Reddit Privacy Policy
Introduction
At Reddit, we believe that privacy is a right. We want to empower our users to be the masters of their identity. In this privacy policy, we want to help you understand how and why Reddit (“Reddit,“ “we“ or “us”) collects, uses, and shares information about you when you use our websites, mobile apps, widgets, APIs, emails, and other online products and services (collectively, the “Services“) or when you otherwise interact with us or receive a communication from us.
We want this privacy policy to empower you to make better choices about how you use Reddit. We'd love for you to read the whole policy, but if you don't, here is the TL;DR:
Reddit is a public platform. Our communities are largely public and anyone can see your profile, posts, and comments.
We collect minimal information that can be used to identify you by default. If you want to just browse, you don't need an account. If you want to create an account to participate in a subreddit, we don't require you to give us your real name. We don't track your precise location. You can even browse anonymously. You can share as much or as little about yourself as you want when using Reddit.
Any data we collect is used primarily to provide our Services, which are focused on allowing people to come together and form communities. We don't sell your personal data to third parties, and we never work with data brokers.
Privacy rights are for everyone. At Reddit, anyone can request a copy of their data, account deletion, or information about our policies.
We've tried our best to make this as easy to understand as possible but sometimes privacy policies are still confusing. If you need help understanding this policy or anything about Reddit, just ask.
Reddit Is a Public Platform
Much of the information on the Services is public and accessible to everyone, even without an account. By using the Services, you are directing us to share this information publicly and freely.
When you submit content (e.g., a post, comment, or chat message) to a public part of the Services, any visitors to and users of our Services will be able to see that content, the username associated with the content, and the date and time you originally submitted the content. That content and information may also be available in search results on Internet search engines like Google or in responses provided by an AI chatbot like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. You should take the public nature of the Services into consideration before posting.
Your Reddit account has a profile page that is public. Your profile contains information about your activities on the Services, such as your username, prior posts and comments, karma, trophies received, profile display name, about section, and social links, avatar or profile image, moderator, contributor, and Reddit Premium status, communities you are active in, and how long you have been a member of the Services (your cake day).
We offer social sharing features that let you share content or actions you take on our Services with other media. Your use of these features enables the sharing of certain information with your friends or the public, depending on the settings you establish with the third party that provides the social sharing feature. For more information about the purpose and scope of data collection and processing in connection with social sharing features, please visit the privacy policies of the third parties that provide these social sharing features (e.g., Tumblr, Facebook, and X).
Reddit allows moderators to access Reddit content using moderator bots and tools. Reddit also allows other third parties to access public Reddit content using Reddit’s developer services, including Reddit Embeds, our APIs, Developer Platform, and similar technologies. We limit third-party access to this content and require third parties to pay licensing fees for access to larger quantities of content. Reddit’s Developer Terms are our standard terms governing how these services are used by third parties. Please review our public content policy here for more information about how your public content is publicly available and accessible to anyone with access to the internet.
What Information We Collect
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How We Use Information
We use information about you to:
- Provide, maintain, and improve the Services;
- Personalize services, content, and features that match your activities, preferences, and settings;
- Help protect the safety of Reddit and our users, which includes blocking suspected spammers, addressing abuse, and enforcing the Reddit User Agreement and our other terms and policies, as well as comply with applicable law;
- Provide, optimize, target, and measure the effectiveness of ads shown on our Services;
- Research and develop new services;
- Send you technical notices, updates, security alerts, invoices, and other support and administrative messages;
- Provide customer service;
- Communicate with you about products, services, offers, promotions, events, and programs, and provide other news and information we think will be of interest to you (for information about how to opt out of these communications, see “Your Choices” below); and
- Monitor and analyze trends, usage, and activities in connection with our Services.
How We Protect Your Information
We take measures to help protect information about you from loss, theft, misuse and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. For example, we use HTTPS while information is being transmitted. We also enforce technical and administrative access controls to limit which of our employees have access to non-public personal information.
You can help maintain the security of your account by configuring two-factor authentication.
