Cookie & Privacy Policy

Your data, plainly

We use personal data to run Vernus, secure accounts, process key payments, publish work, and provide transparent trust and readership statistics.

We do not sell personal data or use it for cross-site behavioural advertising.

Profiles and published work can be public. Creators also receive information about paid unlocks and donations connected with their earnings.

You can update, export, or delete account data in Settings, or contact human@vernus.one.

Effective and last updated: July 15, 2026.

This policy explains how Moonka Hey Ltd. handles personal data when you visit or use Vernus. It also explains the cookies, browser storage, and similar technologies used by the Service. We do not sell personal data or share it for cross-context behavioural advertising.

1. Who is responsible for your data

Moonka Hey Ltd. is the controller of personal data processed for Vernus. We are registered in England and Wales under company number 12469351.

Moonka Hey Ltd.
1a Falmer Court, London Road
Uckfield, TN22 1HN
United Kingdom

For privacy questions or requests, email human@vernus.one. This policy applies to Vernus websites, applications, account services, and support channels operated by Moonka Hey Ltd. It does not govern independent websites or services linked or embedded by users.

2. The data we process

Account and profile data

This includes your email address, username, password hash, verification status, display and legal names, avatar, biography, location, links, language, currency, account role, preferences, sign-in provider, and recent sign-in time. Most profile fields are optional. Your username, display name, public avatar, biography, links, location, public confidence badge, followers, and published work may be visible to anyone when your profile is public or your work appears in a publication.

Publishing and collaboration data

We process drafts, published posts, uploaded files and images, publication details, publication roles, invitations, scheduling information, edits, content language, reports, and moderation records. Published work and its associated media are public unless the publishing interface says otherwise. Drafts are available to you and authorised collaborators.

Reading and community activity

This includes post unlocks, bookmarks, recommendations, followed people and publications, key donations, invitations, reports, and related timestamps. These records allow us to provide your library, balances, feeds, creator earnings, and community features.

Payment, business, and earnings data

Stripe collects and processes card and checkout information. Vernus does not receive or store your complete card number. We store transaction and ledger information such as your Stripe customer identifier, key quantity, price, currency, totals, exchange-rate snapshot, platform fee, net amount, transaction identifiers, and timestamps.

If you create a payout business, we also process the business or personal trading name, email, tax number, address, payout currency, publication association, and information needed for payment, accounting, fraud prevention, and compliance.

A creator or authorised publication manager can see records about unlocks and donations that contribute to their earnings. Those records may include the reader or donor's user ID, username, display or full name, email address, public-profile status, transaction time, key quantity, and financial breakdown. We disclose this to administer the creator-reader transaction, earnings records, support, and fraud handling; it is not a mailing-list licence.

Technical, security, and support data

When you use Vernus, our systems and providers receive technical information such as IP address, browser and device information, requested URL, timestamps, request identifiers, referring page, error and diagnostic details, and security events. When you contact us, we process your message, contact details, attachments, and the history needed to respond.

Data from Google and other people

If you sign in with or connect Google, we receive the provider account ID and available profile information within the requested email and profile scopes, such as your email, verification status, name, picture, locale, and profile metadata. We store the provider profile copy and connection timestamps, but not Google access or refresh tokens. You can disconnect an optional linked account in Vernus and revoke Vernus in Google's security settings. A primary Google sign-in must remain linked while it is your only sign-in method.

Other people may give us your email address when inviting you to a publication, identify you in a report, or include personal data in content. We process that information only for the relevant invitation, collaboration, safety, or publishing purpose.

3. Why we use data and our lawful bases

UK data protection law requires a lawful basis for each purpose. More than one basis may apply to the same record when it is used for different purposes.

Provide the Service
Contract. Create and secure accounts; host profiles, drafts, publications, and posts; provide reading and collaboration features; maintain balances; deliver purchased keys and unlocks; and respond to service requests.
Payments and records
Contract and legal obligation. Process checkout and creator ledger activity, calculate fees and currency amounts, keep accounting and tax records, and handle refunds, disputes, and chargebacks.
Safety and integrity
Legitimate interests and legal obligation. Prevent fraud, spam, abuse, and security incidents; investigate reports; enforce our Terms; preserve evidence; and comply with valid legal requests. Our interests are keeping Vernus, its users, and transactions trustworthy and safe.
Confidence scoring
Legitimate interests. Calculate and show transparent provenance signals, detect suspicious invitation patterns, and help readers assess whether an account has a durable history. Our interest is account integrity without hidden ranking.
Service analytics
Legitimate interests. Measure visits, reading engagement, unlock funnels, reliability, and feature use so we and creators can understand and improve the Service. Device storage also relies on an applicable storage-and-access exception or consent where required.
Communications
Contract, legitimate interests, legal obligation, or consent. Send account, verification, invitation, payment, export, deletion, policy, and security messages; answer support; and send a deletion-feedback follow-up only when separately requested.
Legal claims and change
Legitimate interests and legal obligation. Establish, exercise, or defend legal claims, obtain professional advice, and support a corporate transaction with appropriate confidentiality safeguards.

