Privacy Policy

Effective date: November 9, 2026 · Version 1.4

Full Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and share information when you use the Clipnote app, the website at clipnote.social, and related services (together, the "Service"). "We," "us," and "our" mean the individual who operates the Clipnote app. Today we are one person. No company operates Clipnote. If a company later takes over, it will take over this policy and we will tell you. A "post" is an audio work with its text and artwork. The app may call a post a "Note" or a "Clipnote."

This policy is part of our Terms of Service. By using the Service you agree to it.

1. Information You Give Us

• Account: your email address. If you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive the basic details they share with us, such as your name, email address, and profile photo. If you use Apple's "Hide My Email," we receive the private relay address instead.
• Profile: your handle, display name, bio, website link, profile photo, an optional intro audio clip, and the genres you pick.
• What you create ("User Content"): audio you record or upload, cover images, background videos, photos and videos you share as Sidenotes, titles and descriptions, writing you enter to have read aloud, drafts, posts, Volumes, Folders, comments, and repost notes. If you upload a document (.txt, .docx, or .pdf), our server reads the text out of it and does not keep the file.
• Links on posts: any link you attach to a post and whether you marked it as earning a commission. We also keep a record of when links are added or changed, to limit spam.
• Direct messages: the messages you send to other users. They are stored so the people in the conversation can read them. We don't read your conversations as a routine, but they are not end-to-end encrypted, so they are stored in a form we and our hosting provider could technically access. If someone in a conversation reports a message, we keep a copy of that one message with the report, and a person reads it. We can hide that message from both people. Nothing else from the conversation is copied or read for a report, unless the law requires it or we need to investigate a serious safety problem.
• Reports and blocks: when you report something, we store the report, your reason, and a copy of what you reported: a post's title, text, and link, a Sidenote's caption and where its files are stored, a comment's text and author, an account's name, bio, website link, and profile photo, or the one message you reported. A person reviews it, and the copy stays even if the content later changes or is deleted. We also store who you block.
• Beta Tester Agreement: if you join the beta, we store your typed legal name, signature, email address, the agreement version, the date and time you signed, and the IP address and device information used to sign, as proof of the agreement.
• Beta feedback: if you send feedback from the app, we store your message, any screenshots you attach, your handle, and your phone model, system version, app version, and update id, and we email them with your account email address to our support inbox so a person can read them and reply to you. We keep them until we no longer need them for the beta. Deleting your account removes the stored copies, and we delete the emailed copy if you ask.
• Messages to us: anything you send us by email.

2. Information Created When You Use Clipnote

• Listening and activity: what you play, how long you listen, where you stop, what you skip or replay, what appears in your feed and where, what you mark "not interested," and what you like, clip, save, repost, share, comment on, or follow. We use this for recommendations, rankings, and creator statistics. Your feed is ordered automatically from these signals.
• Feature tests: we sometimes show different groups of people slightly different versions of a feature, such as how the feed is ranked, to see which works better. We record which version you see.
• Device and technical information: device type, operating system, app version, IP address, and a push notification token if you allow notifications.
• Device checks: to stop fake accounts and abuse, the app uses Apple's and Google's device-integrity checks, about once a day, to confirm it is a genuine copy running on a real device. We store the result and a device key, not your personal files.
• Crash reports: when the app crashes or hits an error, a report is sent with technical details about what went wrong. We have turned off the setting that attaches your identity, so these reports are set up not to include your name, email address, or IP address. An error message could still contain a fragment of what the app was working on.
• Suspensions and word checks: if your account is suspended, we store when that happened. While it is suspended, your profile shows as unavailable to everyone, including people who aren't signed in, so people may be able to tell. When you save public text, such as a comment, a post, your handle, name, bio, or profile link, a repost note, a Sidenote caption, or a Volume title, we automatically check it against a short list of slurs. If a post matches, a person reads its title, text, and description before it goes public. Private messages, spoken audio, images, and video aren't checked this way.

We use your microphone only when you record, and your camera and photos only for what you choose to capture or pick. We do not collect your precise location, your contacts, or your photos other than the ones you choose to upload.

