The privacy of your data—and it is your data, not ours—is a big deal to us. In this policy, we lay out what information we collect and why, how we handle it, when we access or disclose it, and your rights with respect to it. We never sell your personal information, use it for cross-context behavioral advertising, or use customer content to train generative AI models.

This policy is split into sections. For your convenience, here are links to each section:

• What we collect and why
• When we access or disclose your information
• Your rights with respect to your information
• How we secure your data
• What happens when you delete your Serial account
• Data retention
• Location of sites and data
• Changes and questions

In this policy, the Serial Main Instance means the Megaflora-operated instance of Serial located at https://app.serial.tube.

This policy applies to megaflora.net, the Serial Main Instance, official Serial applications connected to the Serial Main Instance, the Serial browser extension when it is connected to the Serial Main Instance, and other Megaflora services that link to this policy. We call them the “Services.”

This policy applies to our handling of information about site visitors, prospective customers, customers, and authorized users. We refer to these people collectively as “you” throughout this policy. Megaflora LLC is responsible for deciding how and why personal information is processed through the Services. Privacy laws may call Megaflora the controller, business, or a similar term.

An independently operated Serial instance is controlled by its operator, not Megaflora. That operator is responsible for its own privacy practices. Megaflora does not receive information from a self-hosted instance merely because it uses Serial’s open-source code. If you have questions about how your information is collected or processed by a self-hosted instance, contact that instance’s operator.

The Serial browser extension sends captured page and bookmark information only to the Serial instance you select. When it is connected to the Serial Main Instance, this policy applies. When it is connected to a self-hosted instance, the instance operator’s policy applies.

What we collect and why

Our guiding principle is to collect only what we need. Here’s what that means in practice:

Identity and access

When you sign up for an account on the Serial Main Instance, we ask for identifying information such as your email address. You may provide a name, but it is optional. That’s so you can personalize and securely access your account, and we can send you verification, password-reset, billing, and other essential service messages.

Billing information

If you sign up for a paid plan, Polar processes your purchase and billing information. Complete payment-card details are submitted directly to Polar and do not reach Megaflora’s servers. We store identifiers and status information from Polar so we can identify your customer record, confirm your plan, provide paid features, and close a subscription. We may also keep limited billing and transaction records when needed for tax, accounting, fraud prevention, disputes, or legal compliance.

Product interactions

We store on our servers the content you add to or maintain in your account on the Serial Main Instance. This is so you can use Serial as intended. This information can include feed subscriptions, folders and views, bookmarks and saved pages, imported feed lists, reading or viewing state, preferences, and other information you choose to add. If you use the browser extension with the Serial Main Instance, it can also include the address, title, preview, and captured content of a page you save.

We keep this content while your account is active. What happens when you delete your account is described below.

General geolocation, security, and error information

Our servers and infrastructure providers process technical information needed to deliver and protect the Services. This can include IP addresses, browser and device information, request times, requested pages, session identifiers, and diagnostic or error details. We use this information to secure accounts, debug and maintain the Services, detect fraud, abuse, and security incidents, and enforce our Terms of Service. Error logs stay on infrastructure controlled by Megaflora, but may include information related to the account or action involved in an error.

Website interactions

We collect information about your browsing activity for basic analytics and statistical purposes. This can include page views, referring pages, browser and operating-system categories, device type, and approximate country. Our analytics run on Megaflora’s servers. We use this information to understand aggregate website use and improve the Services.

Our analytics do not use cookies. An IP address may be used transiently to derive approximate location and create an anonymous session, but is not stored in the analytics database. We do not attach a user ID or identifiable custom properties, or use session replay.

Advertising and cookies

We do not use advertising cookies or third-party behavioral trackers on the Services.

The Serial Main Instance uses essential cookies or similar storage to keep you signed in, protect sessions, remember product settings, and provide requested functionality. Disabling them may prevent the Services from working. A third-party service may set or read its own cookies when you deliberately open or use that service, such as embedded media or a billing portal.

