ChatOnline Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

Welcome to ChatOnline, owned and operated by Kawaii, Inc., a platform for chatting with and creating fictional AI characters. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, share, and protect your personal information, including how artificial intelligence ("AI") providers process what you type. By using ChatOnline, you consent to the collection, use, and sharing of your information as described in this policy. Last updated October 1, 2026.

2. Information Collection

We collect information in several ways:

  • Personal Identification Information: This may include, but is not limited to, your name, email address, and contact details when you register for an account, subscribe to a newsletter, or contact customer support.
  • Usage Data: Information about how you access and use our Service, including the dates and times of your visits, the pages viewed, and other similar information.
  • Chat Data: The messages you send to characters and the replies generated for you. Conversations are stored in your account so you can return to them.
  • Characters You Create: The name, image, greeting, description, definition, and tags you submit when you create a character. Published characters are public and can be viewed and chatted with by anyone on ChatOnline.
  • Reports: If you report a character, we record the reason, any details you add, and your account identifier so we can review it.
  • Purchase Data: Subscription status and transaction identifiers from the App Store, Stripe, or RevenueCat. We never see your full payment card details.
  • Cookies and Tracking Technologies: ChatOnline uses cookies, beacons, tags, and other tracking technologies to enhance user experience and gather usage data.

3. Use of Information

Your information is used for the following purposes:

  • To provide and maintain our Service, including generating character replies to your messages
  • To review characters and messages for compliance with our Community Guidelines, using automated moderation and human review
  • To personalize your experience
  • To improve customer service
  • To process transactions and manage accounts
  • To send periodic emails for updates or promotions
  • To comply with legal requirements

4. AI Data Processing

ChatOnline's characters are powered by third-party AI models. To make the Service work, we send certain content to AI providers through their APIs:

  • Chat messages: When you send a message, that message, recent messages from the same conversation, and the character's description and definition are sent to a language-model provider to generate the reply. At the time of writing, replies are generated through OpenRouter, which routes requests to model providers such as DeepSeek.
  • Character submissions: When you create a character, its text and image are sent to OpenAI's moderation service and to an AI reviewer (OpenAI models via OpenRouter) that checks the submission against our Community Guidelines before it is published.
  • What is not sent: Your name, email address, and payment information are not included in these requests. Requests are identified by the conversation or character, not by your identity.

AI providers process this content under their own terms and privacy policies, and may retain inputs for a limited period for abuse and safety monitoring. We use API services that, according to the providers' published terms, do not use API inputs to train their models by default. AI-generated replies are produced automatically, are fiction, and may be inaccurate; see our Community Guidelines and Terms of Service.

You can stop this processing at any time by not sending messages or creating characters. Deleting your account removes your conversations from our systems; content already processed by a provider is subject to that provider's retention period.

4a. Data Sharing and Disclosure

We may share your information with:

  • AI Providers: As described in section 4.
  • Service Providers: Third parties who perform services on our behalf, including Google Firebase (authentication, database, hosting, analytics), Google AdMob (advertising in the iOS app), RevenueCat and Apple (subscriptions), Stripe (web payments), Vercel (web hosting), Cloudflare (content delivery), and Elastic (search).
  • Other Users: Characters you publish, including their name, image, and public text, and your username as their creator.
  • Legal Requirements: If required by law or in response to legal processes.
  • Business Transfers: In connection with any merger, sale of company assets, or acquisition.

5. Data Security

We implement various security measures to protect your personal information, but no system is entirely secure. We cannot guarantee the absolute security of your data.

6. International Transfer

Your information may be transferred to and maintained on computers located outside of your country or jurisdiction, where privacy laws may differ.

7. Your Rights

You have certain rights regarding your personal information, including the right to access, correct, or delete your data.

8. Data Retention

We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services, comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

9. Third-Party Links

Our Service may contain links to third-party sites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these sites.

10. Children's Privacy

ChatOnline is intended for adults. You must be 18 or older to use the Service. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18, and we remove accounts we reasonably believe belong to minors.

11. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to update or change our Privacy Policy at any time. Your continued use of the Service following any changes indicates your agreement to the new terms.

12. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at [email protected].