3. Information From Our Website Forms

clipnote.social has a few forms. Each one stores only what it needs:

• "Notify me" launch list: your email address, when you signed up, your IP address, and your browser information. We use this to tell you when Clipnote launches and to stop spam sign-ups.
• Beta sign-up: your name, email address, phone type (iPhone or Android), the email you use for the App Store or Google Play if different, your IP address, and browser information. We use this to review your request and send your invite.
• Agreement requests and signing: if you ask for or sign an agreement with us (for example a non-disclosure agreement), we store your email address and IP address, and for signed agreements your name, signature, mailing address, and the date, time, IP address, and device information of signing.

Forms are protected by Cloudflare Turnstile, a bot check that looks at basic browser signals to tell people from bots. The website does not use advertising or tracking cookies. It loads its fonts from Google Fonts, which means Google receives your IP address when the page loads. Agreement pages load a PDF tool from Cloudflare's script library, and the web copy of the Beta Tester Agreement asks ipify.org for your IP address so it can be recorded with your signature, which means those companies receive your IP address too. We do not respond to browser "Do Not Track" signals, because we don't track you across other sites.

4. Companies That Help Us Run Clipnote

We share information with these service providers so they can do their job for us:

We do not train AI models on your content, and we do not sell it. Your feed is ordered by a scoring formula, not an AI model trained on your work. It uses listening and activity, such as plays, skips, follows, and genres you pick, plus a post's genre, length, and age. It does not read your words or listen to your audio. Search does look for words in a post's title and text, to answer searches.

Model training at these companies. We have opted out of model training with Deepgram. We have also opted out of model training with ElevenLabs, our AI voice provider, for what it receives from November 6, 2026 on. Hume AI is not in use. An opt out starts when we turn it on, so it does not change what a company already received. Recorded and uploaded audio is always sent for transcription, and the AI voice needs your text, so these companies do receive your work, to do that job. If you would rather not send your work to them, please hold off on posting it.

5. How We Use Information

We use information to:

• run the Service and your account, and keep them secure;
• store, play, transcribe, and display your content, and create previews and time-synced text;
• read writing aloud with an AI voice when you choose that option;
• power your feed, recommendations, and creator statistics;
• run social features such as follows, comments, likes, sharing, and direct messages;
• send you notifications and service emails, such as sign-up confirmations, beta invites, codes for signing agreements, and important changes;
• prevent spam, fraud, and abuse, review reports, remove content, suspend accounts, and enforce our Terms and Copyright Policy; and
• meet legal obligations.

6. How We Share Information

• Publicly: what you publish (posts, Volumes, comments, Sidenotes, and your profile) can be seen by other users. Published posts can also be opened by anyone on the web through a share link, without an account. Your handle, display name, and profile photo are visible to others. Clipnote does not offer private accounts today.
• Files on the web: post audio, cover images, videos, profile photos, and Sidenote files are stored at web addresses that are hard to guess but not password protected. Anyone who has the exact address can open the file. This includes files for drafts and expired Sidenotes.
• With the service providers listed in Section 4, to run the Service.
• Links you open: a post can carry a link to an outside site. If you open it, you leave Clipnote, and that site's own terms and privacy policy apply. That site can see what any website sees when you visit, such as your IP address.
• For legal and safety reasons: to comply with the law or valid legal process, to protect people's safety, to enforce our Terms, and to report child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children as US law requires.
• If Clipnote changes hands: if Clipnote moves to a company we form, or is sold, merged, or reorganized, information may transfer as part of that. We will tell you before your information becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for targeted advertising.

7. Your Choices and Rights

• See and fix your information: edit your profile in the app at any time.
• Download your data: in the app, go to Settings and choose Download My Data. You get a file with your account id and email, your profile, your post records, your genres, and who you follow. It does not include your comments, messages, activity, or the media files themselves. Email us for those.
• Delete your account: in the app, go to Settings and choose Delete Account. Section 8 explains what this removes and what stays.
• Notifications: turn push notifications on or off in your phone's settings.
• Leave the launch list: email support@clipnote.social and we will remove you.
• Everything else: email support@clipnote.social with the subject "Privacy request." Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of your information, to limit or object to some uses, and to appeal our decision on your request. We will not treat you differently for using these rights. We respond within 30 days, or sooner if the law requires.

