Privacy Policy

When you create an account and use Contentualize, we collect:

• Guest sessions — you can try Contentualize before signing up. When you tap Start, we create an anonymous guest account for you automatically. It has a random account ID (no name or email) that we link to the titles you rate and swipe, your usage data, and the other information described below. If you later sign up, your guest activity moves to your new account. If you never sign up, we delete the guest account and its ratings after 30 days without activity. Analytics data linked to the random ID may be kept longer (see "Data retention" below).
• Account information — your email address, display name, and unique @username, provided when you sign up. Sign-in is handled by our authentication provider, Google Firebase Authentication.
• Profile information — your age range, gender, and the content types and genres you're interested in, which you provide when you set up your profile and which we use to tailor recommendations.
• Content activity — the titles you rate, swipe, mark as seen, or add to your watchlist, across movies, TV, books, and podcasts.
• Search activity — the titles you search for in the app, which we may use to improve search results and your recommendations.
• Social content — posts, comments, votes, and Circles you create or join within community features.
• Safety and moderation — the users you block and the reports you submit, so we can enforce our community rules.
• Device and usage data — basic technical information (device type, operating system, app version), how you use the app (for example, which screens you view and which titles you rate or swipe), and crash and performance diagnostics. This is collected automatically by our analytics provider, PostHog, and linked to your account ID (or to an anonymous device identifier before you sign in), so we can fix bugs, understand which features are used, and test changes to the app. For visitors to our website whose device time zone is in Korea, PostHog also records a replay of the session (pages viewed, taps and scrolling) to help us improve the site for those visitors; text typed into form fields is masked and never recorded. In the app, PostHog may record a replay of some sessions, made of screenshots of the app screen and your taps and swipes, so we can see where people get stuck. Text you type is hidden, and the Circles screens (posts and comments) are not recorded.
• Advertising identifiers and data — technical identifiers (such as your device's advertising ID), your IP address, and information about the ads you see and interact with, collected by our ad partner, Google (AdMob in the app, and AdSense on our website, where it also uses cookies), to show and measure ads. See "Advertising" below for details and your choices.
• Install source — on Android, our attribution provider, AppsFlyer, receives your device's advertising ID, IP address, and your account ID to tell us which campaign or link led to an install, so we can measure our marketing.
• Push notification token — if you allow notifications, a token that identifies your device so we can send them (for example, when your recommendations are ready or someone comments on your post), delivered through Expo's push service.
• Connected accounts — if you connect Letterboxd or Goodreads, the username or profile link you give us and the ratings we import from it.

We do not access your device's GPS or precise location. We have turned off the IP-based location lookup in our analytics provider, but Google AdMob may estimate your general location from your IP address to serve and measure ads.

We use the information above to:

• Create and secure your account, and let you sign in across devices.
• Build and improve your personalized recommendations and daily discovery deck.
• Operate social features like Circles, including showing your posts and comments to other users you interact with.
• Diagnose bugs, monitor app stability, understand how features are used, and test changes to prioritize what to fix or build next.
• Show and measure ads that help support the app.
• Enforce our community rules, including reviewing reports and honoring blocks.
• Contact you with occasional updates about the app — never spam, and you can opt out at any time.

We do not sell your personal information. We share data only with:

• Service providers who help us run the app — our authentication provider (Google Firebase Authentication, for sign-in), our analytics and crash-reporting provider (PostHog), our install-attribution provider on Android (AppsFlyer), our push notification delivery provider (Expo), and cloud hosting infrastructure — bound to use your data only to provide those services to us.
• Content catalog providers — to return book results, our servers send the terms you search for to a third-party book catalog (Hardcover), without your name, email, or account ID.
• Advertising partners — Google AdMob, to show and measure ads within the app, and Google AdSense, to do the same on our website. We share your advertising ID (in the app), IP address, browser cookies (on the website), and ad interactions with Google for this purpose. Unlike our service providers above, Google may also use this data for its own advertising purposes, subject to your consent choices — see "Advertising" below.
• Other users, limited to what you choose to post publicly within social features like Circles (your display name, username, posts, and comments).
• Legal authorities, only if required by law or to protect the rights and safety of our users.

Contentualize shows ads through Google AdMob to help support the app. To do this, AdMob and its ad partners collect and use technical identifiers from your device — such as your advertising ID, IP address, and general app usage — to select and measure ads, and in some cases to personalize which ads you see.

• Consent in the EEA and UK — if you're located in the European Economic Area or the UK, we ask for your consent before showing personalized ads, through a consent form the first time you open the app. You can revisit this choice anytime from Profile → Ad Privacy Choices.
• Tracking permission on iOS — on iOS, we ask for your permission through Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt before using your device's advertising identifier for ads. You can change this anytime in your device's Settings, under Privacy & Security → Tracking. If you allow tracking, your advertising ID and your ad-related activity may be linked with data from other companies' apps and websites for targeted advertising and ad measurement. If you decline, your advertising ID isn't made available to AdMob.
• Opting out — you can limit ad personalization on Android under Settings → Google → Ads, and on iOS by disabling tracking as above. This won't stop ads from showing, but limits how they're targeted.

On our website. The Contentualize website may also show ads, through Google AdSense. AdSense and its ad partners use cookies and similar technologies in your browser, along with your IP address and the pages you view, to show, measure, and in some cases personalize ads. If you're in the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, we ask for your consent through Google's consent message before any of this happens, and you can change your choice anytime from "Ad Privacy Choices" at the bottom of any page in the web app. You can also turn off personalized ads from Google across the web at Google's My Ad Center, or block third-party cookies in your browser.

For more on how Google's advertising products handle your data, see Google's explanation of how information is used from sites or apps that use its services.

We retain your account and activity data for as long as your account is active, so your recommendations and watchlist stay intact. Guest accounts and their ratings are kept for 30 days without activity and then deleted automatically. Analytics data linked to a guest's random ID is held by our analytics provider and may be kept longer, for as long as that provider retains event data. You can update your profile details in the app at any time.

Deleting your account. You can delete your account in the app at any time from Profile → Delete Account (you'll be asked to confirm it's you, with your password or by signing in again with Google or Apple). This permanently deletes your profile, preferences, ratings and watchlist, recommendations, Circle memberships, posts, comments, votes, and block and report records, and removes your sign-in account. Comments other people made on your posts are removed along with those posts. Circles you created stay available to their other members, without your name attached. We also ask our analytics provider to erase the data it holds about you; that erasure of past events runs in a weekly batch, so it can take up to about a week to complete. Data that Google AdMob holds about your device is governed by Google and your device's advertising settings, not by us. If you can't use the in-app option, you can request deletion by contacting us below — we'll remove your personal information within a reasonable timeframe, except where retention is required for legal or security purposes. Guest accounts don't have a Delete Account button; if you'd like yours removed before the 30 days are up, or want the analytics data linked to it erased, email us from the device you used and we'll delete it.

Your rights. Depending on where you live (for example, the EEA, the UK, or California), you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of your personal information, and to opt out of the use of your data for personalized advertising. You can use the in-app controls described above, or contact us below and we'll respond within a reasonable timeframe.

Contentualize is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. We also do not knowingly show personalized ads to children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us and we will delete it.

We may update this policy to reflect new features or legal requirements. We'll update the "Last updated" date above and, for material changes, let you know in the app and, if you have an account with an email address, by email.

Questions about this policy or your data? Reach out at landon@contentualize.app.