Last updated: 27 October 2026
C.O.P.S. is an independent directory, not the official Conquer Online service. This policy covers the C.O.P.S. website, accounts, server listings, voting, monitoring tools, and optional paid features.
01 Who is responsible
C.O.P.S. is operated as a small independent project. For privacy questions or requests, email [email protected]. This policy is intended to be governed by UK law, while preserving any mandatory privacy rights that apply where you live.
02 Account information
When you create an account, we collect your display name, email address, password in hashed form, verification status, and normal account timestamps. We use this to create and protect your account, send verification or password-reset emails, and let you manage your C.O.P.S. profile and server listings.
We do not need your payment-card number. Passwords are not stored in readable form.
03 Voting and technical data
To enforce the 12-hour voting limit, keep rankings credible, and investigate abuse, a vote record includes the selected server, account ID when you are signed in, a keyed HMAC-SHA256 fingerprint derived from your IP address (not the raw IP in the vote record), vote status and timestamps, a hash of your browser user-agent, and an optional player or user ID that you choose to enter. Rejected submissions from configured blocked networks are logged with the listing ID and IP fingerprint plus a generic blocked-network reason, not the raw IP. The fingerprint is pseudonymous and can remain linkable while the application key is retained.
When a listing owner has configured a callback, the supplied player/user ID and confirmed-vote details can be sent to that owner’s callback URL. Do not enter information you do not want that server owner to receive.
04 Listings, monitoring, and legacy forum data
Server owners may provide server names, descriptions, websites, Discord links, logos, banners, screenshots, rates, regions, launch details, monitoring endpoints, and live-player-count endpoints. We use this information to display and operate the directory and its optional owner tools.
The forum/community feature has been retired. Previously public forum content and related records may remain in legacy storage or backups, but are no longer served through community pages. C.O.P.S. no longer accepts new forum posts, replies, reactions, reports, or subscriptions.
When you follow a listing link, we record the selected server and the requesting IP address to measure outbound traffic and help investigate abuse.
05 Payments
For Gold membership or sponsored advertising, C.O.P.S. stores an order record containing the account and server involved, product and package, amount and currency, order status, and relevant PayPal order/capture identifiers and responses. We also retain verified PayPal webhook event records, including event IDs and types, environment, provider payload and processing status, along with any administrator decision recorded for a partial-refund review. These records are used to verify payment state, recover processing, prevent duplicate fulfillment, and apply access decisions after refunds or reversals. PayPal processes the payment itself. We do not receive or store your full card or bank details in this application. See our Refunds and Paid Promotion Access policy for the access effects of confirmed refunds and reversals.
06 Analytics, advertising, cookies, and similar technology
The site uses necessary session and security cookies so accounts, forms, login protection, and navigation work. These can include Laravel session and CSRF-related cookies.
We load Plausible analytics from analytics.notabis.com to understand basic site usage and improve C.O.P.S. This analytics service is configured separately from the optional advertising choice.
C.O.P.S. also displays contextual advertisements through NOTABIS Ads. First-party NOTABIS campaigns may be requested whether or not you allow optional advertising. An ExoClick third-party banner is requested only after you allow Advertising with Accept all or save customised settings with Advertising enabled. If you reject or later withdraw that choice, new ExoClick requests stop; first-party NOTABIS campaigns can still appear.
When an ExoClick banner is selected, your browser connects directly to ExoClick. That request necessarily shares connection and placement information such as your IP address, browser or device details, the page referrer, and the ad zone. ExoClick may use cookies or similar storage for ad delivery, measurement, and related purposes. See the ExoClick Privacy Policy for how it handles that information.
The shared NOTABIS privacy notice stores your chosen categories in this browser’s local storage for up to 180 days. You can reopen Privacy choices from the page footer. When you save a choice, NOTABIS Ads records aggregate daily counts by website, policy version, and choice category; it does not create an individual named or browser-ID consent record.
Your browser may also receive resources, cookies, or tracking from a linked service such as PayPal, a server website, Discord, or another external provider; those services have their own policies.
07 How we use information
We use information to run the site, authenticate accounts, send essential account emails, publish listings, process votes, enforce limits, prevent fraud and abuse, provide monitoring and callbacks, process payments, measure traffic, troubleshoot faults, and comply with legal obligations.
We do not sell account, voting, or payment data. We do not use private account information to advertise unrelated products.
08 Who may receive it
Access is limited to C.O.P.S. administrators and the service providers needed to run the site. Depending on what you use, these can include the hosting provider, email provider, Plausible, NOTABIS Ads, ExoClick when you allow optional advertising, PayPal, security or infrastructure providers, and a server owner receiving a callback that you deliberately triggered.
Public profile and listing information can be visible to other visitors. Previously public forum content is no longer served through community pages. We may disclose information when reasonably necessary to investigate abuse, protect users or the site, enforce these terms, or comply with a valid legal request.
09 Retention
We keep information for as long as it is needed for the purpose it was collected. Account and listing data normally remains while the account or listing is active. Vote and outbound-click records may be kept to protect ranking integrity, measure traffic, and investigate abuse. Payment, webhook, refund-review, and entitlement records may be retained together for accounting, fraud prevention, payment disputes, access decisions, and legal requirements. Previously public forum content and related records may remain in legacy storage or backups after the feature retirement; no new forum content is collected.
We periodically remove or anonymise information that is no longer useful, but exact retention periods depend on the type of record and the operational or legal reason for keeping it.
10 Your choices and rights
Depending on where you live, you may have rights to ask for a copy of your personal information, correction of inaccurate information, deletion, restriction or objection to certain uses, or an explanation of how your information is used. You can edit some account information from account settings or contact us to make a privacy request.
To make a privacy request, email [email protected]. We may need to verify your identity before making changes. You can also complain to the data-protection regulator in the country where you live or work.
11 Security
We use reasonable safeguards, including password hashing, access controls, encrypted transport where supported, and limited administrator access. No small website can promise perfect security, so please avoid posting secrets and tell us promptly if you think an account or callback key has been exposed.
12 Policy changes and contact
We may update this policy when the site or its providers change. The date at the top shows the current version. For questions about this policy, email [email protected].