Lou Privacy Policy

Information we collect

• Account information: an authentication identifier Lou creates after you accept the privacy notice, plus your email address and sign-in method if you choose to back up or sign in to an 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, timestamped transcript text, 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

After you accept Lou's privacy notice, Lou creates a guest account so subscriptions, playback activity, and scans can work without an email address. You may later add an email address to back it up. We also collect information when you 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 and Groq to transcribe podcast audio when Lou uses cloud transcription; OpenAI to classify transcript text 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

On supported devices, Lou uses Apple's SpeechAnalyzer framework to transcribe podcast audio on the device. The episode audio stays on the device for this transcription step. Lou sends the resulting timestamped transcript text to our service so it can classify likely ad breaks. SpeechAnalyzer does not send the episode audio to Apple for processing.

After an on-device scan identifies an ad segment, Lou may also generate and submit a compact audio fingerprint for that segment. A fingerprint is a mathematical representation of the audio, not a playable audio recording. Lou uses it to recognize the same ad in other episodes and avoid repeating work.

When on-device transcription is unavailable or Lou uses the cloud scan path, Lou may upload podcast audio or excerpts to our service and its transcription providers. Lou may temporarily store that audio together with transcripts, debug data, fingerprints, and ad segment maps to complete the scan, diagnose problems, and avoid duplicate processing.

Temporary audio is deleted after processing when diagnostic retention is off. Diagnostic retention is currently enabled, and Lou-controlled scan audio and paired debug artifacts are scheduled for deletion after 3 days. Cleanup also removes abandoned multipart uploads after 24 hours and orphaned preview, scheduler, verification-audio, and scheduler-transcript objects after 2 days.

Lou may retain non-playable fingerprints, transcript-derived signatures, episode metadata, and ad segment maps for as long as needed to recognize repeat ads, improve scan quality, and avoid duplicate processing. These shared artifacts describe podcast episodes and detected ad segments rather than a listener's library or listening history.

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. This applies to guest accounts as well as accounts backed up with an email address. Deleting your account removes your Lou account, subscriptions, listening data, and user-scoped backend data, then clears local app data, including downloads, 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 of a backed-up account 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

For product support, bug reports, and beta feedback, visit Lou Support.