Legal

Terms of Service & Privacy Policy

Last updated August 18, 2026.

cunybystudents is an independent, student-built platform.It is not owned, operated, or endorsed by The City University of New York (CUNY), any individual CUNY college, or CUNY administration. "CUNY" is used descriptively to identify the community this site serves.

Terms of Service

1. Who can use this

cunybystudents is for current students at CUNY colleges. Creating an account requires a working email address on a recognized CUNY domain, which we verify by sending a confirmation link. You're responsible for keeping your login credentials secure and for everything that happens under your account.

2. Your content

You own what you post — profile info, forum threads, marketplace listings, professor reviews, messages, and photos. By posting it, you give cunybystudents a license to store, display, and distribute it within the app so other students can see it as intended (e.g. your marketplace listing shown in search results, your forum post shown to other students at your campus).

3. Acceptable use

Don't use cunybystudents to:

Impersonate another person, including professors, staff, or other students
Harass, threaten, or post hateful content about any person or group
Post false or defamatory claims about a specific professor, student, or organization
Sell or advertise anything illegal, or attempt to defraud another student in a marketplace transaction
Scrape, resell, or bulk-export other users' data
Attempt to access another student's account or bypass the CUNY email verification

We may remove content or suspend accounts that violate these rules, at our discretion.

4. Professor reviews

Reviews should reflect your genuine experience in a course and stick to professional, factual observations (grading, workload, teaching style). Personal attacks, slurs, or claims you can't back up aren't allowed and may be removed.

5. Marketplace

cunybystudents only hosts listings and messaging between buyers and sellers — we're not a party to any transaction, don't process payments, and don't verify listings. Meet safely, inspect items before paying, and use your own judgment.

6. No warranty, limitation of liability

cunybystudents is provided "as is," without warranties of any kind. We're not liable for disputes between students, inaccurate content posted by users, or interruptions to the service. Use it at your own discretion.

7. Account termination

You can stop using the service and request account deletion at any time (see Contact below). We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms.

8. Changes

We may update these terms as the platform grows. Material changes will be reflected by an updated date at the top of this page.

Privacy Policy

What we collect

Account info: your CUNY email address, username, and password (stored securely, never in plain text)
Profile info you choose to add: name, campus, major, year, bio, photos, classes, clubs, neighborhood, train line, and any contact links you opt to display
Content you post: forum threads and comments, marketplace listings, professor reviews, and direct messages
Basic technical data collected automatically by our hosting provider (e.g. request logs) for security and reliability

How we use it

To run the core features of the app — showing your profile to other students, powering search and recommendations (like Student Spotlight), delivering your messages, and letting you manage your own content. We don't use your data for advertising, and we don't sell it.

Who can see what

Your profile is visible to other signed-in students, except for contact details you choose to leave blank. Direct messages are private between you and the other participant. Content you post publicly (forum posts, reviews, listings) is visible to other students by design. Site administrators can view content for moderation purposes.

Third-party services

We use a small set of infrastructure providers to run the site: a database and authentication provider, a hosting platform, a mapping provider (for the Eats section), and an email delivery provider (for account confirmation emails). These providers process data only as needed to provide their service to us — they don't get to use it for their own purposes.

Cookies

We use a session cookie to keep you signed in. We don't use tracking or advertising cookies.

Data retention & deletion

We keep your data as long as your account is active. You can request that your account and associated data be deleted at any time by contacting us below — we'll process deletion requests promptly.

Contact

Questions about these terms, your data, or requests for account/content deletion: privacy@cunybystudents.com