Closed Alpha Privacy Notice

Aether is an independent service operated in Brazil. It is a game-agnostic virtual tabletop in a free, invitation-only closed alpha and decides why and how personal data is processed.

This notice covers the public waitlist, early-access invitations, Aether accounts, hosted worlds, the free Marketplace, Creator Studio, support cases, transactional email and the technical operation of aethervtt.cloud. It does not cover a self-hosted Aether installation controlled by somebody else.

The closed alpha is intended for people who are at least 18 years old. Do not join the waitlist, accept an invitation or create an account if you are under 18.

• Waitlist and invitations: email address, request and review status, where the request form appeared, an optional campaign label and timestamps. Abuse controls store keyed hashes derived from the email and source network address; they do not store the raw source address in the abuse-attempt record.
• Account and authentication: email address, display name, password hash, language preference, platform role, session tokens and their expiry times. Aether does not store your plain-text password.
• Optional alpha research: whether you run or play games, VTTs you use and how you found Aether. These answers do not grant permissions, plans or access to a world.
• World and session data: world names and settings, memberships and roles, scenes, documents, chat, dice activity, game content, installed systems or mods and other material participants add to a world.
• Files and Marketplace data: uploaded assets, free package files, manifests, listing text, creator identity, reviews, replies, moderation records and private release candidates.
• Support cases: the authenticated account link, case reference, category, impact for problem reports, subject, plain-text messages, status, staff priority, timestamps, notification state and staff audit records. Diagnostics are limited to the Web or Play surface, Aether release and SHA where available, protocol version, language, page path without a query or fragment, connection state and the current world identifier and role after Aether verifies membership. The case form does not attach screenshots, files, uploaded filenames or campaign content; users are instructed not to put campaign material or secrets in the case text.
• Operations and security: request timestamps, service and container state, storage and usage measurements, error diagnostics, audit records and transactional-email delivery events such as delivered, bounced or complained.
• Product measurement and release flags: Aether sends PostHog a fixed event name, schema version, producer name, timestamp, random delivery identifier and only the properties allowed for that event. Marketing events use a new anonymous identifier for each delivery. Logged-in product events and server-side release-flag checks use the stable, opaque Aether account identifier. The PostHog profile contains no email address or display name. Aether does not send world names, chat, game documents, upload names, invitation or reset tokens, full URLs, query strings or arbitrary text.
• Cookies: a required session cookie, plus cookies that remember language and theme. The production alpha does not load advertising cookies or a browser analytics SDK.

We use the waitlist email address, request status, form placement, optional campaign label and keyed anti-abuse hashes to review early-access requests, prevent misuse and deliver invitations.

After an account is created, we use account, session, world, file and operational data to authenticate people, protect accounts, operate shared worlds, distribute free Marketplace content, answer support and privacy requests, secure the service and diagnose failures.

We use support cases to receive, triage and answer a report, understand the reported failure and preserve an audit trail for staff actions. Support messages and case text stay separate from PostHog product measurement and are not sent to PostHog.

Optional alpha research answers are used only to understand who is testing Aether, which VTTs they already use and how they found the product. They are not used to grant platform or world permissions.

The limited PostHog events count where people stop in the early-access path. Release flags stage a feature for a fixed cohort, but they never grant platform admission, a paid entitlement or permission inside a world. Aether does not use PostHog for advertising, session replay, browser autocapture or automated decisions about a person's rights.

The legal bases are steps requested before entering the alpha agreement, performance of the alpha agreement, compliance with legal duties, exercise of rights in legal or administrative proceedings and legitimate interests in operating and securing a small closed alpha. Consent is used only when Aether asks for a genuinely optional use that can be refused or withdrawn without losing the core service.

Aether does not sell personal data. Data is disclosed only where needed to operate the alpha, comply with law, protect participants or investigate abuse.

• Hostinger International Limited, which hosts Aether's single production server, database, world containers and object storage in São Paulo, Brazil.
• Resend (Plus Five Five, Inc.), which receives recipient addresses, email metadata and the message content needed in the United States to deliver invitations, password resets, support acknowledgements, staff replies and other required transactional messages. Support alerts sent to Aether staff contain case metadata and a link, not the reporter's message body.
• PostHog, Inc., which receives the limited product events and server-side release-flag requests described above. Aether uses PostHog Cloud EU in Frankfurt, Germany, with browser autocapture and session replay disabled.
• Better Stack, Inc., which checks Aether's public website, version and connection endpoints, receives success or failure signals from scheduled operations and hosts the public status page. These checks do not send Aether account identities, support records, world content, browser activity, application logs or traces.
• Infrastructure and security providers used for domain name service, certificates, source delivery and deployment, to the limited extent they process operational data.
• Public authorities, courts or professional advisers when disclosure is legally required or reasonably necessary to establish, exercise or defend rights.
• Other members of a world, according to that world's membership and permission settings. Content published in the free Marketplace is available to Marketplace visitors and users.

