Last updated: 2 October 2026

In short

Elektronmods.com is a non-commercial forum. We collect as little data as possible: your account (username, email address and password) and what you write. There are no ads, no tracking cookies and no third-party analytics, and we never sell or share your data for marketing. The details below list everything the forum stores and why.

Who is responsible

Kurt Kip, Vienna, Austria (see Impress). For any privacy question or request, use the contact form.

Your account

To register we need a username, an email address and a password. The password is only stored in encrypted (hashed) form, so we cannot read it. The email address is used for account activation, password resets, notifications you subscribe to and, if you allow it in your settings, occasional notices from the administrators. It is hidden from other members by default. Anything else in your profile (avatar, signature, location, website and so on) is optional and visible to others.

Your posts

Threads, posts and shoutbox messages are public. Private messages can only be read by the sender and the recipients; they are stored on our server without end-to-end encryption.

Your posts belong to the community. By publishing a post, thread or shoutbox message you grant Elektronmods.com and everyone else a free, permanent, irrevocable and worldwide right to use, copy, share and adapt it. Please only post content you are allowed to share this way. Published posts are not withdrawn later, even if your account is deleted.

Technical data

• IP address: stored with your registration, your posts and private messages to fight spam and abuse. Only administrators and moderators can see it.
• Session data: while you browse, the forum keeps your IP address, browser and current page for the "Who's online" list. It is deleted after 24 hours. Searches are logged for 24 hours as well.
• Contact form and "Email user": messages sent through the forum are logged with sender, recipient and IP address for 180 days to prevent abuse.
• Spam protection: the captcha stores only a scrambled code derived from your IP address, for a few minutes. No external service is involved.
• Statistics: we count page views with our own software on our own server, without cookies. Your IP address is not stored; it is only turned into an anonymous code that changes every day. We keep the country, browser type, device type and the website you came from, but nothing that identifies you.
• Voicechat (optional): if you join the voicechat, your browser asks for access to your microphone. Your voice goes directly from your browser to the browsers of the other people in your channel (peer-to-peer, encrypted); it is neither sent through nor recorded on our server. For this direct connection the browsers exchange their network addresses, so the other people in your channel can technically see your IP address. To find a connection path, your browser asks a Cloudflare server for its public address. While you are in the voicechat, our server stores which channel you are in, whether your microphone is muted or you are speaking, and the connection data the browsers exchange. It is deleted when you leave, at the latest after one minute.

Cookies

We only use cookies the forum needs to work: to keep you logged in (for up to one year if you choose "Remember me"), to identify your session, to mark new posts since your last visit and to remember small preferences such as collapsed boxes or the theme you picked. A temporary cookie (30 minutes) is used while you sign in with Google, Apple or GitHub. There are no advertising or tracking cookies, so there is no cookie banner. Players from YouTube, X, SoundCloud, Bandcamp or Instagram are only loaded when you start them yourself, and may then set their own cookies (see "Services we use").

Services we use

• Hosting: the forum runs on a rented web server. The host processes the data on our behalf and keeps its own short-term server logs.
• Cloudflare: all traffic to the forum passes through Cloudflare, Inc. (USA), which protects the site against attacks and speeds it up. Cloudflare processes your IP address and technical request data for this purpose. Cloudflare is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework. Cloudflare privacy policy
• Sign in with Google, Apple or GitHub (optional): if you use it, the provider sends us your account ID, email address and name, and Google or GitHub also your profile picture, which we save as your avatar. We store only the link between the provider account and your forum account, no passwords or access tokens. The provider's privacy policy applies: Google, Apple, GitHub.
• Embedded content: images, videos, audio files and avatars that members link from other websites are loaded directly from those websites, which then receive your IP address.
• YouTube, X, SoundCloud, Bandcamp and Instagram: links to these services are shown as previews. Our server fetches the title, text and pictures once and stores them itself, so reading a thread does not contact these services. Only when you click play or load a post does your browser load the player from the service, which then receives your IP address and may set cookies: YouTube (youtube-nocookie.com, Google Ireland Ltd.), X (X Corp.), SoundCloud (SoundCloud Global Limited & Co. KG), Bandcamp (Bandcamp, Inc.) or Instagram (Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd.).
• GitHub repositories: posts can show GitHub repositories. Our server fetches their name, description and README from GitHub and stores them itself, so reading a thread does not contact GitHub. Only when you open a README does your browser load the pictures in it from GitHub (GitHub, Inc.), which then receives your IP address.

Legal basis

We process your account data and posts to provide the forum you signed up for (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). Technical data, spam protection, statistics and Cloudflare are based on our legitimate interest in running a secure and working forum (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). Signing in with Google, Apple or GitHub, joining the voicechat, playing embedded media from YouTube, X, SoundCloud, Bandcamp or Instagram and opening a GitHub README are your own choice.

How long we keep data

Account data is kept until your account is deleted. Posts stay online permanently (see "Your posts"); after an account is deleted they are no longer linked to a profile. Temporary data is deleted after the periods listed above.

Your rights

You can ask us at any time which data we have about you, and have it corrected, deleted, restricted or handed over to you, and you can object to processing. To delete your account, contact us. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Austrian Data Protection Authority (Datenschutzbehörde).