We store the information we collect for as long as it is necessary for the purpose(s) for which we originally collected it. We may retain certain information for legitimate business purposes and/or if we believe doing so is in accordance with, or as required by, any applicable law. For example, if you violate our policies and your account is suspended or banned, we may store the identifiers used to create the account (such as phone number) to prevent you from creating new accounts.
Your Rights and Choices
You have choices about how to protect and limit the collection, use, and sharing of information about you when you use the Services. Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to correction/rectification of your personal information, to opt out of certain advertising practices, or to withdraw consent for processing where you have previously provided consent. Below we explain how to exercise each of these rights. Reddit does not discriminate against users for exercising their rights under data protection laws.
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If you have questions or are not able to submit a request to exercise your rights using the mechanisms above, you may also email us at redditdatarequests@reddit.com from the email address that you have verified with your Reddit account, or submit them here.
Before we process a request from you about your personal information, we need to verify the request via your access to your Reddit account or to a verified email address associated with your Reddit account. If we deny your request, you may appeal our decision by contacting us at redditdatarequests@reddit.com.
International Data Transfers
Reddit, Inc. is based in the United States and we process and store information on servers located in the United States. We may store information on servers and equipment in other countries depending on a variety of factors, including the locations of our users and service providers. By accessing or using the Services or otherwise providing information to us, you consent to the processing, transfer, and storage of information in and to the United States and other countries, where you may not have the same rights as you do under local law.
When we transfer the personal data of users in the EEA, UK and/or Switzerland, we rely on the Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission for such transfers or other transfer mechanisms deemed ‘adequate’ under applicable laws.
EU-U.S., UK Extension, and Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Frameworks Disclosure
Reddit complies with the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (EU-U.S. DPF) and the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (Swiss-U.S. DPF) as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Reddit has certified to the U.S. Department of Commerce that it adheres to the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Principles (EU-U.S. DPF Principles) with regard to the processing of personal data received from the European Union and the United Kingdom in reliance on the EU-U.S. DPF and the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF. Reddit has certified to the U.S. Department of Commerce that it adheres to the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Principles (Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles) with regard to the processing of personal data received from Switzerland in reliance on the Swiss-U.S. DPF. If there is any conflict between the terms in this privacy policy and the EU-U.S. DPF Principles and/or the Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles, the Principles shall govern. To learn more about the Data Privacy Framework (DPF) Program, and to view our certification, please visit https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/.
Reddit’s compliance with the DPF is subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. In accordance with the DPF, Reddit is also liable for onward transfers to third parties that process personal information in a way that does not follow the DPF unless Reddit was not responsible for the event giving rise to any alleged damage.
In some situations, the DPF Framework gives you the right to invoke binding arbitration. You can do this to resolve complaints not resolved by other means, as described in Annex I to the DPF framework. In compliance with the EU-U.S. DPF and the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF and the Swiss-U.S. DPF, Reddit commits to refer unresolved complaints concerning our handling of personal data received in reliance on the EU-U.S. DPF and the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF and the Swiss-U.S. DPF to JAMS, an alternative dispute resolution provider based in the United States. If you do not receive timely acknowledgment of your DPF Principles-related complaint from us, or if we have not addressed your DPF Principles-related complaint to your satisfaction, please visit https://www.jamsadr.com/dpf-dispute-resolution for more information or to file a complaint. The services of JAMS are provided at no cost to you.
Additional Information for EEA and UK Users
If you live in the European Economic Area (“EEA”), Reddit Netherlands B.V., is the controller of information processed in connection with the Reddit platform and this policy. If you live in the United Kingdom (“UK”), Reddit, Inc., is the data controller and Reddit UK Limited is Reddit’s UK GDPR Article 27 Representative.
Users in the EEA and UK have the right to request access to, rectification of, or erasure of their personal data; to data portability in certain circumstances; to request restriction of processing; to object to processing; and to withdraw consent for processing where they have previously provided consent. These rights can be exercised as described in the “Your Rights and Choices section above. EEA users also have the right to lodge a complaint with their local supervisory authority.
