The short version
- What we ask for
- To join: your email address, a password (unless you sign in with Google) and a name to show other members. Everything else is up to you.
- What we never do
- We never sell data, share it with advertisers, or put third-party trackers on the site.
- What you control
- You can download everything we hold about you, or delete your account yourself, at any time.
- What we delete
- Room chats, Message Board messages and book recommendations are deleted after twelve months. Who is in a club right now is not recorded at all.
- What we expect
- Treat other readers with respect. If someone seriously breaks the rules, we can bar them from Read2Reason — and keep a record so they can’t simply join again.
1Who we are
Read2Reason is a free online community for people who read in English: a library of books and authors to browse, and clubs where readers meet to talk about them. In this document, “we” and “us” mean Read2Reason.
Read2Reason is run by Sonu Philip, C308, Ganga Kunj Housing Society, Kalas, Pune 411015, India. We decide what personal data is collected and why, and we are responsible for it. Under India’sDigital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 that makes us the Data Fiduciary for your data. For members in the United Kingdom or the European Union, we are also the controller under the UK GDPR and the EU GDPR, and those members keep the rights those laws give them.
This page is both our privacy policy and our terms of use. By using the website you agree to the terms in it. When you join, we ask you to confirm that you have read it, and we record which version you agreed to, and when.
2Aged 18 and over
You must be 18 or over to create an account, join or start a club, or post anything. When you join you confirm this with a tick. We never ask for your date of birth.
Indian law treats anyone under 18 as a child, whose personal data may only be used with a parent’s verifiable consent. Read2Reason does not collect that consent, so membership is for adults only. We do not knowingly hold personal data about anyone under 18. If we learn that a member is under 18, we close the account and delete its data. Browsing the shelves, books and author pages needs no account at all.
3Free to use
Read2Reason is completely free. There is no charge to join, to browse, to start or run a club, or to take part in one — no subscription, no paid tier and no hidden costs. We will never charge you for using the community.
4Links to booksellers, and how we earn
To help you get hold of a book you have found here, each book page has a Buy button that links to Amazon — Amazon.in for visitors in India, Amazon.com for everyone else.
- Affiliate commission. Those links are affiliate links. If you follow one and buy something, Amazon may pay Read2Reason a small commission on the sale. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
- No extra cost to you. The commission is paid by the bookseller. It does not add to the price you pay, and it never decides which books we show you.
- Not tracked. We keep no record of who presses Buy or follows a link. To choose between Amazon.in and Amazon.com we use the country our web host reports for your connection, if it reports one, or else your browser’s time zone, checked in your browser and not sent to us. Neither is stored. Amazon sees only that you came from Read2Reason, never who you are here.
- Other websites. Once you follow a link and leave Read2Reason, this policy no longer applies; the other website’s own privacy policy and terms do. We are not responsible for how other websites collect or use your data, so please read their policies. The same goes for the video-call services a club links to for its meetings.
5What we hold about you
We keep only what the site needs to work for you. Three things are required to join; everything else is your choice, and can be changed or removed on your own page.
| What | What it’s for | Required? |
|---|---|---|
| Email address | Signing you in, resetting a forgotten password, and the few emails an account needs (section 6). Nothing else is ever sent to it. Never shown to other members, and stored encrypted. | Yes |
| Password | Signing you in. We keep only a one-way scramble of it; nobody here can read it. | Yes, unless you use Google |
| Display name | What other members see. It doesn’t have to be your real name. | Yes |
| Google sign-in | If you choose it, Google tells us your email address and an account number. | No |
| Profile picture and short bio | So club members recognise you. Pictures are redrawn when you upload them, which removes hidden details such as where a photo was taken. | No |
| Reading interests | Favourite genres, reading goal, formats — for better suggestions. Private: never shown to other members. | No |
| Your lists, ratings and reviews | Currently Reading, Already Read and Want To Read, and anything you write about a book. | No |
| Your place in a club’s book | So discussions can hide spoilers from you. You can keep it private from other members. | No — only if you log it |
| What you post | Discussions, passages, room chat, Message Board messages, book recommendations, questions, meeting replies and poll votes. Votes are secret: nobody sees how you voted. | No |
| Blog posts, comments and stars | Posts you write for the Blog (with their pictures), comments you leave on posts, and the stars you give them. Anyone may comment or give stars without an account: then we keep the name you sign a comment with and, for 30 days, a fingerprint of your network address, so one person can’t flood a post. | No |
| Security records | Sign-ins, and changes to your password or email, so we can spot misuse. Network addresses in them are stored as fingerprints, not in the clear. | Kept automatically |
| A message you send us | If you write to us, your email address, your name if you give it, and your message — used only to answer you. | Your email and message, yes |
| Your agreement | Which version of this page you agreed to, and when. | Kept automatically |
We never ask for your date of birth, phone number, real name, home address or gender, or for access to your contacts or your Google account.
Being in a club right now — the green dot other members see — is not recorded. We keep only the latest sign that you are there, for about ninety seconds, and you can hide it.
6Why we use it, and on what legal basis
We use your data solely for these purposes:
- To provide the site to you — your account, your clubs, your lists and everything you choose to use.
- To keep Read2Reason safe — security records, dealing with reports, and the blacklist described in section 12.
