Azhagiya Tamizh (அழகிய தமிழ்) is a Tamil reading and writing community operated by the Azhagiya Tamizh site team. This policy explains how we handle information when you visit the website, sign in, write, or participate in discussions.
1. Information we collect
- Google sign-in: through Supabase Authentication, we receive your Google account identifier, email address, name, and profile photo, when available. We use basic identity, email, and profile permissions to create and authenticate your account. We do not request access to Gmail, Google Drive, contacts, or calendars, and we do not receive your Google password.
- Your profile and contributions: your display name, biography, profile image, any optional contact details or website you provide, drafts, submitted and published writing, cover images, comments, votes, saved articles, and reports. We also store editorial decisions, earlier versions of reviewed text, account roles, and related timestamps.
- Technical information: our hosting and authentication providers may process IP addresses, browser and device information, request times, and error or security logs to deliver and protect the service.
2. How we use information
We use information to sign you in, maintain your account, show author profiles, save and review writing, publish approved work, support comments and saved reading, investigate reports, prevent misuse, and respond to support or privacy requests. Google account information is used for authentication and the author profile described here. We do not sell personal information or use Google account data for advertising, data brokerage, or training general-purpose AI models.
Our use and transfer of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements where applicable.
3. What is public and who can access it
Your notification inbox and email preferences are private to your account. Editorial decisions, replies and new posts from followed writers appear in the inbox. Following relationships and per-writer notification settings are private to your account; follower counts are public. You can unfollow a writer or mute their new-post alerts from their profile. Writer alerts use the in-app inbox only and do not send email. Deleting your account removes your following relationships. If you opt in to emails, we use your sign-in email address to send the updates you selected. Email is off by default, and you can turn it off under Notifications → Email preferences. A queued email may already be in transit when you change your preferences.
Your profile initially uses the name and photo supplied by Google. You can change these in your profile. You appear in the Authors (எழுத்தாளர்கள்) directory only after at least one of your posts is published; signing in, saving drafts, or submitting work for review does not add you to that directory. Your name and photo also appear with comments you post, even if you have no published writing. Profiles remain accessible through their direct links. Your Google login email is not automatically displayed. An email address, phone number, or website becomes public only if you add it to the optional contact fields and agree to display it.
Published writing, author profiles, and comments are public and may be indexed by search engines or copied by readers. Drafts and other unpublished writing are not public, but the author and authorised editors and administrators can access them. Review history is accessible to the author and editorial team. Saved articles and individual votes are account-specific; aggregate vote counts are public. Reports are accessible to the person who submitted them and the editorial team.
Uploaded profile and cover images use public image storage. Anyone with an image URL can view it, including a cover uploaded for an unpublished draft. Do not upload private or sensitive images. Authorised operators may access account records when necessary to maintain the service, investigate security issues, meet legal obligations, or handle your request.
4. Service providers and sharing
When live weather is first enabled, the site requests browser location access once and remembers that it has asked. Until a location is available, including when access is declined or unavailable, it shows Chennai weather and labels it as Chennai. A successful location is rounded to two decimal places and saved in your current browser for later visits. Weather requests use those rounded coordinates through our server and Open-Meteo. We do not save precise coordinates, attach weather requests to your account, or continuously watch your movements. The weather button requests a fresh location when you choose to update it. If the site observes location permission being revoked, it removes the saved location and returns to Chennai. Weather responses are cached temporarily in memory; hosting request logs may include the rounded coordinates. Reading the site does not require location access.
Writers can privately see aggregate views, likes, reader comments, saves and followers for their published posts. This dashboard never shows who saved or viewed a post. A view counts after a post is visible for 10 seconds, once per signed-in account per post per day in India time; signed-in authors' own visits are excluded. For signed-out readers, our server uses the connection's IP address to create a secret-keyed identifier that changes daily; IPv6 addresses are grouped by network prefix. Readers sharing a connection may count as one view. The view ledger stores only a hash that differs for each post and day, alongside the post and day, without raw IP addresses, account IDs, browser tokens or reading positions. Separate private abuse counters use account IDs or daily network identifiers to limit writes. Expired counters are removed in small batches during new anonymous views; inactive counters may remain until that cleanup runs. View records remain until the post is deleted. Browser storage keeps a random token for compatibility and the local demo; it is not sent to the anonymous view endpoint. Views are estimates, not counts of unique people or completed reads. Existing likes, comments and saves are counted from their current records; reader identities are not included in the dashboard.
