Privacy policy
What UroAnswers records when you read, register or post, how long it is kept, who processes it, and how to close your account or remove posts.
Updated: 6 October 2026
This policy explains what information Uroanswers collects, why, how long we keep it, and what you can do about it. We have written it around the things you actually do on the site: reading, registering, posting and getting in touch.
The short version
- You can read everything without an account, and we don't ask readers who they are.
- Members post under a pseudonym. We never ask members for their real name (the only exception is clinicians applying for a verified badge), and your email address is never shown.
- Optional analytics (Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity and Yandex Metrica) runs only with your permission.
- We don't sell your information, and we never give the content of your posts to advertisers.
- You can close your account, ask for your posts to be removed, or ask for a copy of your data at any time.
1. Who is responsible for your information
Uroanswers publishes this site and decides how your information is used. In European data protection law, that makes us the "controller".
Email: contact@uroanswers.org
Readers in the European Union and United Kingdom can find more about their rights on our GDPR page. Residents of Washington, Nevada and Connecticut should also read our consumer health data privacy policy.
2. When you read the site
What we collect
- Technical information sent by your browser. This includes your IP address, browser and device type, the page you requested, the page that sent you, and the time. Every website receives this. Our hosting and security providers record it in server and security logs.
- Your approximate country. Our network provider works this out from your IP address as each page loads. We use it to show the right crisis helpline on posts that need one. We don't store it against you.
- Measurement data, only if you agree. If you accept measurement cookies, Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity and Yandex Metrica record which pages are visited, roughly where visitors are, what device they use and how they arrived; this can include part of their own session-replay features. We use this to see which answers people find useful and what is missing. If you decline, none of this runs. See our Cookie Policy for what each one sets.
Why
To deliver pages, keep the site secure, block attacks and spam, show the right crisis line, and, with your consent, understand how the site is used.
3. When you create an account
What we collect
- Your email address
- The pseudonym you choose
- Your password, stored only in scrambled (hashed) form that we can't read
- Your confirmation that you are 18 or over and that you accept the terms of use and forum rules
- Your separate, explicit consent, given through its own checkbox at signup, to our processing any personal health information you choose to share in your posts
- Your settings, such as which email notifications you want
Why
To create and secure your account, let you sign in, send the emails you have asked for, and enforce the forum rules (for example, one person, one account).
We use your email address only for account emails: confirming your address, resetting your password, replies and notifications you have switched on, and important notices about the site or these policies. We don't send marketing emails unless you separately opt in to our newsletter (section 6). Our email delivery provider adds an invisible open-tracking pixel to the emails we send, including account and notification emails, so we can see whether an email was opened; we do not use link-click tracking.
4. When you post
What we collect
- Your posts. Anything you write on the forum is public. Anyone can read it, and search engines and other services can index it. Posts often contain health information because that is what the forum is for. You choose what to share. Please leave out anything that could identify you.
- Edits. We keep a record that a post was edited and when, and the edited version is marked so readers can see it changed.
- The IP address used for each post. We record this to deal with spam, abuse, multiple accounts and unlawful content. It is never shown to other members.
- Reports. If you report a post, we keep the report, the reason you gave, and your account name or, if you are signed out, your IP address.
- Moderation records. These include notes on posts held, edited or removed, warnings, and appeals.
Why
To run the forum you have asked to use, keep it safe, and deal with reports and appeals. An automated check also looks for words associated with crisis in posts, so that a helpline panel can be shown on them. It isn't used to profile you, and it doesn't make decisions about your account.
5. If you apply for a verified-clinician badge
We ask for your name, profession, and registration or license number, and we check them against the relevant public records, such as the NPI registry and state licensing boards in the US. Your real name is not shown on the forum unless you choose to make it your display name. We keep a record of the check for as long as you hold the badge, and for 12 months afterwards.
6. When you email us, and newsletter subscriptions
We receive your email address, what you write, and anything you attach. We use it to reply, deal with corrections, reports and appeals, and keep a record of what was decided.
Newsletter subscriptions. If you subscribe to publication updates, we use your email address only to send the updates you requested. Subscribing requires a separate opt-in from creating an account. You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in each newsletter; we keep your email on our suppression list afterwards so we don't email you again by mistake. Our email delivery provider's open-tracking pixel (see section 3) also applies to these emails; we do not use click-tracking for them.
7. Cookies
We use a small number of cookies that the site needs to work, and measurement cookies only with your consent. A consent banner lets you choose when you first visit, and you can change your choice at any time from the button on our cookie policy page. Our cookie policy lists them.
Browser privacy signals. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, we treat it as a refusal of all optional cookies. We do not respond to "Do Not Track" signals, because there is no agreed standard for them. We rely on Global Privacy Control and your cookie settings instead.
Tracking across other websites. Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity and Yandex Metrica are permitted to use the information described above only to provide their service to us, and the site shows no advertising. We have observed that Yandex Metrica and Microsoft Clarity's own underlying Bing identifiers set some additional cookies associated with those companies' own ad systems when Statistics is accepted; this is part of how those providers operate their own services, not something we configure or control. Our Cookie Policy lists what we have observed.
8. Who else handles your information
We don't sell personal information, and we don't share it with data brokers. We never give the content of your posts to advertisers.
