Privacy Policy

Last updated: April 11, 2023

Welcome to Storylace!

Storylace is a community for book lovers to discover art inspired by amazing stories, find new books, friends, review their favorite reads, and organize their personal library.

This Privacy Notice describes how Storylace, LLC (“Storylace”, “we”, “us” and/or “our”) handles the personal information that we collect from and about you in connection with our website, currently located at www.storylace.com (the “Site”); our mobile application (the “App”); and all associated content, features, functionalities, user interfaces, and applications we may offer (collectively, our “Services”). This Privacy Notice also describes certain legal rights you may have, subject to applicable law, and how you can exercise them.

For the purposes of this Privacy Notice, “Personal Information” means information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual (such as a name, email address, or photograph), or as otherwise defined under applicable law. Some information that is automatically disclosed to us or collected by us through your use of our Service meets this definition.

Please read this notice carefully. In addition, please review our Terms of Use which governs your use of the Services and any content you submit to the Services.

Information we Collect

Information You Give Us Directly

Some information we collect directly from you. For instance, we collect information you voluntarily provide in the following ways:

When you fill in forms on our Site. When you fill in forms on our Site, including when you contact us for additional information, we may require that you provide us with certain information, such as your name, contact information, and how you heard about us.

When you purchase a subscription. If you choose to purchase a subscription or other products or services we may offer from time to time, you will be required to provide a third-party payment processor with information such as your name, payment card details, and billing address in order to facilitate payment.

When you set up an account and populate your profile. When you create an account, you will be asked to provide an email address and unique password to authenticate you at sign-in. You have the option to personalize your profile by providing additional information such as a profile photo, your city, and any biographical information you wish to share. We may also ask for a referral code. You may choose to add your book tracking information such as titles you’d like to read, which you can add to your “Library.”

When you share user-generated content. We collect any information that you choose to include when you upload photos or video, write comments or reviews, or otherwise post to forums accessible to other Storylace users.

When you use certain app features. From time to time, we may offer features that require that we request additional permissions to certain aspects of your mobile device. No information will be collected unless you explicitly agree to these permissions and you can change the permissions you grant at any time using your device settings.

When you participate in in-person or virtual events. If you register for an in-person event we host or sponsor, we may collect details such as your name, contact information, and any specific information relevant to the event for which you are registering. We collect similar information if you register for a virtual event we host or sponsor. In addition, in order to enable our live virtual events, we stream video and audio feed of interactions between Storylace users and featured guests as well as the contents of any communications enabled by integrated chat functions within the third-party services, such as Zoom, which we use to provide the events. This includes collecting your image, voice, movements, physical environment, and any other information provided during the event. From time to time, we may record special events and make those recordings accessible to other Storylace users. If we do so, we will indicate that the event will be recorded.

When you sign up to receive email communications from us or complete a survey. When you engage in these activities, we may collect your name and contact information as well as and any information you provide to us as part of that request (such as information about your satisfaction with our Service in response to a survey).

When you send a gift card or invite others to try Storylace. If you purchase a gift card for another person, we will collect the recipient’s name and email address which we use solely to enable us to send the gift card. We may also offer features that allow you to invite others to try Storylace. In this case, we will collect and store the invitee’s email address in order to enable us to send an invitation. We will also let the invitee know who invited them to use Storylace and let them request that their information be deleted from our systems.

When you contact us. When you contact us by email; through our branded social media accounts; through any integrated chat providers we may offer, or by telephone, SMS, or physical mail, we may collect your name, username, email address, phone number, physical address, and the contents of your communication which can include any information you choose to provide. We will only use that information for the purpose of providing the service or support requested.

When you apply to work with us as a content creator. If you apply to work with us as a content creator, we may require that you provide us with certain information such as your name, contact details, work experience, education, photo, social network information (such as a LinkedIn profile), and relevant skills. We also collect financial information necessary to allow you to receive payments for your work, as well as your birthdate, taxpayer identification number, and government-issued identification where required by law, for instance, to complete tax filings.

Information Collected Automatically When You Use Our Services

Certain information is also collected automatically as you navigate our Services or interact with our communications. This includes the following:

Information about the devices you use to access our Services (including your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, browser type, and operating system);

The address of the web page visited before and after using our Services;

Details about your interactions with our Services (such as the date, time, length of stay, and specific pages accessed during your visits);

Search terms used to reach our Services;

Usage information (such as the number and frequency of visitors to our Site);

Location information (such as general location information inferred from your IP address); and

App analytics (such as app launches, taps, clicks, scrolling information, screen visits, session durations, and crash reports).

We have partnered with Fathom Analytics a third-party analytics provider to collect this information. Unlike most analytics providers, Fathom Analytics does not rely on cookies, does not track users across websites and devices, and only stores raw Personal Information (such as your IP address) for up to 24 hours (or longer where necessary for security purposes). No IP addresses or other personal details are displayed to us in our customer dashboard. We only received hashed data which allows us to do things such as establish if you are a new visitor, count page views, and analyze usage patterns on our Services.

