ArtistLane — Privacy Policy
ArtistLane builds listening sessions from a single artist's catalogue on YouTube, and plays the music files already stored on your phone. This policy explains what happens to your information.
Summary
- There is no account and no sign-up.
- Your playlists, favourites and play counts are stored only on your phone.
- The app has no server of its own. The developer never receives your listening history.
- The artist catalogue is built into the app. ArtistLane does not send your searches or selections to YouTube's API.
- When you actually play a YouTube video, YouTube itself is involved — see below.
Music already on your phone
To play your own music, the app asks for permission to read audio files on your device. It uses this only to list and play those files.
- The app reads the title, artist, album, duration and file location of your audio files so it can show and play them.
- No audio file is ever uploaded, copied off your device, or sent to us or anyone else.
- The app does not read your photos, videos, documents, contacts or location. Those permissions are blocked in the app's manifest.
- Playback continues when the screen is off, which is why the app declares a media playback service and a wake lock. Neither is used for anything else.
If you decline the audio permission, the local player simply shows nothing and the rest of the app works normally.
What is stored on your device
- Your playlists and favourites, including which of your local tracks are in them.
- Play counts and skips, used to build your "most played" list. A track counts as played once you have listened to at least half of it; skipping does not count.
- Preferences such as your theme and last-used artist.
All of this lives in the app's private storage. Android Auto Backup is disabled, so it is not copied to Google Drive by the app. Uninstalling the app deletes it.
YouTube
ArtistLane ships with a built-in catalogue of songs for the artists it supports. That catalogue was gathered in advance by the developer, so browsing an artist inside the app sends nothing to YouTube — no search terms, no selections, no identifiers.
Two things do involve YouTube, and both happen only when you choose them:
- Playing a session in the app. The app loads YouTube's own player. From that moment YouTube receives the request, including your IP address, and may set its own cookies and identifiers, exactly as it would in a browser. This is governed by Google's privacy policy and the YouTube Terms of Service, not by this policy.
- Sending a session to YouTube. If you choose to open your session in the YouTube app or your browser, the app hands over the list of video IDs in a link. Nothing about you is attached to that link by ArtistLane.
ArtistLane has no access to your YouTube account, your subscriptions, your watch history or your likes, and never asks you to sign in to Google.
Advertising
ArtistLane shows ads from Google AdMob, and only on the screens for your own local music library and playlists. No ad is ever shown on a screen containing YouTube content or the YouTube player, as YouTube's developer policies require. Nothing about which songs you play, own or save is shared with AdMob.
AdMob may collect and process the following to deliver and measure ads and to prevent fraud, sent encrypted in transit:
- your IP address, which may be used to estimate your general location
- interactions such as app launches, ad views and taps
- diagnostic information such as app performance
- device identifiers, including the Android advertising ID and the app set ID
Where required by law (for example in the EEA and UK), the app asks for your consent before personalised ads are shown. You can change your choice at any time in Settings → Ad privacy choices, and you can reset or delete your advertising ID in your phone's own settings.
Versions of this app distributed outside Google Play contain no advertising at all. Those builds do not include the advertising ID permission and never contact AdMob.
Learn how Google uses data from apps that use its services: policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites
Information we do not collect
There is no account, no analytics on what you listen to, and no sale of data. The developer receives nothing about your library, your playlists or your listening.
Children
The app is not directed to children under 13.
Deleting your data
Delete individual playlists inside the app, or uninstall the app to remove every playlist, favourite and play count. Because nothing is stored anywhere else, there is nothing further to request. Your own music files are untouched by uninstalling.
Changes
If this policy changes, the updated version will be published at this address with a new effective date.
Contact
Questions: support@nivarostudios.com