Privacy, Terms & Guidelines

What we expect

• Assume good faith. A badly worded question is usually inexperience, not laziness.
• Answer the question that was asked. If you need more detail, ask for it.
• Share what you actually know, and say when you're guessing.
• Keep discussion on topic for the category you posted in.
• Credit sources when you quote code, benchmarks, or writing that isn't yours.

What gets removed

• Harassment, personal attacks, or abuse directed at a member or a group.
• Hate speech, or content that demeans people on the basis of religion, caste, gender, sexuality, disability, or origin.
• Spam, undisclosed promotion, referral-link farming, or repeated off-topic posting.
• Sharing another person's private information — phone numbers, addresses, ID numbers, private messages — without their consent.
• Sexually explicit material, graphic violence, or content illegal under Indian law.
• Deliberate misinformation on security, health, or safety topics where it could cause real harm.
• Credentials, API keys, pirated material, or malware — including in code samples.

Projects & Industry Validation

• Post only work you actually did. Claiming someone else's project as your own gets your account suspended, not just the post removed.
• Industry Reviewers must validate under their real identity and real professional affiliation. A validation from an account that can't be tied to a real person or role will be removed, along with any Karma it generated.
• Validations must reflect genuine assessment. Trading validations, paying for them, or validating a friend's project without actually reviewing it undermines the one thing that makes validation worth anything — don't do it.
• A "Recommend for Internship" flag is a real professional endorsement, not a favor. Reviewers who use it carelessly may lose validator status.

Build & Fund

• Represent your project honestly — what it actually does, what stage it's actually at, and what the funding is actually for. Padding progress numbers or misrepresenting traction is treated as fraud, not marketing.
• "Fund This Project" connects you with the project owner — it does not process a transaction on this platform. Attempting to solicit or move money through the community outside that connection, including in comments or messages, is not allowed.
• Upvotes and downvotes should reflect your own genuine read of the project. Coordinating votes, using multiple accounts, or asking others to vote without disclosing your relationship to the project is manipulation and will be treated as such.

Partner Hub

• Requirements posted by companies must be real, current hiring or sponsorship needs — not a way to collect resumes or data with no intention to hire.
• Any placement, internship, or role sourced through the platform must meet Indian labour law, including on compensation. "Exposure" is not a substitute for a paid internship where pay is legally required.
• Sponsors are expected to honor what they committed to — a prize pool, a placement fee, a partnership tier. Repeated failure to do so gets a company removed from the Partner Hub.

How enforcement works

Any member can report a post, comment, project, or profile using the report control. Reports are private — the person you report is never told who reported them. A moderator reviews each report and may remove content, remove a validation, suspend an account, or remove a company from the Partner Hub. Suspension blocks posting, commenting, voting, validating, contest entry, and profile changes. Every moderation action is recorded in an internal audit log. If you believe a decision was wrong, reply through the contact form and ask for it to be looked at again.

What we collect

• Account: your email address, and a password (stored only as a secure hash — we never see it). If you sign in with Google or LinkedIn we receive your name, email, and profile picture from them instead.
• Profile: username, display name, avatar, bio, job title, company, state, and the skills and interests you choose to add. Everything here is optional except a username, and everything here is public.
• Projects: title, description, your role, tech stack, links, images, and status for any project you post. Project content is public by default, since the point is to be discovered.
• Validation: if you're an Industry Reviewer, your validation — rating, written feedback, and reviewer identity (name, title, company) — is stored and shown publicly on the project you reviewed.
• Build & Fund interest: if you submit a funding or "invest/acquire" interest on a project, we store the amount you indicate and any message you include. This is not public — it's shared only with the project owner so the two of you can connect directly.
• Partner Hub submissions: if you post a requirement, sponsor a hackathon or contest, or apply for Employee Placement or a partner tier, we store what you submit (company name, contact details, role/requirement details) to act on your request.
• Activity: your posts, comments, votes (including project upvotes/downvotes), shares, follows, contest entries, karma, and the reports you file.
• Technical: our hosting and database providers keep standard server logs, which include IP addresses, for security and abuse prevention.

What we do NOT do

• We do not sell or rent your personal data.
• We do not run advertising, and there are no advertising cookies on this site.
• We do not use third-party analytics or tracking scripts. The only cookies set are the ones required to keep you signed in.
• We do not email you marketing. Email is used only for account matters and for notifying you about activity you've opted into (e.g. a validation, a join request, a funding interest).
• We do not process, hold, or transmit funds. Build & Fund connects interested parties; any actual exchange of money happens directly between members, off-platform, and is not something we see or store.

What is public

Your username, display name, avatar, bio, job title, company, state, skills, karma, tech level, posts, comments, projects, and follower counts are visible to anyone, including people who are not signed in, and may be indexed by search engines. Validations you've received (reviewer name, rating, feedback) are shown on your project. Your email address is never shown publicly. Your notification preferences, funding interest submissions, the reports you file, and your Partner Hub submissions are private.