You can learn more about Fathom Analytics here.

Information We Collect From Other Sources

We receive some information about you from third-party sources.

Payment processors. In general, when you purchase a subscription or other products or services from us, your payment card information is provided directly to a third-party payment processor and Storylace does not collect or store that information. However, we may receive limited information such as the last four digits of your card, the country of issuance, and the expiration date.

Third-party authentication providers. You may sign up and log-in to our Service using third-party authentication providers such as Google and Apple. If you choose to sign up and log in in this manner, the third-party authentication service will ask your permission to share certain information to enable the integration. You can control the information third-party authentication providers may share about you using the privacy settings in your accounts with those services.

Social media platforms. We may offer social sharing features and other integrated tools such as widgets, which allow you to share content on our Site with third-party social media platforms such as Tiktok and LinkedIn. If you choose to use these social sharing features, the provider of the third-party social media platform may make certain information available to us. This can include information necessary to facilitate the integration as well as any additional information the provider chooses to share with us or which you have permitted the provider to share through your privacy settings. We encourage you to check the privacy settings and privacy policies of these third-party social media platforms to understand what information might be shared with us.

Another Storylace user. We may collect your Personal Information from another Storylace user if that user provides us with your email address in order to invite you to try Storylace or to send you a gift card. Another Storylace user may also provide us with your Personal Information when sharing user-generated content which could include information about or depictions of you.

We may combine the information we collect about you from these various sources. If a combination of information that we collect identifies you as an individual, we will treat the combined information as Personal Information.

How We Use Your Information

We use the information described above to do the following:

Provide our Services (including creating your account and identifying you when you sign in; managing your access to and use of our Services; fulfilling your requests and registrations; and sending you technical notices, updates, security alerts, and support and administrative messages);

Operate and improve our Services (including monitoring and analyzing usage, trends, and activities related to the Services and identifying, fixing, and troubleshooting bugs and service errors);

Communicate with you (including responding to your requests, inquiries, comments, and suggestions);

Personalize content (including tailoring content we send or display to you in order to provide you with information and resources we think will be relevant to you);

Further our networking, marketing, and social strategies (including posting testimonials; notifying you about programs, services, offers, promotions, and events; and promoting our programs and services);

Protect against, identify, investigate, and respond to misuse of our Services (including posting testimonials; notifying you about programs, services, offers, promotions, and events; and promoting our programs and services);

Support our general business operations (including maintaining our business and legal recordkeeping); and

Carry out any other purpose described to you at the time the information was collected.

How We Share Your Information

We may share information about you with third parties in the following circumstances:

Companies under common control. We may share Personal Information between and among any current or future parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, and other companies under common control and ownership with Storylace.

Vendors and service providers. In order to carry out your requests, to make various features, services, and materials available to you through the Services, and to respond to your inquiries, we may share your Personal Information with third parties that perform functions on our behalf. This includes our payment processing providers, customer service providers, and email service providers. If we collect or receive your Personal Information and subsequently transfer that information to a third party to provide services on our behalf, we remain responsible for ensuring that your Personal Information is treated in accordance with applicable law and this Privacy Notice.

Social media platforms. Our Services may offer social sharing features and other integrated tools such as widgets, which allow users to share information from their Storylace account with third-party social media platforms like Tiktok or Facebook. Using these social sharing features is optional.

General public. We offer several features that allow Storylace users to connect and share content in public or semi-public spaces. You do not have to use these features, but if you do, you should use good judgement. Certain information in your profile, such as your display name, profile photo, and any other information you disclose in comments or reviews in the pubic or semi-public areas of Storylace’s Services may be read, collected, stored, or used by others.

Analytics partners. We allow Fathom Analytics, a third-party website analytics tool, to collect Personal Information about you, including your IP address, mobile device identifier, and data about your usage in order to better understand how people interact with our Services. To learn more about how Fathom Analytics handles your information, please click here.

Business transfers. We may share Personal Information with another company in connection with or during negotiations of any merger, acquisition, financing, re-organization, bankruptcy, sale of all or a portion of our assets, or transition of services to another provider.

Legal requirements. We may transfer and disclose information, including your Personal Information, to third parties to comply with a legal obligation; when we believe in good faith that the law requires it; at the request of governmental authorities conducting an investigation; to verify or enforce our Terms of Use or other applicable policies; to respond to an emergency; or otherwise, to protect the rights, property, safety, or security of third parties, visitors to our Services, or the public.

Consent. We may share Personal Information with third parties with your consent and at your direction, including if we notify you that the information you provide will be shared in a particular manner and you provide that information. For instance, if you participate in an online event that we record and make available via our Services, we will ask for your consent to capture your image in connection with the recording and share it with other Storylace users.

