Privacy

How The Hydraulisc Network Protects Your Privacy

As per always, this article covers official instances only! Self-hosted versions may differ depending on the operator.

Privacy is a Right.

Hydraulisc is built with the principle that privacy is not a feature — it's a default. We collect only the minimum data required to operate each service, and provide optional layers of control and anonymity.

Emails are optional.

We do not require an email address to use any Hydraulisc platform. Email is treated as an optional second-factor method for account recovery or multi-factor authentication (MFA), not a point of identification.

Self-Hostability

Don't want to trust us? Don't. All platforms under The Hydraulisc Network are Open Source and self-hostable. Self-hosted instances can:

Implement custom OAuth2 providers
Operate entirely offline or in isolated networks
Interact with official or third party OAuth2 Hydraulisc instances to log users in on our other platforms (except Blogger^* , which relies on Firebase Auth).

What do you lose by not using the official instance? Minimal convenience features such as integrated OAuth2 between sibling services.

API-Level Protections

Our public APIs include built-in privacy controls:

Privacy settings prevent users from being listed in public directories or exposed through search endpoints — enabled by default
API responses are sanitized to minimize metadata exposure
Rate-limiting and strict permission scopes reduce abuse vectors

Algorithm Transparency

Recommendation systems use a lightweight ELO-based ranking with minor augmentations for similarity scoring. While imperfect, the logic is public and documented. All data used by these algorithms is stored locally per instance, never shared across networks.

Minimal Tracking

Hydraulisc platforms do not include analytics scripts, pixel trackers, or third-party beacons by default. We do not fingerprint users or run background telemetry. Your activity stays on the server you chose to use.

However, there are valid concerns regarding Google scraping the domain (hydraulisc.net) and Cloudflare acting as both a nameserver and CDN. These services may expose limited metadata to their systems (e.g. through anonymous analytics). If this concerns you, we encourage self-hosting to maintain full control.

Your Controls

Privacy Settings: Profiles are not indexed by default — visibility controls are opt-in, and API/profile indexing is disabled unless explicitly enabled
Delete Account: Available in all official platforms
Data Portability: You can export your own data directly from your account settings
GDPR Compliance: You can request your data at any time on official instances

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