Aether's production server is in Brazil. Transactional email data is transferred to Resend in the United States because that processing is necessary to deliver invitations, password resets, support notifications and required account messages. Resend's Data Processing Addendum and security terms govern that processing. Aether limits the transfer to the recipient address, email metadata and message content needed for delivery.

Limited product events and release-flag requests are transferred to PostHog Cloud EU and stored in Frankfurt, Germany. PostHog and its listed subprocessors may process data in other countries, including the United States, to provide and secure the service. PostHog's Data Processing Agreement governs that processing. Aether limits the transfer to the allowlisted fields and opaque identifiers described in this notice.

Better Stack processes the public endpoint responses and operational heartbeat results needed to alert Aether and show service status. Better Stack states that it processes personal data primarily in the European Union and may transfer data under appropriate safeguards. Aether sends no user browser events, support cases, application logs or traces to Better Stack.

• Waitlist and review records are kept while the closed-alpha admission program is operating, unless the address owner asks for deletion and no legal or security reason requires limited retention.
• Active account, membership and world data is kept while the account or world exists. Sessions expire after seven days unless replaced or ended sooner.
• When a support case has been resolved for 180 days, Aether deletes its messages and diagnostics, clears its subject and removes links to the reporter and staff. Aether may keep the case reference, category, status, priority and timestamps without an account link for aggregate operating history. Account deletion performs the same scrub immediately for that account's support cases.
• Early-access invitation links expire after 14 days and work once. Invitation and administrator audit records may be retained afterward to prevent reuse and explain access decisions.
• Terminal transactional-email delivery metadata is scheduled for deletion after 30 days. Queued delivery work remains until it is sent, permanently fails or is handled by an operator.
• Aether removes terminal product-event delivery metadata after 30 days. Marketing events remain anonymous. Logged-in product events are linked to the opaque Aether account identifier. PostHog keeps submitted events while Aether's project remains active or until Aether requests deletion. Its Data Processing Agreement permits limited retention when law, dispute resolution or prevention of harmful use requires it.
• Deleting an account immediately scrubs that account's support-case content and actor links, removes pending product-event deliveries, records a provider deletion request before the account disappears, and asks PostHog to delete the matching profile, events and recordings. Aether queues the provider request immediately; PostHog performs event deletion asynchronously after accepting it. Account deletion also removes the active account and its sessions and destroys worlds owned by that account. Content already shared into another person's world, or published as a free Marketplace package, may need separate handling so that other users' worlds and legal records are not silently broken.
• Rotating backups keep up to 14 dated copies of database and world-volume data. Deleted objects displaced by a backup sync may remain longer until an operator removes them. Aether will not restore deleted account data into the active service except when needed to recover from a service failure or legal obligation.

You may ask whether Aether processes your personal data and request access, correction, information about sharing, review of relevant automated decisions, portability where applicable, anonymization, blocking or deletion of data processed unlawfully, and withdrawal of consent where consent is the legal basis. Some requests may be limited by another person's rights, a legal duty, fraud prevention or the need to preserve evidence.

Send a request to privacy@aethervtt.cloud. We may ask for enough information to verify that the request concerns your account or email address. If PostHog holds data linked to your opaque Aether account identifier, Aether will include that provider data in the request. Anonymous product events cannot normally be linked back to an account after delivery. Aether will not charge for an LGPD request.

Aether uses access controls, password hashing, scoped session and world tokens, HTTPS, server-side permission checks, isolated world processes, restricted secrets and backups intended to recover from operator mistakes. No service can promise perfect security.

The current alpha runs on one production server. Current backup evidence is recoverable from many software and operator mistakes but is not yet proven to survive loss of the server's physical disk. Do not use the alpha as the only copy of irreplaceable campaign material.

Material changes will receive a new version and effective date. If a change affects existing alpha accounts, Aether will provide notice through the service or by email before the change takes effect where required.

Questions and privacy requests may be sent to privacy@aethervtt.cloud.