Where we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time without affecting earlier lawful processing. Some data—such as an email address, username, authentication data, and relevant transaction details—is needed to create an account or perform a purchase. Without it, we may be unable to provide that part of the Service.

We do not ask for special-category data such as health, religion, ethnicity, political opinion, or sexual orientation. You may nevertheless disclose it in public content, profile text, a private draft, or correspondence. Choose carefully what you publish and do not provide sensitive information that is unnecessary for your use of Vernus.

4. Readership and service analytics

Vernus author analytics

We record post views and, for articles, whether readable content remained active for at least 30 seconds and reached halfway. Engagement with a locked preview is separated from engagement with a full article. Creators receive aggregate visitor and engagement figures, not the IP address or browser identifier used to calculate them. This aggregate analytics disclosure is separate from the identifiable financial record a creator receives when a reader unlocks a post.

Vernus creates a one-way daily visitor digest from the date, IP address, and a normalised browser user-agent. The digest rotates daily; raw IP addresses are not stored in the author analytics table. We also store a random visit identifier in session storage so an unlock can be attributed to the visit that preceded it. It expires when the browser tab session ends and is not used to follow you across unrelated websites.

Detailed author-analytics events are retained for 90 days. Daily totals that no longer identify a browser or visit may be retained indefinitely. Traffic analytics is not linked to a signed-in Vernus account, but an unlock event is linked to its financial record.

Plausible Analytics

When enabled, we use Plausible for our own aggregate website statistics. The configured Plausible service does not set an analytics cookie or use the results for cross-site advertising. It is separate from the creator analytics above. You can learn more in Plausible's data policy.

Automated language detection

When a creator asks the editor to detect content language, Vernus sends up to the first 1,000 characters to a Scaleway-hosted language model. The model returns a language code. Do not use this feature on text containing confidential or unnecessary personal data. The result supports search and content metadata; it does not decide whether content may be published.

5. Confidence scoring and automated processing

Vernus automatically calculates a public confidence score and tier from disclosed signal families such as email or connected-account verification, account age, activity over time, participation in paid features, publication membership, and invitation-network quality. Certain suspicious invitation patterns can cap a tier. The owner can see the score, component families, supporting proofs, and risk flags; the public sees a smaller badge and summary. Public user listings may use the score as an ordering factor.

This is profiling, but we do not use it by itself to make a decision that produces a legal or similarly significant effect. It does not assess viewpoint or content quality. You can inspect the model on our confidence scoring page, disconnect optional external accounts, and ask us to correct input data or review an outcome at human@vernus.one.

6. Cookies and browser storage

Cookies are small values stored by a browser. Similar technologies include local storage and session storage. Vernus uses them for authentication, security, preferences, cross-tab sign-out, publication workspace selection, and readership statistics. Blocking essential items can prevent sign-in, checkout, or other requested functions from working.

jwt_access
A secure, HTTP-only, first-party sign-in token. It normally lasts up to seven days and is refreshed while an eligible session remains active.
jwt_csrf
A first-party security token that helps prevent forged authenticated requests. It normally lasts up to seven days.
_vernus_oauth_session
A secure, HTTP-only session cookie used by the Vernus API during an OAuth flow. It expires after about 30 minutes.
NEXT_LOCALE
Stores a chosen language for up to one year. The same preference may also be kept as selected_locale in local storage.
theme and workspace
Local-storage values remember light or dark appearance and, for publishers, the last active publication workspace. They remain until changed or cleared.
vernus_analytics_visit_id
A random session-storage identifier used only to count and relate post engagement within a browser-tab session. It ends with that session.
session coordination
Short-lived session- or local-storage values communicate sign-out and account-deletion state across Vernus tabs. They do not track activity across websites.

UK rules may permit narrowly configured statistical or appearance storage without consent when clear information and a simple, free means to object are provided. Where an exception does not apply, we require consent. You can also remove Vernus cookies and storage through your browser, though doing so may sign you out or reset preferences. To object to analytics processing, email human@vernus.one.

Stripe checkout

Choosing to buy keys opens checkout hosted by Stripe. Stripe may store or access device information for secure checkout, payment preferences, and fraud prevention, including cookies such as __stripe_mid and __stripe_sid. Stripe acts under its own privacy information for parts of payment and fraud processing. See Stripe's Privacy Policy.

Third-party embeds

Authors can embed material from services such as YouTube, X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon. Loading or interacting with an embed may send your IP address, browser information, the page URL, and existing provider cookies to that provider, which may set further cookies or recognise you if you are signed in there. Those providers act under their own policies. Browser privacy controls can limit some of this activity.