Who sees your "open to internship discussions" data

If you switch on "Open to internship discussions" on a project, that project — and your associated profile information — becomes visible to companies using Employee Placement in the Partner Hub. Turning the toggle off removes this visibility going forward; it does not retroactively un-share anything already viewed.

Who else processes your data

• Supabase — database, authentication, and file storage.
• Vercel — application hosting and content delivery.
• Resend — sending account and activity emails.
• Google / LinkedIn — only if you choose to sign in with them.

How long we keep it

Your account and content are kept until you delete them. Deleting your account is immediate and permanent: it removes your profile, posts, comments, projects, validations you've given, votes, follows, and notifications. It cannot be undone and we hold no backup from which you can be restored. Provider server logs are retained on those providers' own schedules.

Your rights

• Access and correct — edit any profile or project field from Account Settings at any time.
• Change your email — from Account Settings; it takes effect only after you confirm from the new address.
• Delete — remove your account and content yourself from Account Settings.
• Object or complain — contact us using the details below.

Children

This community is intended for people aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect data from children. Under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023, processing a child's personal data requires verifiable consent from a parent or guardian; if we learn that an account belongs to a child, we will remove it.

Contact

Questions or complaints about your personal data go to ping@indiantechcommunity.com. India's DPDP Act 2023 requires this contact to be published, so it is.

Your account

You must give an email address you control, and you are responsible for everything done through your account. Keep your password to yourself. One person, one account: accounts created to evade a suspension will be removed. You must be 18 or over.

Your content

You keep ownership of everything you post, including projects. By posting, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, display, and distribute that content within the platform, and to show excerpts of it in search results, link previews, and to companies browsing Employee Placement if you've opted in. This licence exists only so the community can function; it ends for new displays when you delete the content, though copies may persist in caches and in other members' quotes, replies, or validations already given.

Acceptable use

You agree not to post anything that breaks the Community Guidelines or Indian law; not to scrape, crawl, or bulk-download the site; not to attempt to access accounts or data that are not yours; and not to probe, disrupt, or overload the service. Reporting a security flaw responsibly is welcome and will not be treated as a breach.

Karma, levels, and contests

Karma points, tech levels, trophies, and contest results have no monetary value, cannot be transferred or exchanged, and may be recalculated or reset if we find them to have been manipulated. Contest rules, eligibility, and any prizes are set out on each contest and are the responsibility of that contest's organiser or sponsor.

Projects & Industry Validation

You are responsible for the accuracy of what you post as a project — misrepresenting someone else's work as your own is a breach of these terms. A validation is the personal professional opinion of the reviewer who gave it; it is not a guarantee, warranty, or certification issued by Indian Tech Community, and we are not responsible for decisions — hiring, funding, or otherwise — that any party makes in reliance on it.

Build & Fund

Build & Fund is a connection tool, not a financial platform. We do not process, hold, custody, or transmit funds; we do not broker, underwrite, or guarantee any investment; and nothing on this platform constitutes an offer or solicitation to buy or sell securities, or investment advice of any kind. Any funding, investment, or acquisition arrangement made after a connection is made through Build & Fund is a private matter between the members involved, entered into entirely at their own risk and responsibility, and is not facilitated, reviewed, or guaranteed by us in any way. Upvotes and downvotes on a project reflect member opinion only and are not a rating of investment merit.

Partner Hub

Companies using Partner Hub — to post a requirement, sponsor a hackathon or contest, seek Employee Placement, or become a partner — are solely responsible for complying with applicable law, including labour and employment law, in any role, internship, or engagement arranged through the platform. We facilitate introductions; we are not a party to, and do not guarantee the outcome of, any hiring, sponsorship, or placement arrangement.

Moderation and termination

We may remove content, remove a validation, suspend an account, or remove a company from the Partner Hub if these terms or the Community Guidelines are broken. We aim to be proportionate and to explain ourselves, but we do not guarantee prior notice where content is unlawful or harmful. You may close your account at any time.

Availability and liability

The service is provided as-is. We do not guarantee it will be uninterrupted or error-free, and we do not guarantee that anything posted here — including projects, validations, or funding interest — is accurate. Nothing here is professional, financial, or legal advice. To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss arising from your use of the service, from your reliance on content posted by other members, or from any arrangement entered into via Build & Fund or Partner Hub. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited.

Changes and governing law

We may update these terms; the date at the top shows when they last changed, and material changes will be announced in the community. Continuing to use the service after a change means you accept it. These terms are governed by the laws of India, and any disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts at Pune, Maharashtra.

Who runs this service

Indian Tech Community Private Limited. Registered address: Viman Nagar, Pune, Maharashtra, India.