We use a small number of service providers to run the site. They may use your information only to provide their service to us, and only as we direct:
| Provider type | What they do |
|---|---|
| Website hosting | Stores the site, its database and backups |
| Network and security (Cloudflare) | Delivers pages quickly, blocks attacks and bots, tells us a visitor's approximate country |
| Email delivery | Sends account and notification emails and newsletter updates; adds an open-tracking pixel to our emails (section 3) |
| Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity and Yandex Metrica, only with your consent | Measure how pages are used and help improve usability; not every one of them necessarily acts solely as our processor |
We may also disclose information:
- when the law requires it, for example a valid court order or subpoena. Where the law allows it and it is safe to do so, we will tell the member concerned before disclosing anything.
- to emergency services, if we believe someone's life is at immediate risk, or to protect the site and its members from fraud or abuse.
- to a new operator if the site is transferred to another organization. If that happens, this policy will continue to apply to your information, and we will tell registered members first.
Advertising. The site doesn't show advertising. We may in future use advertising services to measure our own campaigns that tell people about Uroanswers. If we do, they will run only if you have agreed to advertising cookies, and we will update this policy and our cookie policy before they start.
9. Where your information is kept
Your information is processed and stored by the service providers listed above, operating under contracts that limit them to our instructions. Our network provider operates worldwide, so pages may be delivered from a location near you. The GDPR page explains how we protect information about readers in Europe.
10. How long we keep it
| Information | How long |
|---|---|
| Server and access logs | 30 days |
| Security and firewall logs | 90 days |
| Email delivery logs | 30 days |
| Google Analytics data | Up to 14 months (Google's default setting; we have not changed it) |
| Microsoft Clarity recordings | 30 days, except a sample Microsoft selects or recordings we mark as a favorite, kept up to 9 months (Microsoft's own retention) |
| Yandex Metrica data | Yandex does not publish a fixed retention period; we are confirming this with them |
| Newsletter subscription and preferences | While subscribed, and afterwards on our suppression list so we don't re-email you; removed if you ask |
| Backups | Overwritten on a rolling cycle within 35 days |
| Account details (email, settings) | While your account is open. Removed from the live site when the account closes. |
| IP address recorded with a post | Kept while your account is open, for enforcement and security; deleted when the account closes |
| Posts | Until you or we remove them. See section 11 for what happens when an account closes. |
| Reports and moderation records | No fixed deletion schedule at present; kept to support enforcement, safety and audit, and reviewed from time to time |
| Emails to us | No fixed deletion schedule at present; kept as long as needed to resolve the matter or support later enforcement |
| Clinician verification records | While the badge is held, plus 12 months |
| Records of your cookie choices | 12 months, after which we ask again |
If an account is closed, we keep a scrambled (hashed) form of its old username indefinitely, so the same name can't be reused by someone else; we don't keep the username in readable form. We keep information longer than shown here only if the law requires it, or for as long as it's needed to deal with a legal claim.
11. Closing your account and removing your posts
Closing your account. Email contact@uroanswers.org from the address linked to your account. We will:
- permanently replace your pseudonym with a neutral label such as "former member" everywhere it appears, including in quotes and mentions
- delete your email address, password, settings and other account details
- detach your posts from any information that could link them back to you
Your posts stay in place under the neutral label, so that the threads other members are reading still make sense.
Removing your posts. You can ask us to remove a single post at any time, without closing your account. If you would rather all your posts were removed when you leave, tell us when you write to us, and we will remove them. Even if you don't ask, we may remove or edit individual posts that would still identify you after your account is closed.
Backups. These changes apply to the live site right away. Older copies in our backups are overwritten within our 35-day backup cycle. If we ever have to restore a backup, we apply all completed closure and removal requests again before the site goes back online.
12. Your choices and rights
Wherever you live, you can ask us to:
- give you a copy of the personal information we hold about you, in a portable format
- correct information that is wrong
- delete your account and posts, as described above
- withdraw consent for cookies or for processing your health information, at any time. If you withdraw consent for health information, we will close your account, because the forum can't work without it. Withdrawing consent doesn't affect anything we did before.
- tell you who we have shared your information with, by type of provider
Email contact@uroanswers.org and tell us what you would like. We will reply within 45 days, and usually much sooner. To protect your account, we will ask you to confirm the request from the email address linked to it. We don't charge for requests, and we won't treat you differently for making one.
Nevada residents: we don't sell covered information. You can still send a request not to have it sold to contact@uroanswers.org.
If we refuse a request, we will explain why, and you can ask us to reconsider by replying to that email. Some laws give you further rights or a right to complain to a regulator. The GDPR page and the consumer health data privacy policy explain those.
13. How we protect your information
- All pages are served over encrypted connections (HTTPS).
- Passwords are stored only in hashed form.
- Access to member data is limited to the people who run and moderate the site, and only as far as their role needs.
- Our network provider filters attacks and automated abuse.
- We keep backups so the site can be recovered, and we test restoring them.
No website can promise perfect security. If a breach affects your information, we will tell you and the relevant authorities where the law requires us to.
14. Age limit
The site is for adults, and only people aged 18 or over may register. We don't knowingly collect information from children. If you think someone under 18 has an account, email contact@uroanswers.org and we will close the account and delete its information.
15. HIPAA
Uroanswers is not a healthcare provider, health plan or healthcare clearinghouse, so the US health privacy law HIPAA does not apply to the site. Our HIPAA page explains what that means and what protects your information instead.
16. Changes to this policy
When we change this policy, we will update the date at the top. If a change materially affects how we use your information, we will tell registered members by email or a notice on the site at least 14 days before it takes effect. Where the change needs your consent, we will ask for it first.
17. Contact
Questions or requests: contact@uroanswers.org