Privacy Policy
Last updated November 3, 2026
This explains, in plain language, what Mesh (trymesh.app) collects, why, and the choices you have. Mesh is an early-stage project that helps USC and UCLA students find classmates and friends.
What we collect
- Your school email. Used to confirm you're a USC or UCLA student and to sign you in. It is never shown to other users.
- Profile details you enter: name, school, major, year, and optionally pronouns, MBTI, bio, interests, avatar emoji and color, what you're looking for, study style, study times and class goal.
- Your classes: course codes and, if you add them, lecture and discussion/lab sections, professor, days and time.
- Contact handles (optional): Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Discord, phone or WeChat, if you add them.
- Activity: who you've said hi to, who you've chosen to share contacts with, who you've blocked, and any reports you submit.
- Sign-in codes: we store only a scrambled (hashed) version of each one-time code, and it expires after 10 minutes.
- Basic technical data: your IP address is used briefly to rate-limit sign-ins, hi's and reports and to prevent abuse. Our host may keep standard server logs.
- Usage analytics: anonymous page views and actions, described below.
What other users see
- Other signed-up students can see your name, school, major and year, plus the optional profile details and classes you add. That includes sections, so they can find people in the same lecture or discussion.
- Your email is never shown.
- Your contact handles are shown only to a person who is a Mutual connection (you both said hi) and whom you have chosen to share them with. You can turn sharing off at any time.
- Reports are seen only by the Mesh team. The person you report or block is not told.
Notification emails
Besides sign-in codes, we may email your school email when someone says hi to you, and when a hi becomes mutual. These emails include only the other person's first name and a class you share, never their email or contacts. We send at most one say-hi email an hour (others are grouped), none from people you've blocked, and none if you turn them off. Every email has a one-click unsubscribe link, and you can switch them off on your Mesh page anytime. They're delivered through Resend.
Anonymous usage analytics
To understand how people find and use Mesh, we count page views and a few actions (such as requesting a sign-in code, creating a profile, adding classes, saying hi, sharing contacts or tapping Invite). With each one we record the page, the link or campaign you arrived from (for example a "utm_source" tag or the referring website's domain, like tiktok.com), and whether you're on a phone or a computer. We do this ourselves, with no third-party trackers and no cookies. We don't store your IP address: to count unique visitors we keep only a scrambled code made from it, which changes every day and can't be turned back into your IP. Your browser also saves the link you first arrived from, so we can tell which channels lead to sign-ups. Known bots are ignored.
How we use it
We use your information to run Mesh: to sign you in, to suggest classmates and people to meet, to deliver hi's and shared contacts, to keep people safe through blocks and reports, and to fix problems. We do not sell your data, and we do not use it for advertising.
Services we use
- Render hosts the website and its Postgres database, where your profile is stored.
- Resend delivers sign-in code and notification emails.
- The Inter font is loaded from rsms.me.
On your device
When you sign in, your browser saves your profile ID and a private sign-in token in local storage so you stay signed in. It may also save the link you first arrived from. We don't use cookies for advertising, tracking or analytics. To sign out of a device, clear this site's data in your browser.
Your choices
- Edit your profile, classes and contacts at any time from your page.
- Block or unblock people, and turn contact sharing on or off.
- Delete your profile from the bottom of your page, or email trymesh.app@gmail.com and we'll delete it for you. Deleting removes your profile, hi's, shares and blocks. Reports someone made about you may be kept for safety.
- Email us to ask what we hold about you or to correct it.
Security
We take reasonable steps to protect your data, such as hashed sign-in codes, private tokens and encrypted connections. No online service is perfectly secure.
Changes and contact
If we change this policy we'll update the date above. Questions? Email trymesh.app@gmail.com.