Voluntary correspondence

When you email Megaflora with a question or to ask for help, we keep that correspondence, including your email address, so that we have a history of past correspondence to reference if you reach out in the future.

We also store information you may volunteer, for example, written responses to surveys. If you agree to a customer interview, we may ask for your permission to record the conversation for future reference or use. We will only do so with your express consent.

How we approach mobile app permissions

We offer optional desktop and mobile apps for some of our products. Because of how the platforms are designed, our apps typically must request your consent before accessing contacts, calendar, camera, and other privacy-sensitive features of your device. Consent is always optional and our apps will function without it, though some features may be unavailable.

When we access or disclose your information

To provide products or services you’ve requested. We use a limited number of companies to host infrastructure, store data, deliver email and public site assets, and process subscriptions. They may process information only for the relevant service or under their own terms where they independently provide a service to you. Our current providers are listed on the Subprocessors page.

At your direction. When you connect an optional integration, we exchange the information needed to provide it. When you open an external link or choose to play embedded media, the external provider may receive your IP address, browser information, and request details. GitHub, Instapaper, YouTube, feed publishers, and other external services process information under their own policies.

To help you troubleshoot or fix a software bug, with your permission. If we need to access your account content to help with a support request, we will ask for your express permission before proceeding.

To investigate, prevent, or take action regarding restricted uses. Accessing a customer’s account when investigating potential abuse is a measure of last resort. We want to protect the privacy and safety of both our customers and the people reporting issues to us, and we do our best to balance those responsibilities throughout the process. If we discover you are using our products for a restricted purpose, we will take action as necessary, including notifying appropriate authorities where warranted.

When required under applicable law. Megaflora is a U.S. company and the Serial Main Instance’s application servers and databases are located in the U.S.

• Requests for user data. Our policy is to not respond to government requests for user data unless we are compelled by legal process or in limited circumstances in the event of an emergency request. However, if U.S. law enforcement authorities have the necessary warrant, criminal subpoena, or court order requiring us to disclose data, we must comply. Likewise, we will only respond to requests from government authorities outside the U.S. if compelled by the U.S. government through procedures outlined in a mutual legal assistance treaty or agreement. It is Megaflora’s policy to notify affected users before we disclose data unless we are legally prohibited from doing so, and except in some emergency cases.

• Preservation requests. Similarly, Megaflora’s policy is to comply with requests to preserve data only if compelled by the U.S. Federal Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. Section 2703(f), or by a properly served U.S. subpoena for civil matters. We do not disclose preserved data unless required by law or compelled by a court order that we choose not to appeal. Furthermore, unless we receive a proper warrant, court order, or subpoena before the required preservation period expires, we will destroy any preserved copies of customer data at the end of the preservation period.

• If we are audited by a tax authority, we may be required to disclose billing-related information. If that happens, we will disclose only the minimum needed, such as billing addresses and tax exemption information.

Your rights with respect to your information

At Megaflora, we strive to apply the same data rights to all customers, regardless of their location. Some of these rights include:

