Who We Are
Aana Network is a global entrepreneur community operated by Aana Solutions, based in Chennai, India. You can contact us any time at contact@aanasolutions.net.
What Data We Collect
When you sign up and use Aana Network, we collect:
- Account basics — name, email, password (stored as a bcrypt hash, never in plaintext), role, location (country + city), a short description of what you do, interests, and an optional LinkedIn URL.
- Community posts — every message you send in the group feed, including the tag, text, and reactions.
- Direct messages — text of each 1:1 chat you send or receive.
- Moderation data — the AI moderator's verdict on each post (approve / reject + reason), stored in an audit log for admin review.
- Interest-match results — scores assigned by our AI to help surface posts relevant to you under "My Leads".
- Web push subscriptions — the endpoint and keys your browser provides when you enable notifications. We use these only to send you in-app alerts.
- Technical data — IP address, browser user agent, and timestamps, for security and abuse prevention.
Why We Collect It
- To run the community and verify real members.
- To moderate content automatically against our Community Guidelines.
- To match you with posts and people you'd likely find useful.
- To send you notifications (DMs, high-match leads) if you've opted in.
- To prevent spam, abuse, and impersonation.
- To improve the service over time.
How We Store It
Data is stored in a MongoDB database managed by Aana Solutions. Access is restricted to authorised administrators. Passwords are hashed with bcrypt. We apply reasonable security practices, but no system on the internet is 100% secure.
AI Moderation
Your group messages are sent to our self-hosted AI moderator (running on Aana-controlled infrastructure, not a third-party cloud) to check for rule violations. The decision (approve or reject + reason) is logged to help admins audit the moderator's accuracy. DMs are not sent to the AI moderator.
Who We Share It With
We do not sell your data. We do not share personal data with third-party marketers.
Some information you provide is visible to other members by design:
- Your profile (name, role, location, what you do, interests, LinkedIn URL) is visible to other verified members via the directory and profile pages.
- Your group posts appear under your display name in the community feed.
- Your DMs are visible to the other participant in the conversation, and to admins only if reported.
Third-Party Services We Use
- Pusher Channels — delivers real-time events (new messages, typing indicators, read receipts). Message text passes through Pusher so it can be broadcast to subscribers.
- Resend (SMTP) — sends transactional email (verification, password reset).
- Cloudflare Turnstile — prevents bot signups. May receive your IP and browser user-agent during the captcha check.
- Web Push service (provided by your browser: Google, Apple, Mozilla, etc.) — delivers push notifications to your device.
Your Rights
You can at any time:
- See what data we hold about you.
- Correct data that is inaccurate (most profile fields are editable in settings).
- Delete your account and associated data.
- Turn off push notifications in your settings or your browser.
For the two most common actions, you can do it yourself: open Settings → Privacy & data to download a JSON copy of your data or delete your account immediately. For anything else, email contact@aanasolutions.net and we will act within 30 days.
Data Retention
- Profile data — kept while your account is active. If you delete your account, we remove your profile and push subscriptions within 30 days.
- Group posts — older than 90 days, posts are moved from the live feed into a separate archive. They are retained there for up to one additional year for admin review and abuse-investigation, and then permanently deleted.
- Direct messages — retained while both participants' accounts are active. When either account is deleted or banned, that member's DMs are deleted from our database.
- Banned accounts — when we ban a member, we also delete that member's group posts and DMs from our systems.
- Moderation audit — AI-moderator decisions are retained for 90 days for quality review, then auto-deleted.
- Login / signup attempts — retained for 24 hours, then auto-deleted.
What Other Members Can See About You
Verified members of Aana Network can see the following parts of your profile via the member directory and profile pages:
- Your display name, role, country, and city
- Your short "what you do", "what you can solve", and "what you are looking for" fields
- Your bio and interest tags
- Your LinkedIn URL, if you chose to add one
- The date you joined
The following are never shown to other members:
- Your email address
- Your password (hashed internally, never stored in plaintext)
- Your phone number (we don't collect one)
- Your IP address or the specifics of your browser / device
- Whether you have blocked another member
Your group posts are visible to all verified members under your display name. Your direct messages are visible only to you and the person you're chatting with (plus, if reported, to an admin for abuse review).
Cookies
Aana Network uses one essential cookie (an_auth) to keep you signed in. We don't use tracking or advertising cookies. Standard server logs record your IP and request information for security and debugging.
Children
Aana Network is intended for entrepreneurs and professionals. It is not directed at children under 16. If you believe a child has submitted data through our form, please contact us and we will remove it.
Changes to This Policy
We may update this privacy policy from time to time. When we do, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. Continued use of Aana Network after changes means you accept the updated policy.
Governing Law
This privacy policy and any disputes arising from it are governed by the laws of India. Jurisdiction lies with the courts of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
Contact Us
Questions about this policy or how we handle your data? Email contact@aanasolutions.net.