Lou Privacy Policy

Information we collect

• Account information: your email address, authentication identifiers, and sign-in method information needed to create and secure your account.
• Podcast activity: the shows you subscribe to or flag, episode queue choices, playback position, played/finished status, downloads, and app settings.
• Ad-detection data: episode identifiers, podcast feed metadata, scan requests, playback URL hashes, audio fingerprints, detected ad segments, and temporary podcast audio files or excerpts used to detect ads.
• Technical data: app version, device/platform information, request metadata, server logs, diagnostics, and approximate network information such as IP address that is normally sent with requests.
• Communications: information you include if you contact us for support, privacy, or beta feedback.

Lou does not sell personal information and does not use personal information to track you across other companies' apps or websites.

How we collect information

We collect information when you create or sign in to an account, subscribe to or listen to podcasts, ask Lou to scan an episode, use account settings, or contact us. Some technical data is collected automatically by the app, our API, and the service providers that help operate Lou.

How we use information

• provide podcast search, subscriptions, queue, playback, downloads, and progress sync;
• detect and skip ads in podcast episodes;
• authenticate accounts, prevent abuse, and keep the service secure;
• troubleshoot bugs, measure reliability, and improve app performance;
• respond to support, privacy, or beta feedback requests;
• comply with legal obligations and enforce our rights.

Service providers and third parties

We share information only as needed to operate Lou, including with Supabase for authentication and account data storage; infrastructure, database, cache, job-processing, and object-storage providers that host Lou's API and ad-detection artifacts; Deepgram to transcribe podcast audio and OpenAI to classify the resulting transcripts for ad detection, or other transcription and classification providers we may configure; podcast feed and audio hosts when Lou fetches RSS feeds, metadata, artwork, or episode audio you choose to play or scan; and Apple when you use Sign in with Apple, TestFlight, App Store downloads, or Apple platform services.

These providers are allowed to process information only for the purposes described in this policy or as required by law.

Audio and ad-detection artifacts

Lou may temporarily upload or store podcast audio, excerpts, fingerprints, transcripts, debug data, and ad segment maps so the service can detect ads and avoid rescanning the same audio. Retained scan audio and debug artifacts are deleted according to Lou's configured retention settings. Some non-personal episode metadata and aggregate ad-detection results may be kept to improve scan quality and avoid duplicate processing.

Retention and deletion

We keep account and app activity information while your account is active and for as long as needed to provide Lou, protect the service, resolve issues, or meet legal obligations. You can delete your account from Settings > Account > Delete account. Deleting your account removes your Lou account, subscriptions, listening data, and user-scoped backend data, then clears local app data on your device. Some information may remain for a limited time in backups, security logs, or legally required records before it is deleted through normal retention cycles.

You can also request deletion or ask privacy questions by contacting privacy@withlou.co.

Your choices

• unsubscribe from shows and remove downloads in the app;
• disable automatic ad skipping in Settings;
• sign out at any time;
• delete your account in Settings;
• contact us to request access, correction, deletion, or help with privacy choices.

Children

Lou is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

Changes

We may update this policy as Lou changes. If we make material changes, we will update the "Last updated" date and provide additional notice when appropriate.

Contact

Lou privacy requests: privacy@withlou.co