• Right to Know. You have the right to know what personal information is collected, used, shared or sold. We outline both the categories and specific bits of data we collect, as well as how they are used, in this privacy policy.
• Right of Access. This includes your right to access the personal information we gather about you, and your right to obtain information about the sharing, storage, security and processing of that information.
• Right to Correction. You have the right to request correction of your personal information.
• Right to Erasure / “To Be Forgotten”. This is your right to request, subject to certain limitations under applicable law, that your personal information be erased from our possession and, by extension, from all of our service providers. Fulfillment of some data deletion requests may prevent you from using Megaflora services because our applications may then no longer work. In such cases, a data deletion request may result in closing your account.
• Right to Complain. You have the right to make a complaint regarding our handling of your personal information with the appropriate supervisory authority.
• Right to Restrict Processing. This is your right to request restriction of how and why your personal information is used or processed, including opting out of sale of your personal information. (Again: we never have and never will sell your personal data.)
• Right to Object. You have the right, in certain situations, to object to how or why your personal information is processed.
• Right to Portability. You have the right to receive the personal information we have about you and the right to transmit it to another party. If you want to export data from your Serial account, you can export your feed subscriptions through OPML and request a copy of other account information.
• Right to not Be Subject to Automated Decision-Making. You have the right to object to and prevent any decision that could have a legal or similarly significant effect on you from being made solely based on automated processes. This right is limited if the decision is necessary for performance of any contract between you and us, is allowed by applicable law, or is based on your explicit consent.
• Right to Non-Discrimination. We do not and will not charge you a different amount to use our products, offer you different discounts, or give you a lower level of customer service because you have exercised your data privacy rights. However, the exercise of certain rights may, by virtue of your exercising those rights, prevent you from using our Services.

Many of these rights can be exercised by signing in and updating your account information. Please note that certain information may be exempt from such requests under applicable law. For example, we need to retain certain information in order to provide our services to you.

In some cases, we also need to take reasonable steps to verify your identity before responding to a request, which may include, at a minimum, depending on the sensitivity of the information you are requesting and the type of request you are making, verifying your name and email address. If we are unable to verify you, we may be unable to respond to your requests. If you have questions about exercising these rights or need assistance, please contact us at support@megaflora.net or at Megaflora LLC, 418 Broadway #11468, Albany, NY 12207 USA. If an authorized agent is corresponding on your behalf, we will need written consent with a signature from the account holder before proceeding.

Depending on applicable law, you may have the right to appeal our decision to deny your request, if applicable. We will provide information about how to exercise that right in our response denying the request. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. If you are in the EU or UK, you can contact your data protection authority to file a complaint or learn more about local privacy laws.

How we secure your data

All data is encrypted via SSL/TLS when transmitted from our servers to your browser. The database backups are also encrypted. In addition, we go to great lengths to secure your data at rest. Most product data is not stored encrypted in our database (since they need to be ready to send to you when you need them).

What happens when you delete your Serial account

When you delete an account on the Serial Main Instance, we delete the account and associated product information from the active service within a reasonable timeframe. Temporary recovery copies may remain according to our infrastructure providers’ recovery schedules, but they are isolated from ordinary use and expire automatically. Export anything you want to keep before deleting your account.

We may temporarily keep subscription identifiers needed to close a plan. We may also retain limited billing, tax, fraud-prevention, dispute, or legal records for as long as required for those purposes.

Data retention

We keep your information for the time necessary for the purposes for which it is processed. The length of time for which we retain information depends on the purposes for which we collected and use it and your choices, after which time we may delete and/or aggregate it. We may also retain and use this information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. Through this policy, we have provided specific retention periods for certain types of information.

Location of sites and data

Megaflora is based in New York. The Serial Main Instance’s application servers and databases are located in the United States. Our public websites use Bunny.net’s global content-delivery network, so public-site request information may be processed near the visitor’s location or in other countries where Bunny.net operates.

If you use the Services from outside the United States, please be aware that your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States, where privacy laws and government-access rules may differ from those in your country. We continue to apply the commitments in this policy regardless of where you live.

When transferring personal data from the EU

The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has issued guidance that personal data transferred out of the EU must be treated with the same level of protection that is granted under EU privacy law. UK law provides similar safeguards for UK user data that is transferred out of the UK.

Changes and questions

We may update this policy as needed to reflect changes in the Services, our practices, or the law. Whenever we make a material change, we will update the date at the top of this page and take other appropriate steps to notify existing account holders.

Have any questions, comments, or concerns about this privacy policy, your data, or your rights with respect to your information? Email support@megaflora.net, or write to us at:

Megaflora LLC
418 Broadway #11468
Albany, NY 12207
United States