Age rules and verification

Accounts on this site are for readers aged 13 and over. Here's exactly how that works and what changes when you turn 18.

This site is operated by Dobeu Tech Solutions LLC, a limited liability company registered in New Jersey, USA, and these rules are governed by the laws of the State of New Jersey, USA.

The date-of-birth check at sign-up

The first thing the sign-up form asks for is your date of birth, and you have to confirm it's true. Our server checks it and issues a one-time pass before an account can be created, so the date can't be changed afterwards on the way through.

Under 13: no account is created, and we never ask for your email or name. We keep no date of birth, only a salted hash of the device, the outcome and a 24-hour hold. You're taken to Little Chima, the family area, which needs no account.
13 to 17 — a teen account: reading, your library and reading progress. Marketing email is off by default and only you can turn it on. You can't buy or sell anything.
18 and over — an adult account: everything above, plus purchases.

Community features — the reader feed, messages and the marketplace — aren't open yet, for any account.

What we store

For accounts we do create, we store the date of birth you gave and a simple band — “teen” or “adult”. The band is what the site actually checks. Your date of birth is never shown to other readers, never used for advertising, and never sold or shared.

This is a self-declared check

We don't ask for ID, a document scan, a face scan or a credit card, because a story site shouldn't hold that kind of data about young readers. That means the check relies on honesty, and someone can lie to it. We handle that the other way round: there is no open community area where readers can contact each other, and nothing on the site asks a reader for their address, school or phone number.

If a child under 13 has an account anyway

Email support@dobeu.net from any address, tell us the handle or email involved, and we will delete the account and everything attached to it — posts, replies, messages, listings and reading history — within 7 days, and confirm when it's done. We don't require proof of parenthood to honour a deletion request.

Turning 18

The band updates from your stored date of birth, so buying becomes available on your 18th birthday. You don't need to re-verify anything.

Getting your age wrong

If you typed the wrong date, email us and we'll correct it. We may ask a parent or guardian to confirm before we widen an account from teen to adult.