Privacy Policy.

Draft for legal review. Not yet in effect.

YouNeek Studios, Inc. ("us", "we", or "our") operates the https://youneekstudios.com website, the YouNeek YouNiverse app at https://app.youneekstudios.com, and the YouNeek YouNiverse apps for iOS and Android (together, the "Service").

This page informs you of our policies regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of personal data when you use our Service and the choices you have associated with that data.

We use your data to provide and improve the Service. By using the Service, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy. Unless otherwise defined in this Privacy Policy, terms used in this Privacy Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms and Conditions, accessible from https://youneekstudios.com/terms/

Definitions

Personal Data. Personal Data means data about a living individual who can be identified from those data.

Usage Data. Usage Data is data collected automatically, either generated by the use of the Service or from the Service infrastructure itself.

Cookies. Cookies are small pieces of data stored on your device.

Data Controller. Data Controller means a person who (either alone or jointly or in common with other persons) determines the purposes for which and the manner in which any personal data are, or are to be, processed. For the purpose of this Privacy Policy, YouNeek Studios, Inc. is the Data Controller of your data.

Data Processor (or Service Providers). Data Processor (or Service Provider) means any person (other than an employee of the Data Controller) who processes the data on behalf of the Data Controller. We use the Service Providers listed below to process your data more effectively.

Data Subject (or User). The Data Subject is any living individual who is using our Service and is the subject of Personal Data.

Information Collection And Use

We collect several different types of information for various purposes to provide and improve our Service to you.

Types of Data Collected

Personal Data. While using our Service, we may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify you. We only ask for what we need for the feature you are using:

• Email sign-ups (newsletter, free Reader, game and film updates): your email address, the list you joined and the page you joined from.
• Contact, press and privacy request forms: your name, email address and message.
• App accounts and subscriptions: your name, email address, password, subscription status and purchase history. Payment card details are entered directly with our payment processors (see Payments below).
• Merchandise orders (if and when our store opens): your name, shipping address and order details.

We may use your Personal Data to contact you with newsletters, marketing or promotional materials and other information that may be of interest to you. You may opt out of receiving any, or all, of these communications from us by following the unsubscribe link in any email we send, or by contacting us.

Usage Data. We may also collect information on how the Service is accessed and used ("Usage Data"). This Usage Data may include information such as your device's Internet Protocol address (e.g. IP address), browser type, browser version, the pages of our Service that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, approximate location (city or region, based on IP address), unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data. In the app, it may also include which books you open and your reading progress, so we can remember your place.

Tracking & Cookies Data. We use cookies and similar tracking technologies (such as pixels, tags and scripts) to track the activity on our Service and hold certain information. On our website, cookies that are not essential to running the site are only set after you agree to them in our cookie banner, except that in the United States, analytics and marketing cookies are on when you arrive and you can turn them off at any time under Your Privacy Choices. You can change your choice at any time with the "Cookie settings" or "Your Privacy Choices" link at the bottom of every page. See our Cookie Policy at https://youneekstudios.com/cookie-policy/ for the full list.

Examples of cookies we use:

• Essential cookies. Needed to run the Service, keep you signed in and remember your cookie choices.
• Preference cookies. Remember your preferences and settings.
• Analytics cookies. Help us understand how the Service is used.
• Marketing cookies. Help us measure our ads and show ads to people who may be interested in our stories.

We do not use your data to make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects.

Use of Data

YouNeek Studios, Inc. uses the collected data for various purposes:

• To provide and maintain our Service, including your app account and subscription
• To process payments and send receipts and account notices
• To notify you about changes to our Service
• To allow you to participate in interactive features of our Service when you choose to do so (for example, a vote)
• To provide customer support and answer your messages
• To gather analysis or valuable information so that we can improve our Service
• To monitor the usage of our Service
• To detect, prevent and address technical issues, fraud and abuse
• To provide you with news, special offers and general information about our stories, products, services and events, unless you have opted out of receiving such information
• To measure and improve our advertising, where you have agreed to marketing cookies

Legal bases (for visitors in the EU, UK and similar regions). We process Personal Data to perform our contract with you (your account and subscription), with your consent (marketing emails, non-essential cookies), for our legitimate interests (keeping the Service secure, understanding how it is used, answering your messages) and to comply with the law. You may withdraw consent at any time.

