Privacy Policy

Flightless is a podcast app for iPhone, with a companion website at flightless.app. In this policy, “we” means the people who run Flightless. Questions about privacy go to privacy@flightless.app.

You can listen without an account. If you sign in, you use Sign in with Apple. Apple gives us an account ID that is unique to Flightless and the email address Apple shares with us, which may be a private relay address if you chose Hide My Email. We also store your name if you share it, and the date your account was created.

You can pick a public username and a display name. While you are signed in, our server keeps a sign in session so you stay signed in. On the website, that session is saved in your browser’s local storage until you sign out.

When you are signed in, we store what you add:

• Skips: where a part of an episode starts and ends, the reason (intro, sponsor, ad, outro or other), and an optional note.
• Speed ranges: where a part starts and ends, the playback speed, and an optional comment.
• Your votes on skips and speed ranges.
• Notes on episodes, with an optional time in the episode.

Each of these is stored with the podcast and episode it belongs to, such as the feed address, the episode ID and the title. Skips and speed ranges are shared with every Flightless listener and shown with your username if you picked one. Notes are private unless you make one public. Only you can read a private note. A public note is shown with your username.

Share Listening Data is off unless you turn it on. When it is on, the app sends us records of how you listen:

• When a listening session starts and ends, and why it ended (you paused, the episode finished, you switched episodes, the app went to the background, or the sleep timer ran out).
• Which podcast and episode you played, and where you were in it.
• How much of the episode you heard, how long that took, and your playback speed.
• Skips you took or undid, and whether each came from the community, from you, or from a manual jump.
• Speed ranges that were applied or that you overrode.
• The app version, and which version of this consent you agreed to.

Each record carries a random ID made for your device, and your account ID if you are signed in. Records that have not been sent yet wait on your device until they upload.

The app may ask a few questions about you. Every question is optional, and you can skip any or all of them:

• Your age range.
• Your country or region, which you pick from a list.
• How many hours a week you listen.
• How you heard about Flightless.
• Your favorite podcast categories.
• Where you listen, such as on a commute, during a workout, at work, at home or at bedtime.

Your answers are only sent to us while Share Listening Data is on. Otherwise they stay on your device. You can change them later in the app under Settings, then Privacy.

Your listening data and your answers are linked to your account when you are signed in, and to the random ID for your device. The Flightless admin can see them person by person, along with your email address, username, when you signed up, when you were last active, and what you have added. The admin pages are protected by a separate sign in.

Other listeners never see your listening data or your answers.

• To run the app, sign you in, and keep your skips, speed ranges and notes in sync.
• To improve community skips and speed ranges.
• To understand how people listen and who listens, through reports.

We may share with partners, or sell to them, reports made from combined, anonymized data. These reports put listeners together in groups. Any group with fewer than 5 people is left out, and the reports never include account IDs, device IDs, email addresses or usernames.

We do not share or sell your individual records, your email address, or your answers person by person.

Cloudflare hosts our server and database and handles every request to them on our behalf, as our processor. Cloudflare also keeps technical logs of those requests, such as the time, the address requested, the result and the app version, which we use to find and fix problems.

Apple provides Sign in with Apple.

The app also connects directly to Apple’s podcast directory when you search or browse, and to podcast hosts when it downloads feeds and episodes. Those services see your device’s network address and handle it under their own privacy policies.

You can turn off Share Listening Data at any time in the app under Settings, then Privacy. When you do, we delete from our server the listening records and daily activity for your device, and your answers to the optional questions. The app deletes any records it has not sent yet and gives your device a new random ID, so anything you share later cannot be linked to what you shared before.

Combined daily totals for each episode, which hold no account or device IDs, are kept.

• Listening records: right now we keep them indefinitely, for as long as sharing stays on. They are deleted when you turn sharing off.
• Answers to the optional questions: until you change them or turn sharing off.
• Your account, skips, speed ranges, votes and notes: until you delete them or delete your account.
• Sign in sessions: until they expire or you sign out.
• Combined totals with no account or device IDs: these may be kept indefinitely.

You can delete your account in the app under Settings, then Delete Account. This removes your account, email address, username, skips, speed ranges, notes, votes and sign in sessions from our server. Your votes are also taken off the totals for skips and speed ranges that other people added.

Deleting your account does not on its own delete your listening data or your answers. They are unlinked from your account but stay tied to your device’s random ID. To delete them too, turn off Share Listening Data before or after you delete your account, or email privacy@flightless.app and ask us to delete them.

If we change what we collect or how we use it, we will update this page and its effective date. When the change affects listening data, the app will ask you again before sharing under the new terms.

Questions, or a request to see or delete your data: privacy@flightless.app.