As required by applicable law, we collect and process information about individuals in the EEA and UK only where we have a legal basis for doing so. Our legal bases depend on the Services you use and how you use them. We process your information where:
- It is necessary to fulfill our contract with you, including
- to provide, operate, and improve the Services, provide customer support, personalize features and to protect the safety and security of the Services;
- It satisfies a legitimate interest (which is not overridden by your data protection interests), such as preventing fraud, ensuring network and information security, enforcing our rules and policies, protecting our legal rights and interests, research and development, personalizing the Services, and marketing and promoting the Services;
- You have consented for us to do so for a specific purpose; or
- We need to process your information to comply with our legal obligations.
Additional Information for California Users
The California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), as amended, requires us to provide California residents with some additional information, which we address in this section.
In the last 12 months, we collected the following categories of personal information from California residents, depending on the Services used:
- Identifiers and account information, like your Reddit username, email address, phone number, IP address, and cookie information.
- Commercial information, including information about transactions you undertake with us.
- Internet or other electronic network activity information, such as information about your activity on our Services and limited information about your activity on the services of advertisers who use our advertising technology.
- Geolocation information based on your IP address.
- Your messages with other users (for example, private messages, chats, and modmail).
- Audiovisual information in pictures, audio, or video content submitted to Reddit.
- Professional or employment-related information or demographic information, but only if you explicitly provide it to us, such as by applying for a job or filling out a survey.
- Inferences we make based on other collected data, for purposes such as recommending content, advertising, and analytics.
You can find more information about (a) what we collect and sources of that information in the “Information We Collect” section of this notice, (b) the business and commercial purposes for collecting that information in the “How We Use Your Information” section, and (c) the categories of third parties with whom we share that information in the “How We Share Information” section.
If you are a California resident, you have additional rights under the CCPA, including the right to opt out of any sales or sharing of your personal information, to request access to and information about our data practices, and to request deletion or correction of your personal information, as well as the right not to be discriminated against for exercising your privacy rights. Reddit does not “sell” or “share” personal information as those terms are defined under the CCPA. We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information except to provide you the Services or as otherwise permitted by the CCPA.
You may exercise your rights to access, delete, or correct your personal information as described in the “Your Rights and Choices” section of this notice. When you make a request, we will verify your identity by asking you to sign into your account or if necessary by requesting additional information from you. You may also make a rights request using an authorized agent. If you submit a rights request from an authorized agent who does not provide a valid power of attorney, we may ask the authorized agent to provide proof that you gave the agent signed permission to submit the request to exercise rights on your behalf. In the absence of a valid power of attorney, we may also require you to verify your own identity directly with us or confirm to us that you otherwise provided the authorized agent permission to submit the request. If you have any questions or concerns, you may reach us using the methods described under “Your Rights and Choices” or by emailing us at redditdatarequests@reddit.com.
Children
Children under the age of 13 are not allowed to create an account or otherwise use the Services. Additionally, if you are located outside the United States, you must be over the age required by the laws of your country to create an account or otherwise use the Services, or we need to have obtained verifiable consent from your parent or legal guardian.
Changes to This Policy
We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we do, we will let you know by revising the date at the top of the policy. If the changes, in our sole discretion, are material, we may also notify you by sending an email to the address associated with your account (if you have chosen to provide an email address) or by otherwise providing notice through our Services. We encourage you to review the Privacy Policy regularly to stay informed about our information practices and the ways you can help protect your privacy. By continuing to use our Services after Privacy Policy changes go into effect, you agree to be bound by the revised policy.
Contact Us
If you have other questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at:
Reddit, Inc.
548 Market St. #16093
San Francisco, California 94104
For email inquiries, you may reach our Data Protection Office at dpo@reddit.com.
Users in the European Economic Area may contact us at:
Reddit Netherlands B.V.
Euro Business Center
Keizersgracht 62, 1015CS Amsterdam
Netherlands
dpo@reddit.com
United Kingdom Users may contact us at:
Reddit UK Limited,
5 New Street Square,
London, United Kingdom,
EC4A 3TW
ukrepresentative@reddit.com