We Do Not Sell Your Personal Data

We do not sell your Personal Data for money. If we use advertising cookies or pixels on our Service (for example Meta or TikTok), some state laws may treat sharing data with those advertising partners as a "sale" or "sharing" for targeted advertising. You can opt out at any time under Your Privacy Choices (linked at the bottom of every page), by turning on Global Privacy Control in your browser, or by sending us a privacy request. We do not process the Personal Data of anyone we know to be under 18 for targeted advertising, and we never sell it.

Retention of Data

YouNeek Studios, Inc. will retain your Personal Data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We will retain and use your Personal Data to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your data to comply with tax and accounting laws), resolve disputes, and enforce our legal agreements and policies. As a guide:

• Email list data: until you unsubscribe, then a record of the unsubscribe so we don't email you again.
• Form messages: up to two years after we reply, unless we need them longer to handle your request.
• Account and purchase records: while your account is open, and as long as tax and accounting laws require after that.

We will also retain Usage Data for internal analysis purposes. Usage Data is generally retained for a shorter period of time (our analytics tools are set to keep it for no more than 14 months), except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of our Service, or we are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods.

Transfer Of Data

Your information, including Personal Data, may be transferred to, and maintained on, computers located outside of your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ from those of your jurisdiction.

If you are located outside the United States and choose to provide information to us, please note that we transfer the data, including Personal Data, to the United States and process it there. Where the law requires it, we rely on safeguards such as the European Commission's standard contractual clauses offered by our Service Providers.

YouNeek Studios, Inc. will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy, and no transfer of your Personal Data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place, including the security of your data and other personal information.

Disclosure Of Data

Service Providers. We share Personal Data with the Service Providers listed below, only so they can perform services for us.

Business Transaction. If YouNeek Studios, Inc. is involved in a merger, acquisition or asset sale, your Personal Data may be transferred. We will provide notice before your Personal Data is transferred and becomes subject to a different Privacy Policy.

Disclosure for Law Enforcement. Under certain circumstances, YouNeek Studios, Inc. may be required to disclose your Personal Data if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g. a court or a government agency).

Legal Requirements. YouNeek Studios, Inc. may disclose your Personal Data in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to:

• Comply with a legal obligation
• Protect and defend the rights or property of YouNeek Studios, Inc.
• Prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service
• Protect the personal safety of users of the Service or the public
• Protect against legal liability

Security Of Data

The security of your data is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Data, such as encrypted (HTTPS) connections and limited access to our accounts, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

"Do Not Track" and Global Privacy Control

Do Not Track ("DNT") is a preference you can set in your web browser. Because there is no common standard for DNT, our Service does not respond to it. We do honor Global Privacy Control (GPC): if your browser sends a GPC signal, we treat it as a request to opt out of marketing cookies and targeted advertising on that browser.

Your Rights

YouNeek Studios, Inc. aims to take reasonable steps to allow you to correct, amend, delete, or limit the use of your Personal Data. Whenever made possible, you can update your Personal Data directly within your account settings. You can unsubscribe from our emails at any time with the link in every email.

Depending on where you live, you have the right to:

• Access and receive a copy of the Personal Data we hold about you, in a commonly used electronic format (data portability)
• Rectify any Personal Data held about you that is inaccurate
• Request the deletion of Personal Data held about you
• Know which categories of third parties we have shared your Personal Data with
• Opt out of targeted advertising, the sale of Personal Data and profiling
• Withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on consent
• Object to or restrict our processing, and complain to your local data protection authority (EU and UK)

These rights apply to residents of Maryland, California and other US states with privacy laws, and to residents of the EU, UK and similar regions. We extend them to all our users where we reasonably can.

