Privacy Policy
  1. Privacy Policy and Terms of Use

    Updated: Thursday, October 30, 2023

    This privacy policy and terms of use notice applies to The Readup Service ("Service") which comprises the following applications and services:

    The Readup Service is owned and operated by reallyread.it, inc. ("Service Provider"). The Service is provided free of charge and free of monetization for the express benefit of those who enjoy using the Readup software to read and comment online.

    The Service is provided "AS IS", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and noninfringement. In no event shall the Service Provider be liable for any claim, damages or other liability, whether in an action of contract, tort or otherwise, arising from, out of or in connection with The Service or the use of or other dealings with The Service.

    The following is a comprehensive list of all the data that The Service ("we", "us") collects from you as a user. This data is never shared with any third parties and no third party data collection or analytics services are used by The Service.

    When you interact with a Readup web service

    • HTTP request metadata may be logged by the web server including the request date, method, URI, user agent, referrer, status, time taken, client IP address, Readup client type, and Readup user ID.

    Before you create an account

    • If you read an article on the Readup Blog, we generate a random, temporary user ID and store your reading progress in case you want to leave a comment after you finish.
    • If you want to get notified when we launch the Android app, we need your email address.

    When you create an account

    • We require you to provide an email address. (If you confirm your email, we store that too.)
    • We require you to choose a reader name and password. Only the salted password hash is stored in our database.
    • We automatically detect your time zone and preferred color scheme (light mode or dark mode) from your device.
    • We also collect the following analytics to help us understand how new people find us. We need this information to improve the onboarding experience for new readers:
      • The referrer URL tells us which website (if any) sent you to Readup.
      • The initial path tells us where on Readup you first landed.
      • The current path tells us which page on Readup you created an account on.
      • The action button tells us which button you pressed to create an account (such as “Header Button” or “Footer Button.”)
      • When you complete the onboarding process, we mark onboarding complete.

    If you use a third party authenticator

    • You can create an account (or connect your existing account) using Apple or Twitter. These companies give us the following data:
      • Your email address (This is optional if you use your Apple ID.)
      • Your identifier which is a random value used to identify your account
      • Twitter also gives us your display name, handle, verification status and an access token to tweet on your behalf (with your explicit permission, of course.)
      • Apple gives us your real user rating.

    When you install a Readup browser extension

    • We generate a random installation ID to determine when an extension is installed, updated or removed.
    • We detect your operating system and processor type. (It’s necessary for us to know if readers are using Linux, Windows or Mac.)

    When you install the Readup iOS app, macOS app, Windows app, or Linux app.

    • (iOS app and macOS apps only) You can allow or deny notifications. We store an installation ID and device name. If you allow notifications, we also store a token.
    • If an unexpected error occurs, an error report is automatically sent to Readup.

    When you get an email from Readup

    • We detect email opens using a tracking pixel image and link clicks with tracking URLs. (This helps us improve the quality of our emails.)

    When you read on Readup

    • We store your complete reading history in our database. This is absolutely essential in order for Readup to work.
    • We also store your stars, ratings, posts and comments. (Comments can be easily deleted at any time.)
    • We store any article issues that you report.

    When you update your preferences

    • We store your notification preferences and we make it very easy to unsubscribe from everything.
    • We store your reading preferences (text size, links on/off.)

    COOKIES: Sometimes we use cookies, but never for marketing purposes. And since we only use “strictly necessary cookies,” we’re not required to make you click “I agree” when we use them.

    CANARY: Readup has never received a government request for information.