Privacy Policy: MakerFoundry
Effective date: November 2, 2026
The short version. You can browse and download free designs without telling us anything. With a Foundry Account, we keep what the site needs: your account's number and email, your sign-ins, your maker profile, and the designs and photos you upload. Your email is never shown to other people. Photos are saved again without their hidden details, such as where they were taken. We don't sell your data, show ads or track you.
1. Who we are
This policy explains how Bruce Wattendorf, doing business as SiteSentrix ("SiteSentrix", "we") handles personal information on MakerFoundry (makerfoundry.app). Your Foundry Account (email, password, Foundry credits) is run by the StitchFoundry cloud service, and StitchFoundry's Privacy Policy (stitchfoundry.app/privacy) covers it. This policy covers what MakerFoundry itself keeps.
2. What we collect and why
| Information | Why we need it | How long we keep it |
|---|---|---|
| Your Foundry Account's number and email address | To know which designs are yours. Your email is never shown to others | Until you close your account |
| Sign-ins (a scrambled form of the cookie's id, the account service's sign-in for the same session, start date, last use) | To keep you signed in on that browser, and to sign you out here when you sign out or reset your password elsewhere | Until you sign out, or 30 days unused |
| Your maker profile (name, address on the site, "about you") | To show who made a design. Public | Until you change it or close your account |
| Your founding-creator application (the name you give, a link to your work, what you make, when, and whether it was approved) | To choose MakerFoundry's founding creators. Seen only by our admins; if you're approved, your badge and its number are public | Until you delete your data or close your account |
| Your designs: the files, what reading them found (size, stitches, colours), the previews we draw, titles, descriptions, tags and licences | To list and deliver them. Public once you publish, private before | Until you delete them or close your account |
| 3D models you upload or import: the files and images, and what reading them finds (size, triangles, the print settings listed in the Terms § 5, which program made a 3MF). From a 3MF's settings we keep only those print settings, not the rest of the file's text | To list and deliver them. Public once you publish, private before | Until you delete them or close your account. Imports keep each file's name and folder until it becomes a draft; files not made into drafts, and imported drafts never published, are deleted after 30 days |
| Likes (which models you've liked, and when) | To count them. Shown only as a count | Until you unlike or close your account |
| Showcase consents (what you've said we may feature, when you said so, when you withdrew, and where we posted it) | To feature only what you asked us to (Terms § 6), and to take down what was posted when you withdraw | While the consent stands; after you withdraw, until every post from it is taken down, then a year |
| "Originally published on" (the site, address and date you give for an imported model) | To credit where you first shared it. We never fetch that address | As the model |
| Photos of your work, saved again as new images | To show on your designs. Their hidden details (location, camera) are removed when you upload them | As your designs |
| Makes you post (a photo of what you made from a design, saved again as a new image, and your note) | To show on the design's page, with your maker name. Public | Until you, the design's maker or an admin take it down, or the design is deleted |
| Comments you post (the text, when) | To show under the design, with your maker name. Public | Until you, the design's maker or an admin take it down, or the design is deleted |
| Proofs you send (the design file, what reading it found, the drawing we make, photos saved again as new images, your shop's name, your note of who it's for, your message and notes) | To show them to you and to whoever has the proof's link. Never public | A year after the proof's last activity, or until you delete it or close your account |
| What a shop's customer writes on a proof (the name they type, their comments, their approval or request for changes, when) | To show to the shop and the customer on the proof. It belongs to the shop that sent the proof: we keep it for them and use it for nothing else | As the proof |
| The makers you follow | To show you their new designs. Private: a maker sees only how many people follow them | Until you unfollow or close your account |
| Your Saved list and collections (which designs, when) | To keep them for you. Saved is private; a collection is private unless you make it public | Until you remove them or close your account |
| Download counts (a number for each design, not who downloaded it) | To show how popular a design is | As the design |
| Reports, copyright notices and counter-notices you send (what you wrote, and for notices the name, address, phone, email and signature the law asks for) | To review them and act on them. A notice may be passed to the maker concerned, and a counter-notice to whoever sent the notice, as the law expects | 3 years, for our records of what we did |
| What admins did about reports (who, when, what) | To keep a record of takedowns, including for repeat infringers | As reports |
| Your network address, for a short time | To limit how often things can be tried (sign-ins, sign-ups, reports, answers to proofs). Kept in memory only, never stored | Up to 24 hours |
| Error logs | To find and fix problems. They don't contain passwords, files or photos | Up to 30 days |
Purchases and sales. For each purchase we keep what was bought, by whom, from whom, when, the price, our fee, the card fee and Stripe's references for the payment, to deliver the buyer's library, show the seller their sales, and for our accounts: kept 7 years, for tax records. For sellers we keep the reference of their Stripe account and whether Stripe says it can take payments. Your card details go to Stripe and never reach us; sellers' bank and identity details are held by Stripe, not by us.