Google provides sign-in, Supabase provides authentication, database and image storage, and Vercel hosts the site. The main application also loads the Supabase client from jsDelivr and Tamil fonts from Google Fonts; requests to those services can disclose technical information such as your IP address. These providers process information under their own terms and privacy policies and may operate servers outside your country.
We share information as needed to provide the service through these providers, display the public content you choose to publish, respond to a lawful request, or protect users and the service. We do not give advertisers access to Google account information. External links and websites have their own privacy practices.
5. Browser storage and cookies
To make repeat visits faster, the browser temporarily saves recently loaded public posts, post lists and author directories for up to one minute. This cache is limited to 24 entries and 500,000 characters. It does not save private account records, editorial notes, review queues or unpublished writing. Changes made through the site, signing out and the site's refresh control clear this cache; other tabs discard their in-memory copies when it changes. Unrelated local preferences and recovery drafts are kept. Clearing site data also removes the cache.
Local browser storage saves your weather-effect placement (hero only, page-wide, or off), decorative atmosphere choice, whether location access has already been requested, and the last successful rounded location. These settings are shared with other tabs of this site and are not synced to your account or other devices. Clearing site data removes them and allows the first location request to appear again. Page-wide effects continue on other site pages until you change the placement. Return to the homepage to change weather settings or turn the effects off.
Optional series read/unread marks are stored only in your current browser as post identifiers and timestamps, separately for guests and each signed-in account. They help the series page resume at the first unmarked part. We do not send these reading marks to the server or show them to writers. They do not sync between devices, and clearing site data removes them.
When email delivery is enabled, SMTP2GO processes the recipient email address, the notification type, the related article title and links, and delivery information. We keep queue status and delivery identifiers to handle delivery and avoid duplicate messages. These emails do not include comment text, editorial feedback, or article bodies.
The site uses local browser storage for sign-in sessions, reading preferences, bookmarks saved while signed out, and recovery copies of unsaved writing. In the separate demonstration mode, sample accounts and content changes are stored locally. Google and other providers may use cookies on their own services during sign-in. We do not include advertising trackers.
We use Vercel Web Analytics to count visitors and page views and understand which pages people visit. It collects page paths, referring sites, browser and device information, and approximate location without analytics cookies. We remove query parameters and URL fragments from page URLs before sending them. We do not send Google account information, article text, or comments as analytics events. See Vercel's analytics privacy information for details.
Signing out does not clear every locally saved draft or preference. You can remove site data through your browser settings; this may sign you out and permanently remove unsaved writing and local bookmarks. On a shared device, sign out and clear site data when you finish.
6. Retention, security, and deletion
We keep account and contribution records while needed to operate the community. Published writing remains available until removed. Review history and moderation records may be retained to resolve disputes and protect the service. Records required for legal or security purposes may need to be kept longer. Copies in provider backups, search engines, readers' downloads, or previously authorised print editions may remain after removal from the live site.
We use HTTPS and database access controls to protect information. No online service can guarantee absolute security. Avoid including sensitive personal information in public profiles, comments, or writing.
You can edit your profile, remove optional public contact details, remove bookmarks or votes, and delete your own comments using the available controls. Deleted comment text is removed from the discussion while replies may remain. For a copy or correction of account information, account deletion, removal of writing or uploaded images, or withdrawal of publication permission, contact the site team using the contact instructions below. These requests are handled by the team; there is currently no automatic account-deletion button. We may need to verify that the account or work belongs to you and will explain any information we need to retain.
You can also revoke Google sign-in access in your Google Account connections settings. Revoking access does not itself delete your account, writing, or local browser data from this site.
7. Age requirements
Accounts are intended for people aged 18 or older. If you believe a child has provided personal information through an account, contact the site team so we can investigate and remove it as appropriate.
8. Changes to this policy
We will update the date above when this policy changes. If we introduce a materially different use of Google account information, we will explain it and obtain any required consent before using the information for that new purpose.
9. Contact and requests
Our official email for all website enquiries and support is contact.azhagiyatamil@gmail.com. Use this address for privacy, access, correction, or deletion requests, publication and copyright questions, and any other website matter. Identify your account and the request, but do not send your password or sign-in tokens.
Author ownership and publication permissions are explained in our Terms of Service.