tellastranger.com
Privacy Policy
Last updated: 5 May 2026
The short version: this site stores almost nothing about you. No accounts. No emails. No IP logs. The only thing it stores is the text of the message you submit, and even that is not linked to your identity in any way.
The long version follows.
What the site stores
For each submission, the database stores four things:
- The text of the message itself (max 280 characters).
- The country it was submitted from, derived from the IP address at the moment of submission. The IP itself is not stored. Country is shown to future readers as a small caption under the message (e.g. "wrote this at 3:47am · greece").
- The timestamp of when it was submitted, also shown as part of the caption.
- A counter that tracks how many times the message has been shown to other users, so that each message is shown at least once before any is repeated.
The site does not store: your name, email, IP address, browser fingerprint, city or finer location, payment details, the message you read before writing yours, or any link between your payment and your submission.
What Stripe stores
Payments are processed by Stripe, Inc. Stripe handles your card and stores its own record of the transaction, including some technical metadata required for fraud prevention (e.g. IP address, country). This site never sees your card number, your name, or your email.
The site receives a Stripe Session ID after payment that is used to verify the payment is real. After the message is read and a new one submitted, that session is no longer used. Stripe's privacy policy applies to the data Stripe holds: stripe.com/privacy.
What OpenAI sees
Every submission is sent to OpenAI's moderation API and to a content classifier (also OpenAI) before it enters the queue. OpenAI sees the text of your submission. OpenAI does not see your identity, payment, or session. Per OpenAI's API policy, content sent through the API is not used to train their models. OpenAI's policy: openai.com/policies/api-data-usage-policies.
If a submission is blocked by moderation, it is discarded immediately. The site does not retain a copy of blocked submissions.
Hosting and database providers
The site is hosted on Vercel (vercel.com). The database is hosted on Neon (neon.tech). Both are processors that handle the storage and serving of the data described above. Neither has access to anything beyond what the site stores, which is just the message text.
Cookies and tracking
The site uses no cookies of its own. There is no analytics tool, no Google Analytics, no Meta pixel, no third-party tracker. Stripe uses its own cookies during the checkout flow to process the payment; that is between you and Stripe.
Anonymity in practice
The site is designed so that even the operator cannot connect a submission to a payer. Payments and submissions both reference the same Stripe Session ID at the moment of the transaction, but the database only stores the message text once it passes moderation. There is no log of which session produced which message.
That said, perfect anonymity online is hard. If you write a confession that contains very specific details only one person could know about you, someone reading it could in theory recognize it. Write accordingly.
Your rights
Because the site does not link submissions to identities, the site cannot find or delete a specific submission of yours on request. You can ask for any specific message to be removed from the queue if you can quote the text, by emailing abuse@tellastranger.com.
Under GDPR, EU users have rights to access, correct, delete, port, and restrict processing of their personal data. Because this site processes almost no personal data of users (Stripe holds the payment data, the site holds only the anonymous message), most of these rights are addressed by Stripe directly. For any GDPR question specific to this site, email hello@tellastranger.com.
Children
This site is not for anyone under 18. Payment is required to use it, which provides a soft check, but the site does not verify ages. If you are a parent who believes your child has used the site and you want their contributions removed, email hello@tellastranger.com.
Data retention
Messages remain in the queue indefinitely so that they can continue to be shown to new readers. There is no scheduled deletion. If you want a message you wrote removed, see "Reporting a submission" in the Terms of Service.
Changes to this policy
This policy may be updated. The "last updated" date at the top reflects the current version. Material changes will be flagged on the site for at least 14 days before taking effect.
Contact
Privacy questions: hello@tellastranger.com
Removal requests: abuse@tellastranger.com