Who can see your archive
Archives are private by default. How access works, and who decides it.
Your archive is private from the moment it exists. It is not indexed by search engines, not linked from anywhere public, and not discoverable by anyone who does not have the address.
That is the default state. It stays that way unless you actively decide otherwise.
What private actually means here
- The archive lives at its own address on a subdomain the studio controls
- Search engines are instructed not to index it, and the instruction is verified before handover
- No public directory of archives exists, and none is planned
- The studio does not use your archive as a reference or an example without your written permission, and does not ask for that permission as a condition of anything
For OPSEC-aware families this is worth stating directly: nothing about the archive requires the honoree's location, current command, or any operational detail. What goes in is what you decide goes in.
Who holds control
One person is the account holder — normally whoever commissioned the archive. Access decisions are theirs.
Where the honoree is living and involved, they hold a separate right over their own material regardless of who is paying. If the honoree asks for something to come down, it comes down.
Three ways an archive is shared
By address. You give the address to whoever you want. Anyone with it can view. This is how most families use it — the address goes in a retirement announcement, or gets passed around a command.
By request. Someone who finds the archive without the address can ask for access. The request comes to you with context. See access requests.
Openly. You can decide the archive should be publicly visible and indexed. Some families do, particularly where the honoree is deceased and the family wants shipmates to be able to find it. This is reversible.
Changing your mind
Any of the above can be changed at any time, in either direction, without charge. Making an archive public and then private again is a normal request, not an exception.
One limit worth understanding: once an archive has been publicly indexed, search engines may hold cached copies for some period after it is made private again. The studio can request removal but cannot guarantee the timing.