your order: your name, shipping address (if shipping), and any note you add. Buyers see the seller's store details.
  • Service providers that help us run Mogost, only for that purpose:
    • our web hosting and email provider (Hostinger),
    • Google reCAPTCHA on the sign-up page, to block bots (Google's privacy policy applies to it),
    • Google Fonts, which provides the website's lettering,
    • our AI service, Claude by Anthropic, only if you use the AI listing assistant (see below),
    • a payment company, once real payments go live. We'll name it here when it's chosen, and Mogost will never see or store your full card number.
  • The law: if we're legally required to, or to protect people from harm, fraud or abuse.
  • If Mogost is ever sold or merged, your information would move with it, and this policy would still apply until you're told otherwise.

6. The AI listing assistant (optional)

If you choose to use it: each turn, one photo from your camera and the words you said (turned into text by your own phone or browser) are sent to our AI service, Claude by Anthropic, to help write your listing. Your voice recording itself is not sent to us. Photos you keep become your listing photos. We also keep a count of how much the assistant is used, to manage costs. If you don't use the assistant, nothing is sent to the AI service.

7. How long we keep things

  • Your account information, for as long as your account is open.
  • Orders are kept even after an account closes, because buyers and sellers both need those records (and the law may require it).
  • Read notifications are deleted after 60 days, failed sign-in records after 30 days, and abandoned guest carts after 30 days.
  • Moderation records are kept so we can handle appeals and repeat problems fairly.

8. Your choices

  • Change your information any time in Settings and Edit Profile.
  • Delete things you posted: your posts, comments, listings and notifications.
  • Close your account from Settings. Ask us if you want a copy of your information, or want something removed.
  • Leave Campus any time from Campus settings.

9. Keeping it safe

We use secure connections (https), scrambled passwords, protection against fake form submissions, limits on sign-in attempts, and digital-download files kept outside the public website. No website can promise perfect security, but we take it seriously and will tell affected members if something goes wrong.

10. Children

Mogost isn't meant for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their information. If you believe a child has signed up, tell us and we'll remove the account.

11. Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle your information, we'll update this page and the date at the top. For big changes, we'll let members know.