Privacy Policy

The short version

• Confluve has no account, no analytics, no ads and no tracking.
• There is no Confluve server. Your devices fetch feeds directly from the publishers you choose.
• What you read, save and listen to stays on your devices, and in your own iCloud if you turn on sync.
• The developer of Confluve receives no personal data from the app.
• This website sets no cookies and loads nothing from anyone else.

Who is responsible

Confluve and this website are published by the same developer (“the developer”), named in the legal notice. For any question about this policy or your data: developer at sebz dot fr.

What the app keeps, and where

On your device. Your sources and categories, the stories fetched from them, what you have read, Read Later and Starred, listening and Read Aloud progress, smart folders, playlists, Up Next, downloaded episodes, the search index and your settings. They stay on the device until you remove them or delete the app. Nothing here is sent to the developer.

In your iCloud, if you turn on sync. Sync is off until you turn it on, when you first open Confluve or later in Settings. When it is on, your sources, categories and pins; read, Read Later and Starred; listening and Read Aloud progress; smart folders, playlists and Up Next; and some settings (such as Latest’s window, playback speed, source languages and how long stories are kept) are stored in your private iCloud storage through Apple’s CloudKit and iCloud key-value storage, so your other devices can read them. They are held by Apple under Apple’s privacy policy, in your iCloud account; the developer cannot access them. The stories themselves are never stored in iCloud: each device fetches them from the publishers. Downloaded audio, appearance and text size stay on each device. To keep iCloud informed of changes, Apple may use its push notification service between your devices; this carries no content you can read.

What leaves your device, and to whom

Every request below goes straight from your device to the party named. None goes through the developer.

Publishers. To show a source, your device asks the publisher’s server for its feed, and then for the pictures, icon and podcast audio the feed points to. The publisher’s server sees what any website sees when a browser visits: your IP address, the address requested, and the app’s name and version (Confluve/1.0). Confluve keeps no cookies and its requests send none, so no cookie lets a server recognise your device from one request to the next. One part of the system works on its own: while an episode streams, Apple’s audio player may send a cookie the audio host set back with the later requests for that same episode. It does not keep it beyond that episode; a downloaded episode is not streamed. Each publisher’s own privacy policy applies to what its server records.

The full article (Premium). When you ask to see a story’s full article, or open a story from a source you have set to always show it, your device requests that one page from the publisher as a first-time visitor: no cookies are sent or kept, no sign-in, and no script on the page is run. The article is extracted and kept on your device with its story. It stays there until the story is removed or you remove full articles in Storage.

Adding a source. Confluve’s built-in directory of sources is part of the app, so searching it happens on your device. The icons it shows are requested from the addresses their publishers give, usually the publishers’ own servers. If you ask to see a source’s latest stories before adding it, your device requests its feed from the publisher. When you type a website’s address and ask Confluve to find its feed, your device requests that site’s pages and the usual feed addresses on it.

Apple’s podcast directory. When you search for a podcast by name, your device sends the words you typed, and your country or region so the results match your store, to Apple’s public podcast search (itunes.apple.com/search). Apple’s privacy policy applies. Searching your library happens on your device.

When you open a story in the browser. Open in Browser takes you to the publisher’s website, in Safari or your default browser. There you are on the publisher’s site, under its privacy policy.

Notifications

Confluve sends you no notifications and never asks permission to. If you turn on sync, Apple’s push notification service may carry a silent signal between your devices, as described above; it shows you nothing. Confluve has no push notification server of its own.

Purchases

Confluve Premium is bought through the App Store. Apple handles the payment; the app only asks the App Store on your device whether Premium has been purchased. The developer receives no name, email address or payment details, only the sales reports Apple gives every developer, which do not identify you. Refunds are handled by Apple.

Diagnostics from Apple

If you have chosen, in your device’s settings, to share analytics with app developers, Apple may send the developer crash reports and usage statistics about Confluve. Apple collects and anonymises these, and you can turn them off at any time in Settings › Privacy & Security › Analytics & Improvements (System Settings on the Mac). Confluve itself contains no analytics or crash-reporting code.

This website

• No cookies and no similar technology.
• No analytics, no advertising and no third-party content: no fonts, scripts, videos or images from other servers.
• Server logs. Like every web server, the site’s host records technical logs of requests (IP address, date, page, browser) to keep the site running and secure. They are kept for 30 days and are not used for anything else.
• The news feed is an ordinary file; reading it in a feed reader is like visiting the site.

If you write to the developer

If you email developer at sebz dot fr, the developer receives your address and what you write, uses them to answer you, and keeps them for 1 year after the conversation ends, unless you ask for them to be deleted sooner.

Your rights

The developer holds no personal data about you from the app or the website, other than the emails you send. If you are in the European Union or the United Kingdom, you can ask to access, correct or delete those emails, or object to their use, by writing to developer at sebz dot fr. You can also complain to the data protection authority where you live; in France, the CNIL (www.cnil.fr).

Data in your iCloud is managed through your Apple Account. To delete what Confluve keeps on a device, delete the app. To delete what it keeps in iCloud, choose Delete iCloud Data in Confluve’s Storage (Library › Storage on iPhone and iPad, Settings › Storage on the Mac). It removes everything listed under In your iCloud above and turns sync off on that device; what is on the device stays. If that device was syncing, the deletion takes place the next time Confluve opens. If another of your devices still syncs, it will store its copy in iCloud again, so turn sync off there first. You can turn sync back on at any time.

Children

Confluve does not collect personal data from anyone, children included.

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version is published on this page with its date, and announced in the site’s news and its feed.