Template — review with counsel before launch. This is reasonable boilerplate tailored to Sonnely, provided to get you started. It is not legal advice and must be reviewed by a lawyer before you rely on it.
Effective January 1, 2026
Your reading life is personal, and we treat it that way. This policy explains what we collect, why, and the controls you have. We aim to collect only what we need to make Sonnely warm and useful.
1. What we collect
- Account details you give us — name, email, birth year (to confirm you’re 13+), and profile preferences.
- Your reading activity — shelves, ratings, reviews, club memberships, and companion conversations.
- Social activity — friend requests, messages, and club participation.
- Payment information for subscriptions and paid clubs, processed by our payment provider (we don’t store full card numbers).
- Usage and device data — basic analytics about how the app is used, collected only with your consent where required.
2. How we use it
- To run Sonnely: your library, clubs, messages, and account.
- To personalize recommendations from the AI Librarian and your reading companions.
- To keep the community safe through moderation and abuse prevention.
- To process payments and manage subscriptions.
- To understand and improve the product — using analytics you’ve consented to.
3. Analytics and your consent
Sonnely uses privacy-conscious analytics to understand which features readers love. You control this: analytics events respect your consent setting, which you can change at any time in your account settings. If you opt out, we won’t capture optional analytics about your activity.
4. Sharing
We do not sell your personal data. We share it only with trusted service providers who help us run Sonnely (such as hosting, payments, and analytics), and only as needed to provide the Service. We may disclose data if required by law or to protect the safety of our community.
5. What other readers can see
Some information is social by design — your display name, profile, shelves you make public, reviews, and club activity may be visible to other members. You control much of this through your privacy settings, and direct messages are visible only to the people in the conversation.
6. Your rights and controls
You can access, export, and delete your data from your account settings. Exporting gives you a portable copy of your profile, library, shelves, reviews, clubs, and companion. Requesting deletion starts the process of removing your account, which you can cancel during a short grace period. Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights under laws such as the GDPR or CCPA — contact us to exercise them.
7. Children
Sonnely is not for anyone under 13. We ask for birth year to enforce this and will remove accounts we learn belong to children under that age.
8. Data retention and security
We keep your data for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the Service and meet legal obligations. We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect it, though no system is perfectly secure.
9. Changes and contact
We’ll update this policy as Sonnely evolves and tell you about meaningful changes. Questions or requests? Reach us through our Support page.