California residents: we collect the categories of information described in Sections 1 to 3 for the purposes in Section 5. We do not sell or share personal information as California law defines those terms, and we do not use sensitive personal information to infer things about you.

People in the EU, UK, and similar places: we use your information to provide the Service you asked for (contract), to keep it safe and improve it (legitimate interests), to meet legal duties, and, where we ask, with your consent. You may also complain to your local data protection authority.

8. How Long We Keep Information

While your account is open, we keep your account, content, activity, and records of link changes, with no set time limit.

When you delete your account, we delete your profile, posts, comments, likes, saves, follows, activity records, push tokens, your files, and your conversations, including the other person's messages in them. Other people's reposts and saves of your posts go away with them. The list below is what stays.

Some things stay after you delete:

• Reported or moderated content: if a moderator takes a post or Sidenote down, its files move to a private store, kept as evidence. Their public web addresses stop working, though a delivery network can keep a copy for a short time. A moderator can also move every file on an account to that private store, while the account is still open. Lifting a suspension doesn't bring those files back on its own. A person has to move them back. Copies kept with reports remain.
• Reports and safety records: kept as long as needed to keep the Service safe and to meet legal duties, including after the reported content or account is deleted. We aim to delete them 12 months after a report is reviewed, unless the report involves a serious safety issue or a legal request. A person does this by hand. No automatic deletion runs yet, so it can take longer.
• If your account is suspended, including if you then delete it: we keep a coded record of your Apple or Google sign-in identifier and your email address, so that the same sign-in or email can't make a new account. It is a keyed one-way hash: we can check whether a sign-in matches it, but we can't read your email from it. We delete it when the suspension is lifted, and otherwise 3 years after the suspension. If you think it has blocked you by mistake, email support@clipnote.social.
• If you delete an account that is suspended or has an open report: the account goes, and we keep a private copy of your public words for 90 days, so a report can still be reviewed, unless a serious safety issue or a legal request means we must keep it longer. Your files move to a private store for the same reason. We aim to delete those after 90 days too, but a person does that by hand, so it can take longer.
• Play counts: records that you played someone else's post stay without your name attached, for creator statistics.
• Signed agreements: signing records can't be changed or deleted. We keep them after you delete your account, with no set end date, because they are proof of the agreement.
• Device check records and beta sign-up records: these stay until we remove them, or until you ask us to and we no longer need them for security or legal reasons.
• Email: emails to and from us, including report and feedback emails, stay in our inbox until we delete them. Ask us if you want one removed.
• Copies outside Clipnote: we can't recall anything someone already saved, copied, or recorded outside the Service.
• Our service providers: they keep what they receive on their own schedules, under their own terms.

Backups: we keep encrypted nightly database backups for 30 days, so deleted database records are fully gone from backups within about 30 days. Backups do not include media files.

Other time limits:

• Sidenotes: a Sidenote stops showing after 7 days, but its file stays in storage until you delete it or delete your account.
• A single post: deleting a post you own removes it and its files, unless it was reported or moderated.
• Launch list: kept until Clipnote launches publicly and we no longer need it, or until you ask us to remove you.

9. Security

We protect information with encrypted connections, access rules that let each account see only what it should, encrypted backups, bot checks on public forms, and two-factor sign-in on the accounts we use to run Clipnote. No system is perfectly secure, so we can't promise absolute security. If a breach affects you, we will tell you as the law requires.

10. Children

Clipnote is only for adults 18 and older. It is not directed to anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If we learn an account belongs to someone under 18, we close it and delete its information, except what the law requires us to keep. If you think someone under 18 is using Clipnote, email support@clipnote.social with the subject "Child account." Our Child Safety Standards are at clipnote.social/child-safety.

11. International Users

Clipnote is run from the United States. Information is stored and processed in the United States and wherever our service providers operate. If you use Clipnote from outside the United States, your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States, where privacy laws may differ from yours.

12. Changes to This Policy

If we change this policy in an important way, we will tell you in the app or by email before the change takes effect, and we will update the date and version at the top.

13. Contact

Privacy questions and requests: support@clipnote.social (subject "Privacy request").
Legal matters: legal@clipnote.social.
The individual who operates the Clipnote app, United States. If you need our legal name and address for a legal notice or to exercise a legal right, email legal@clipnote.social and we will give them to you.