Privacy Policy

Who we are

America Chat (americachat.org) is a parody website. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the U.S. government or any government agency.

What we collect

• The questions you type. Every question you submit is stored in our database. We read them, and some may be published on this site — for example under “Popular questions” or on a shareable page — after we review them. Please don’t include names, addresses, account numbers or anything else personal in a question.
• A scrambled visitor ID, not your IP address. When you ask a question or vote, we take your IP address (for IPv6, only the network part), combine it with a secret key and run it through a one-way hash. Only the resulting code is stored — with your questions, your votes and a daily counter. We use it to enforce daily question limits and to allow one vote per person per answer. We can’t turn it back into your IP address.
• Your thumbs up / thumbs down votes, stored with that scrambled ID.

Cookies and browser storage

• One cookie, named mgsid. It holds a random session ID so our forms can include a security token that stops other websites from submitting questions in your name. It is deleted when you close your browser, and the session behind it expires on our server shortly after you stop using the site.
• Session storage in your browser briefly holds the question you typed on one page so the chat page can pick it up. It is removed as soon as it is read.
• No advertising cookies. No analytics cookies. No tracking pixels.

What we don’t do

• No accounts, no ads, no analytics, no tracking across websites.
• We don’t sell, rent or share your information for marketing. Nobody would buy it anyway.
• Your questions are not sent to any AI service. Answers are assembled from pre-written templates on our own server. (The site’s administrator sometimes uses an AI service to help draft new templates; visitor questions are never included in those requests.)

Other services your browser talks to

• Google Fonts (fonts.googleapis.com, fonts.gstatic.com) and Tailwind CSS’s CDN (cdn.tailwindcss.com) supply our fonts and styling. Your browser downloads these files directly from those companies, so they receive your IP address and normal browser information under their own privacy policies.
• Our web host keeps standard server logs (like almost every website), which include IP addresses, for security and to keep the site running. We don’t use them to track visitors. They are kept for as long as our hosting provider’s log retention allows.

Crisis messages

If a question mentions certain words related to emergencies or self-harm, we skip the joke and show real support resources (911, and 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline). Those questions are stored like any other but marked so they are never published.

How long we keep things

• Questions and votes: until we delete them.
• Daily question counters: about 7 days.
• Administrator login attempt records: about 1 day.
• Your session: until you close your browser (cookie) or shortly after you leave (server).

Children

This site is not directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect information from them.

Your choices

The simplest choice is not to type personal information into a question. Because we don’t know who you are, we can’t look up “your” data — but if you want a question removed, send us its exact wording and we’ll delete it.

Changes

If this policy changes, we’ll update this page and the date at the top. No notice will be sent by fax.