Agreements. When you sign up, publish or set up selling, we keep which version of these policies and terms you agreed to, and when: as long as your account, and for 7 years after a sale.
If a shop sent you a proof. You don't need an account to answer it. What you type goes to the shop, which decides what to do with it; to have it removed, ask the shop, or us at support@makerfoundry.app. We don't use it for anything else and don't contact you.
What we never get: your password (the account service checks it), your card number, and who downloaded which free design.
3. Who we share it with
We don't sell or rent personal information, and we don't share it for advertising. Only the companies that run parts of MakerFoundry for us receive it:
| Company | What it does for us | What it receives |
|---|---|---|
| SiteSentrix's StitchFoundry cloud service | Runs Foundry Accounts | Your email and password when you sign up or in; requests to check your sign-in |
| Railway | Hosts the site and its database in the United States | Everything in section 2 except files and photos |
| Cloudflare | Stores the design files and photos (R2), and the site's domain | Design files and photos; Cloudflare also passes visits to the site |
| Stripe | Takes payments and pays sellers | What you give on Stripe's pages; for a purchase, the design's title and price; for a seller, their account number on MakerFoundry |
Each handles data under its own privacy policy: railway.com/legal/privacy, cloudflare.com/privacypolicy and stripe.com/privacy.
Virus checks and conversions. Uploaded files are checked for viruses, and STEP and OpenSCAD files are converted, by programs we run on our own hosting (Railway); they aren't shared with anyone else.
Our social pages. Only for projects you asked us to feature (Terms § 6): their images, title, link and your maker name, posted by us on Facebook, Instagram or YouTube.
What's public. Published designs (files, photos, previews, descriptions) and maker profiles are public: anyone can see and download them. Drafts are seen only by you, and by our admins if a design is reported. Proofs are never public: only the shop that sent one and whoever has its link can see it.
We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to answer a valid copyright notice, to protect our users or the site from fraud or abuse, or to a buyer if the business is sold, who must keep this policy's promises.
4. Cookies, tracking and advertising
MakerFoundry uses one cookie: the sign-in cookie, set only when you sign in, needed to keep you signed in, readable only by makerfoundry.app over HTTPS. No analytics, no tracking pixels, no advertising, no third-party scripts.
5. Security
- Everything travels over encrypted HTTPS.
- The sign-in cookie can't be read by scripts and is kept by us only as a scrambled hash; the account service's sign-in for the same session never reaches your browser.
- When you publish from StitchFoundry or another Foundry app, the app sends your Foundry Account sign-in with the design; we check it with the account service for that one request and never keep it.
- Files and photos are stored privately under random names; downloads use links that work for a few minutes.
- Uploaded files are checked before they're kept, and photos are rebuilt from scratch.
- The database is on Railway's private network, not reachable from the internet, and backed up.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your information, we'll tell you and the authorities as the law requires.
6. Your choices and rights
Wherever you live, you can:
- See your data. Your account page, your designs and your maker profile show what we keep. Account › Your data › Download a copy gives you all of it in one file, at any time. You can also ask at support@makerfoundry.app.
- Correct it. Change your maker profile and your designs' details at any time.
- Delete it. Delete your drafts, unpublish or delete published designs, or delete all of your MakerFoundry data at once (Account › Your data), and close your Foundry Account as StitchFoundry's Terms describe. We delete everything except records the law asks us to keep (purchases, sales, agreements to these terms), records of copyright notices and takedowns, and designs people have bought, which are unpublished and kept so they keep their downloads.
You can withdraw a showcase consent at any time (Account › Featuring your projects). Your likes, imports and showcase consents are in your data download, and deleting your data deletes your likes and imports and withdraws every consent.
We answer requests within 30 days and never charge for them. We may need to confirm the request comes from your account's email.
California residents have these rights under the CCPA, plus the right not to be treated differently for using them. We don't sell or "share" personal information for advertising as the CCPA defines it.
Europe and the UK. If you live there, the GDPR gives you these rights, plus the rights to object, to limit use, to move your data, and to complain to your data protection authority. Our legal bases: running the service you signed up for (account, designs, profile); legal duties (copyright notices, payment records); and our legitimate interest in keeping the site safe (rate limits, error logs, reports). Your data is processed in the United States.
7. Children, changes and contact
Children. Accounts are for adults 18 and over (or the age of majority where you live, if older). We don't knowingly collect information from anyone younger. If you believe a child has made an account, tell us and we'll delete it.
Changes. If we change this policy in an important way, we'll tell you on the site or by email at least 14 days before it applies. We'll never start using data you already gave us in a new way without asking you first.
Contact. Bruce Wattendorf, doing business as SiteSentrix, 8 Maplewood Dr., Mapleville, RI 02839, support@makerfoundry.app.