- To send the few emails an account needs — confirming your address, resetting a password you asked to reset, a warning about a sign-in from somewhere new, and notice before this page changes or if we bar an account. We send no notifications, newsletters or marketing email, and nothing to your phone: what happens on Read2Reason waits for you there.
- To meet a legal duty, if the law ever requires us to keep or hand over something.
Under India’s DPDP Act, we use your data with your consent, which you give when you join after reading this page, and for the “legitimate uses” the Act allows, such as meeting a legal duty. You can withdraw your consent at any time by deleting your account, and it is as easy to withdraw as it was to give.
For members in the UK or the EU, the legal bases under the GDPR are our agreement with you, to provide the site (Article 6(1)(b)); our legitimate interest in keeping members and the site safe (Article 6(1)(f)); and legal duties (Article 6(1)(c)).
We will not sell, rent or trade your personal information to anyone for their own marketing. We do not use it for advertising, and no decision about you is ever made by a computer alone.
8How long we keep it
- Your account and what you’ve added
- For as long as you have an account.
- After you delete your account
- Locked at once, erased after 14 days — a grace period in case it was a mistake. Copies in our backups expire within 30 days after that.
- Your discussion posts and blog posts, after you leave
- Kept so conversations still make sense, but shown as “Former member”, without your picture — unless you tick the box to erase them too.
- Room chats, Message Board messages and book recommendations
- Twelve months, then deleted.
- Messages you send us
- Deleted twelve months after we have answered.
- Security records
- 90 days.
- Network fingerprints from blog stars and comments
- 30 days.
- Being in a club right now
- About ninety seconds. Nothing is kept afterwards.
- A blacklisting record
- See section 12.
9Your rights
You have these rights over your data, and most of them work from your own page without writing to anyone:
- See and download it — one button produces a file of everything we hold about you, in a standard format you can take elsewhere.
- Correct it — everything optional is editable on your page.
- Delete it — one button, as described in section 8.
- Withdraw consent — by deleting your account, as described in section 8.
- Nominate someone to exercise these rights for you if you die or become unable to.
- Members in the UK or the EU can also object to our use of their data, or ask us to limit it.
For anything the buttons don’t cover, write to our Grievance Officer (section 14). We reply within one month.
If you are unhappy with our answer, you can complain to the Data Protection Board of India. The law asks you to come to our Grievance Officer first. Members in the UK can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint), and members in the EU to the data protection authority where they live.
11Community rules
Read2Reason is a place to meet, talk and argue about books. We expect every member to treat others with respect and courtesy. When you use Read2Reason, you agree not to:
- harass, abuse, threaten or discriminate against anyone, or behave in a way that is plainly unethical;
- share or promote illegal content, pirated books (copies of books you have no right to share) or malicious software;
- send spam, or use the site to advertise or sell without our permission;
- pretend to be someone else, or post another person’s private information;
- open a new account after being blacklisted.
What you post remains yours. By posting it, you allow us to show it on Read2Reason, in the place you posted it. Quote books as the site does — a short passage, credited to its book and author.
Club hosts and co-admins run their own clubs and can remove members from them. They cannot see your email address, and they cannot bar anyone from Read2Reason.
12Moderation, expulsion and blacklisting
To keep Read2Reason safe and welcoming, we look at anything reported to us, and act on problems we see in the places members post. We do not read private messages unless someone in the conversation reports them or the law requires it.
- Our decision. Read2Reason decides, at its sole discretion, what breaks these rules or the site’s general etiquette.
- What we can do. If a member behaves in a way that is unethical, illegal or disruptive, we may remove what they posted, suspend their account, expel them, and permanently blacklist them — immediately, and without warning them first. Afterwards we will tell them by email that it has happened, unless that would be unsafe or unlawful.
- Who decides. Only the site manager — the person who runs Read2Reason — can blacklist anyone, or lift a ban.
- What happens to their clubs. A blacklisted member is taken out of every club. A club they hosted passes to its co-admin, or its longest-standing member; a club with nobody else in it closes.
The record we keep, and why
So that someone we have barred cannot simply join again, we keep a record of each blacklisting:
- a fingerprint of the email address — and of the Google account, if one was used. A fingerprint is a one-way code: it lets us recognise the address if it is used again, but cannot be turned back into the address;
- the display name the member used;
- the reason, and the date.
We keep it to protect members and the site. We keep the record for as long as the ban stands, review every ban after 3 years, and delete the record when a ban is lifted.
A blacklisted person keeps their rights under section 9: they can ask what we hold and ask us to reconsider. If they ask us to delete their data, we delete the account and everything else — but keep this record while the ban stands, as far as the law allows, because deleting it would defeat its purpose.
13Changes to this page
We may update this page as the site grows or the law changes. The date at the top shows which version you are reading. If a change matters — above all, one about how we use your data — we will email members before it takes effect, and ask you to agree again where the law requires it. Using Read2Reason after a change means you accept the new version.
14Contact us
Questions about this page, a request about your data, a complaint, or something to report — write to ourGrievance Officer:
Grievance Officer: Sonu Philip
Email: info@read2reason.com
Post: C308, Ganga Kunj Housing Society, Kalas, Pune 411015, India
Website: read2reason.com