How to make a request. Send us a privacy request using the form at https://youneekstudios.com/contact/ and choose "Privacy request". Please note that we may ask you to verify your identity before responding to such requests, usually by confirming the email address on your account. You may use an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf. We will respond within 45 days. If we deny your request, you may appeal by replying to our response, and we will answer your appeal within 60 days. If you are not satisfied with our answer to your appeal, you may contact your state Attorney General.

We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights.

Service Providers

We employ third-party companies and individuals to facilitate our Service ("Service Providers"), to provide the Service on our behalf, to perform Service-related services or to assist us in analyzing how our Service is used. These third parties have access to your Personal Data only to perform these tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.

Analytics

We use third-party Service Providers to monitor and analyze the use of our Service.

Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. Google uses the data collected to track and monitor the use of our Service. On our website it runs only if you accept analytics cookies (in the United States: unless you opt out). You can also opt out by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on (https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout). For more information on the privacy practices of Google, please visit https://policies.google.com/privacy

Microsoft Clarity. Clarity shows us how visitors use our pages (where they click and how far they scroll) through heatmaps and session recordings. Clarity masks the text you type into forms, so we never see it. On our website it runs only if you accept analytics cookies (in the United States: unless you opt out). For more information, please visit https://privacy.microsoft.com/privacystatement

Advertising and Remarketing

YouNeek Studios, Inc. may use remarketing services to advertise on third-party websites and apps to you after you visited our Service, and to measure how our ads perform. We and our third-party vendors use cookies and pixels to inform, optimize and serve ads based on your past visits to our Service. On our website these run only if you accept marketing cookies (in the United States: unless you opt out).

When you sign up on our website and have allowed marketing cookies (or, in the United States, have not opted out), we send Meta and TikTok a one-way encrypted (hashed) version of your email address, never the address itself, so they can match the sign-up to our ads. They use it only to measure and improve our advertising. You can stop this at any time under Your Privacy Choices or by declining marketing cookies.

• Google Ads. You can opt out of Google's personalized ads at https://adssettings.google.com
• Meta (Facebook and Instagram). You can learn more about interest-based advertising and opt out at https://www.facebook.com/help/568137493302217
• TikTok. You can learn more at https://www.tiktok.com/legal/privacy-policy

You can also opt out of interest-based ads from many companies through:

• USA: https://optout.aboutads.info/
• Canada: https://youradchoices.ca/
• Europe: https://www.youronlinechoices.eu/
• Your mobile device settings

Payments

We provide paid products and services within the Service, such as app subscriptions and individual books. We use third-party services for payment processing (e.g. payment processors).

We will not store or collect your payment card details. That information is provided directly to our third-party payment processors, whose use of your personal information is governed by their Privacy Policy. These payment processors adhere to the standards set by PCI-DSS as managed by the PCI Security Standards Council, which is a joint effort of brands like Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover. PCI-DSS requirements help ensure the secure handling of payment information.

The payment processors we work with are:

• Stripe (purchases on app.youneekstudios.com): https://stripe.com/privacy
• Apple App Store in-app payments (iPhone and iPad app): https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/
• Google Play in-app payments (Android app): https://policies.google.com/privacy

Links To Other Sites

Our Service may contain links to other sites that are not operated by us. If you click on a third-party link, you will be directed to that third party's site. We strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit. We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third-party sites or services.

Children's Privacy

Our stories are enjoyed by readers of all ages, but our Service is intended for a general audience and is not directed to children under the age of 13 ("Children"). We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13. Our sign-up forms ask you to confirm you are 13 or older.

If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your Child has provided us with Personal Data, please contact us through our privacy request form. If we become aware that we have collected Personal Data from Children without verification of parental consent, we take steps to remove that information from our servers.

We do not sell the Personal Data of anyone we know to be under 18, or use it for targeted advertising.

Changes To This Privacy Policy

We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page. For material changes, we will let you know via email and/or a prominent notice on our Service prior to the change becoming effective, and update the "Last updated" date at the top of this Privacy Policy.

You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, or want to make a privacy request, please contact us:

• By using our contact form: https://youneekstudios.com/contact/ (choose "Privacy request")
• By mail: YouNeek Studios, Inc., 8230 Kippis Road, Millersville, MD 21108, United States