We may also share aggregate or de-identified information, which cannot reasonably be used to identify you, for various purposes including compliance with various reporting obligations; for business or marketing purposes; or to assist third parties in understanding our users’ interests, habits, and usage patterns for certain programs, content, services, advertisements, promotions, and/or functionality available through the Services.

Your Rights and Choices

You have a variety of rights and choices related to our use of your Personal Information.

Opting out of promotional communications. You can opt out of receiving our promotional emails and texts at any time by following the instructions included in those communications. Please be aware that it may take up to ten (10) days for us to process your request, and you may continue receiving promotional communications from us during that period. If you opt out of receiving such communications, please be aware that we may continue to send you non-promotional communications (such as emails about changes to our legal terms).

Restricting cookies. You can configure most browsers to reject cookies or to notify you when you are sent a cookie, giving you a chance to decide whether or not to accept it. Consult the help section of your browser to find out how to do this. Please note that if you choose to remove or reject cookies, this could affect the availability and functionality of our Services.

Correcting and changing your account information. You can access, update, and delete certain Personal Information associated with your account in your account settings. For all other corrections, you can email us at [email protected]. If you wish, you can also delete your account entirely. Please note that if you choose to close your account, we may keep certain Personal Information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations or for legitimate business purposes, such as to resolve disputes or enforce our agreements. We may also keep cached archived copies of Personal Information for a certain period of time.

Limiting information in your account. You can control the information we collect about you by limiting the information you provide through your profile.

Disabling push notifications. With your consent, we may share push notifications or alerts to your mobile device. We use push notifications to inform you of important updates. You can manage or deactivate these notifications at any time by turning off the notifications setting in the App or by disabling notifications through the device settings on your mobile device. If you choose not to receive push notification, you will still receive in-app notifications in the “Notifications” section of the App.

Limiting device permissions. With your consent, we may access your mobile device’s camera, microphone, or storage features. However, we will never import any photos or audio files other than those you explicitly choose to share. At any time, you can turn off these features using the device settings of your mobile device.

“Do Not Track” Disclosure

The law in California and Delaware requires that we disclose how we handle “Do Not Track” browser signals. Our Services are not currently designed to respond to web browser “do not track” signals.

How Long We Keep Your Information

We only keep your Personal Information for so long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice, as required by law, or as necessary to resolve disputes and enforce our rights and agreements. To dispose of Personal Information, we may anonymize it, delete it, or take other appropriate steps. Data may persist in copies made for backup and business continuity purposes for additional time.

How We Protect Your Information

We maintain generally accepted administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to help protect against loss, misuse or unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction of your Personal Information. However, there is always some risk involved in transmitting information over the internet and storing information electronically. No company or service (including us) can guarantee complete security. You can do your part by never giving out your password or other personal credentials used to access your Storylace account.

Links to Other Sites and Services

We may provide links to third-party websites, services, and applications that we do not own or operate. This Privacy Notice does not apply to the privacy practices of those third parties. The fact that we link to a website, service, or application is not an endorsement, authorization, or representation of our affiliation with that third party. We encourage you to review the privacy notices of any third-party service before providing any Personal Information to or through them.

Children’s Information

Most features of our Services are intended for general audiences and we do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children in connection with these features. If you are a parent or legal guardian and think your child under the age of thirteen (13) (or a higher age threshold, where applicable) has given us Personal Information without your consent, please contact us at [email protected]. If we do intend to collect Personal Information from children, we will take additional steps to protect children’s privacy including the following:

• Notifying parents about our information practices with regard to children, including the types of Personal Information we may collect from children, the uses to which we may put that information and whether and with whom we may share that information;
• In accordance with applicable law and our practices, obtaining consent from parents for the collection of Personal Information from their children, or for sending information about our products and services directly to their children;
• Limiting our collection of Personal Information from children to no more than is reasonably necessary to participate in an online activity; and Giving parents access or the ability to request access to Personal Information we have collected from their children and the ability to request that the Personal Information be changed or deleted.

If you are over the age of thirteen (13), but under the age of majority where you live, you may use our Services with the permission of a parent or legal guardian. If you are a California resident under eighteen (18) years old, you can request that we remove content or information that you have posted to our Services. Please note that we may not be able to remove content or information completely, for example if it has been re-posted by another user. To request removal of content or information, please email [email protected].

Data Transfer

Personal Information we collect may be stored and processed for the purposes set out in this Privacy Notice in the United States where we are based or in any country where we have operations or where we engage vendors or service providers. These countries may not have the same data protection laws as the country in which you originally provided the information.

Updates to This Privacy Notice

We may change this Privacy Notice from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or in the law. If we make changes to this notice, we will post the updated Privacy Notice on our website and indicate when it was last revised. You are advised to review this notice periodically to stay informed of our practices. If we make material changes, we may provide you with additional notice, such as posting a statement on our homepage or sending you an email notification, if we have your email address on file.

How to Contact Us

If you have any questions about our Privacy Notice or how we protect your Personal Information, please contact us at [email protected].