7. Who receives personal data

We disclose only what is reasonably needed to the following recipients:

  • Other users and the public: public profiles, confidence badges, published content, publication roles, recommendations, and other intentionally public activity.
  • Creators and publication managers: collaboration information, aggregate article analytics, and identifiable unlock or donation records connected with their earnings, as described above.
  • Scaleway: European hosting and data storage, optional language detection, and transactional email delivery.
  • Stripe: customer, checkout, payment, fraud, refund, and dispute processing.
  • Google: optional sign-in and connected-account authentication.
  • Plausible: aggregate site analytics when that service is enabled.
  • Professional advisers and authorities: where necessary for accounting, legal advice, insurance, a corporate transaction, safety, fraud prevention, or compliance with a valid legal obligation.

User-selected third-party embeds and links are independent services rather than Vernus processors. We do not sell personal data or give creators permission to use transaction details for unrelated marketing.

8. International transfers

Vernus hosts its primary systems and stores data with Scaleway in European regions. Some other providers or their support operations may process data in the United States or other countries outside the United Kingdom and European Economic Area.

Where data protection law restricts a transfer, we use an applicable adequacy regulation or recognised contractual safeguards, such as the UK International Data Transfer Addendum or EU Standard Contractual Clauses, together with supplementary measures where appropriate. Contact us if you would like information about the safeguard relevant to a particular provider.

9. How long we keep data

We keep personal data only for as long as needed for the purposes above, taking account of account status, the nature of the record, legal and accounting duties, security, disputes, and the rights of readers and publication collaborators. In particular:

  • account, profile, draft, reading, and collaboration data is generally kept while your account is active and then handled through the deletion process below;
  • detailed author-analytics events are kept for 90 days; anonymised daily totals may remain;
  • generated data-export archives are downloadable for seven days, and export request records are removed after 90 days;
  • expired or used one-time-code records are removed after about one day;
  • cancelled account-deletion requests are removed after 90 days; limited pseudonymous completed-deletion and audit records are retained for six years;
  • transaction, tax, accounting, fraud, moderation, and legal-claim records are kept for the period required by law or reasonably needed to establish, exercise, or defend claims; and
  • support, security, invitation, and operational logs are kept according to the shortest period reasonably needed for the issue, risk, and applicable limitation period, then deleted or anonymised.

Encrypted backups expire through normal rotation. We do not restore deleted personal data to active use, but a record may remain inaccessible in a backup until that copy expires.

10. Account deletion and published work

You can create a data export and schedule deletion from Settings. Scheduling deletion disables the account and revokes active sessions immediately. A seven-day recovery period follows; the private link sent to your account email is the automated way to cancel during that period.

After the recovery period, Vernus erases or pseudonymises profile data, credentials, drafts, private reading and social activity, linked accounts, confidence records, exports, and unused keys. Storage and Stripe cleanup runs separately and is retried if a provider is temporarily unavailable.

Published posts and their media remain under "Deleted user" to preserve publication archives and readers' unlock history. Transaction and moderation records are pseudonymised or retained where law or legal claims require them. If published work itself contains personal data that you want reviewed, contact us; the right to erasure is not absolute and we will consider the specific content, public record, collaborators, readers, and applicable law.

Optional deletion feedback is not required. Feedback is erased when deletion is finalised. If you separately ask for one follow-up email, we record the consent wording and use that permission for one message only.

11. Security

We use measures designed to protect personal data, including TLS in transit, access controls, secure password hashing, protected authentication cookies, encrypted backups and selected secrets, provider access controls, and monitoring. No system is perfectly secure. Please use a unique password, protect your email account, and tell us promptly if you suspect unauthorised access.

12. Your rights

Depending on where you live and the lawful basis involved, you may have rights to access a copy of your personal data; correct inaccurate data; erase data; restrict processing; object to processing; receive portable data; withdraw consent; and ask for safeguards around qualifying solely automated decisions. These rights are not absolute, and we will explain any lawful limitation.

You have the right to object to processing based on our legitimate interests, including confidence profiling and service analytics. Tell us what processing you object to and why. We will stop unless we demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds or need the data for legal claims. An objection to direct marketing would always be honoured.

Signed-in users can update profile information, disconnect optional linked accounts, create a structured data archive, and schedule deletion in Settings. For any other request, email human@vernus.one. We may request proportionate information to verify your identity and authority. We normally respond within one month, subject to lawful extensions.

You may complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office through its complaint service. If EU or EEA data protection law applies, you may also complain to the authority where you live, work, or believe an infringement occurred; the European Data Protection Board lists its members. We would appreciate the opportunity to address your concern first, but you do not have to contact us before a regulator.

13. Children

Vernus is not intended for people under 18, and we do not knowingly create accounts for children. If you believe a child has provided personal data to Vernus, contact us so we can investigate and take appropriate action.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when the Service, providers, or law changes. We will post the new version here and update the date above. If a change materially affects how we use personal data, we will give reasonable notice by email or through the Service before it takes effect where required.

15. Contact

Email human@vernus.one or write to Moonka Hey Ltd., 1a Falmer Court, London Road, Uckfield, TN22 1HN, United Kingdom.