Effective date: January 1, 2026
DormScouter ("we," "us," or "our") operates the website at dormscouter.com (the "Service"). This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have. We aim to keep this policy plain-English and short.
1. Information we collect
Information you give us
- Account information: your email address, display name, and password (stored as a one-way hash — we never see your plaintext password).
- Profile information: anything you add voluntarily, such as your graduation year, school, and profile bio.
- Content you submit: reviews, ratings, photos, tips, comments, corrections, floor-plan pins, and other contributions.
- Communications: if you email us or respond to a moderator note, we keep a record of that correspondence.
Information we collect automatically
- Usage data: pages you visit, features you interact with, and general activity on the site.
- Device data: browser type, operating system, screen size, and similar technical information.
- IP address: used for spam prevention, abuse detection, and rough geolocation (city level). IPs used for view-count deduplication on blog articles are hashed before storage.
- Cookies and local storage: we use browser storage to keep you signed in, remember your favorites, and remember UI preferences. See "Cookies" below.
Information from third parties
If you arrive at DormScouter by clicking a link from another site, we may see the referring URL. We use Google Analytics (see "Analytics") to aggregate usage statistics.
2. How we use your information
- To operate the Service — create your account, save your submissions, show you your favorites.
- To moderate content and prevent abuse, spam, and fraud.
- To send you transactional emails (password resets, moderation outcomes, room-watch notifications you opt into).
- To improve the site — we look at aggregate usage to decide what to build next.
- To respond when you contact us.
- To comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Service.
3. What we share with third parties
We share limited information with third-party service providers who help us run the site:
- Hosting and storage: our Virtual Private Server (VPS) provider, our DNS/CDN provider (if enabled), and our object-storage provider.
- Email delivery: Resend (for transactional email).
- Analytics: Google Analytics 4 (see below).
- AI summary generation:, used only to generate room-summary paragraphs from existing approved public reviews.
We may also disclose information if required by law, subpoena, or valid legal process, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of DormScouter, our users, or the public.
4. Analytics
We use Google Analytics 4 to understand how visitors use the site. GA4 collects data such as pages viewed, approximate geographic region, device type, and session length. We do not pass your email, display name, or other directly identifying information to GA4. You can opt out by using browser extensions such as the Google Analytics Opt-out Add-on.
5. Cookies and browser storage
We use two kinds of browser storage:
- Essential: authentication tokens, session state, CSRF protection. The site does not function without these.
- Preferences: your favorites list, UI preferences (dark-mode toggle, compare tray contents), and whether you've dismissed banners. Stored in
localStorage.
6. Your choices and rights
- Access: you can see everything you've submitted from your profile page.
- Correction: you can edit your display name, bio, and individual submissions.
- Deletion. You can delete your account at any time from your Profile → Settings → Delete account page. Once you confirm, your account enters a 7-day cooling-off period during which you can change your mind by signing in and clicking Cancel deletion on the same page. After 7 days the deletion runs automatically and is permanent.
When deletion runs we destroy:
- your email address, display name, profile bio, phone number, and avatar;
- all linked sign-in identities (Google, Microsoft) and saved passwords;
- your push-notification subscriptions, room-watch subscriptions, college follows, and saved favorites;
- your private direct messages and any unsent drafts.
Your public contributions — reviews, ratings, photos, tips, corrections, highlights, and comments — remain on the site, but the author becomes "Anonymous" and is no longer linked back to you. We keep these contributions because other students rely on them when picking a dorm; removing them would degrade the resource for everyone. If you want a specific submission removed before you delete your account, you can do that from the submission's page first.
A small amount of operational metadata persists for abuse-prevention and audit purposes (for example, the timestamp of moderator actions you took, or the fact that a deleted account existed at a given user ID so foreign-key references stay valid). This metadata contains no personal information about you after deletion.
- Unsubscribe: every non-transactional email (room-watch alerts, semester campaigns) has an unsubscribe link. Transactional emails (password reset) cannot be disabled as long as you have an account.
Depending on your residence, you may have additional rights under laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), or similar frameworks. To exercise these rights, email us.
6a. Deleting your account
You have the right to request deletion of your DormScouter account under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR Article 17, the "right to erasure") and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA § 1798.105). You do not need to be in the EU or California to use this feature — it is available to every account holder.
How to delete your account
- Sign in and go to Profile → Settings → Delete account.
- Read the summary of what will be destroyed and what will remain anonymously, then click Request deletion. You'll be asked to provide a brief reason — this is optional and is used only to improve the product.
- Your account enters a 7-day cooling-off period. During this time you can sign in normally; a banner will remind you that deletion is pending and offer a Cancel deletion button.
- After 7 days the deletion runs. You will receive an email confirmation when it completes.
Why the cooling-off period? Account deletion is irreversible. The 7-day window protects you from accidentally losing your account because you were frustrated or because someone with brief access to your device clicked the button.
Cancelling a deletion request. As long as the cooling-off period has not elapsed, you can cancel by signing in and clicking Cancel deletion. Your account returns to normal immediately and nothing is destroyed.
Once deletion is complete it cannot be undone. We do not keep backups of deleted accounts that would let us "restore" you. If you want to use DormScouter again after deletion you'll need to sign up as a new user.
Special cases. Accounts with administrative or moderator privileges cannot be self-deleted while those privileges are active — contact us at hello@dormscouter.com to have your privileges revoked first.
Questions or trouble deleting? Email us at hello@dormscouter.com from the email address associated with your account and we'll handle it manually.
7. Children
DormScouter is intended for college students and older. The Service is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has submitted information, contact us and we will delete it.
8. Security
We use industry-standard measures to protect your data — HTTPS everywhere, one-way password hashing, access controls on our database, and regular backups. No system is perfectly secure, but we take the protection of your information seriously.
9. Data retention
Account data is kept for as long as your account is active. When you delete your account (see Section 6a) most personal data is purged within the 7-day cooling-off window plus a short processing buffer — typically less than 24 hours after the cooling-off period ends.
Some data is retained for longer where we have a legitimate reason:
- Public contributions (reviews, photos, comments, etc.) remain indefinitely, attributed to "Anonymous" rather than to you, because the community depends on them.
- Operational audit logs — for example, records of moderator actions, abuse reports, and content takedowns — are kept for up to 3 years for fraud and abuse prevention. These logs reference internal user IDs but do not contain your name, email, or other identifiers once your account has been deleted.
- Aggregate analytics are kept for up to 26 months. These are statistical and never identify individual users.
- Legal-hold data is retained as long as required by law, regulation, or valid legal process.
If you are a resident of a jurisdiction with specific data-retention rights (for example, the EU or California), email us at hello@dormscouter.com to exercise them.
10. International users
DormScouter is operated from the United States. If you access the Service from outside the U.S., you understand that your information will be transferred to, processed, and stored in the U.S.
11. Governing law
This Privacy Policy is governed by the laws of the State of Wyoming, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles.
12. Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Material changes will be announced on the home page and through the email address associated with your account. The "Effective date" at the top of the page tells you when the current version took effect.
13. Contact us
Questions about this policy? Email us at hello@dormscouter.com.
Operating Entity
DormScouter is operated by DormScouter LLC, a limited liability company formed under the laws of the State of Wyoming.
Registered office: 30 N Gould St Ste N, Sheridan, WY 82801, USA
Email: hello@dormscouter.com
For legal notices, please email us at hello@dormscouter.com.