Privacy Notice
This Privacy Notice explains what personal data NeoLibrary collects, why, and the choices and rights you have over it. It works alongside our Terms of Service. That document governs your use of the site; this one governs your data.
1. About This Notice
NeoLibrary is a cataloging and social platform spanning four categories (Films, Shows, Books, and Games) where you can rate, review, tag, list, and discuss titles, and follow other members. This Notice covers the personal data we collect through the NeoLibrary website and, once it exists, our mobile app (together, the “Services”). It doesn't cover third-party sites you reach by clicking a link from NeoLibrary, including the affiliate and catalog links described below; read their own privacy notices separately.
Questions about anything in this Notice can be sent to us using the details in Section 17.
2. Personal Data We Collect
What we collect depends on how you use NeoLibrary. In broad categories:
Identity and account data: the email and password you sign up with, your username, and profile details you choose to add (display name, pronouns, bio, location, avatar, favorites).
Activity data: the ratings, reviews, tags, lists, comments, discussion posts, and follows you create, plus what you mark as watched, read, played, listened to, or want to get to. This is the core of what makes NeoLibrary useful to you, and it's also user-generated content under our Terms.
Device and usage data: your IP address, browser and operating system, pages viewed, and similar technical information, collected automatically when you use the Services.
Payment data, collected once paid tiers launch and handled by a third-party payment processor, described further in Section 7. We never see or store your full card number.
Communications data: anything you send us directly, such as a support request through the Contact page or a content report filed through a kebab menu.
Imported data, if you choose to use it (see Section 5).
We don't intentionally collect sensitive categories of data (health information, racial or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, and similar), and ask that you not include this kind of information in a review, bio, or other text field either.
3. How We Use Your Data
We use your data to: create and run your account; show your ratings, reviews, and lists to you and (per your privacy settings) to other members; personalize recommendations and your feed; provide customer support and investigate content reports; keep the Services secure and prevent abuse; process payments once paid tiers exist; and build the aggregated data products described in Section 6.
Where GDPR applies (Section 13), our legal basis is usually contract (to actually provide the account and features you're using), legitimate interest (security, abuse prevention, product improvement, and producing the aggregated statistics described in Section 6, balanced against your rights), or consent (optional marketing). Where a specific use relies on consent, you can withdraw it at any time by contacting us.
4. Catalog Data Isn't Personal Data
Title, creator, and release information (the facts about a film, show, book, or game itself) comes from third-party catalogs: TMDB for films and shows, Google Books for books, and IGDB for games, as described in our Terms. Looking up or displaying this catalog data doesn't involve sending your personal data to these providers; it's a one-way read of public catalog information, not a data-sharing relationship covered by the rest of this Notice. Your own ratings, reviews, and activity about a title are handled entirely within NeoLibrary and are covered like any other activity data.
5. Importing Data From Other Services
Account Settings lets you import your ratings and watch/read history from a CSV export of another cataloging service. When you upload a file, we read the ratings, titles, and dates it contains and add them to your NeoLibrary account. Only import a file that's actually your own export; don't upload someone else's data.
Some export files include more than we ask for: comments, reviews, or other personal data about you or third parties named in your file. We only read and store the columns our importer is built to recognize (title, year, rating, date); anything else in the file isn't processed or retained. You're responsible for the contents of any file you choose to upload.
6. Aggregated Data Licensing
As described in Terms Section 8, we study patterns across the whole community (how ratings for one title correlate with ratings for another, which genres trend together, that kind of thing) and may compile this into aggregated, de-identified data products that we license or sell to media studios, research firms, and other businesses.
This is the one area where NeoLibrary's practices are meaningfully more expansive than a typical single-category cataloging site: because we sit across four media categories at once, the cross-category patterns in this data (someone's film taste correlating with their reading habits, say) are themselves part of what gets aggregated and licensed. The data products built this way never include your name, username, email, any account identifier (even a coded or hashed one), or anything else that could reasonably identify you. This section describes a business built on the aggregate, not on you individually.
Before any figure leaves NeoLibrary, we strip out anything that identifies a member, combine activity into totals across many members, and hold back any figure that rests on too few members to hide an individual. Deactivated accounts and members who have turned on the opt-out described below are left out entirely. We review these measures as our data grows and as re-identification techniques change.
We commit to keep and use this data only in de-identified form and not to attempt to re-identify anyone from it, except to test that our own de-identification works, where the law allows that. Anyone we license or give it to must agree in writing to the same: not to re-identify anyone or attempt to, not to combine it with other data for that purpose, and not to pass it on to anyone who isn't bound by the same terms. We take reasonable steps to check that recipients keep these commitments, and we act on any breach.
You can keep your activity out of these data products with one switch, “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information,” in Account Settings → Data. The same switch stops us from using your data to personalize ads (Section 9). It applies to figures produced after you turn it on; statistics produced before then don't identify you and aren't recalculated. If you're in the EEA or UK, we rely on legitimate interest to produce these statistics; you can object to that use by turning on this switch or by contacting us, and Sections 13 and 14 describe your other rights.
9. Advertising
As described in our Terms, free accounts are supported by advertising. Ad partners may use device and usage data to select and measure ads shown to non-subscribers; members on a paid, ad-free tier (once available) don't see ads and aren't part of this data flow. We don't let advertisers alter or influence reviews, ratings, or any other user content.
10. Data Security
We use technical and organizational measures appropriate to the sensitivity of the data involved: encryption in transit, access controls limiting who on our team can see your data, and routine review of our security practices. No system is perfectly secure, and we can't guarantee against every possible breach, but we take this seriously and will notify affected users and any required regulator if a breach materially affects your personal data, as required by applicable law.
11. Data Retention
We keep your personal data for as long as your account is active, plus the 30-day window described in our Terms for full account deletion. Deactivating your account (rather than deleting it) hides your data from public view but doesn't delete anything; it's there when you come back. After a deletion request, your reviews, ratings, lists, and profile are permanently removed from our systems within 30 days, except where we're required to keep something longer for legal, tax, or fraud-prevention reasons. Aggregate statistics already computed from community activity (counts that never identify you) are kept as they were and not recalculated.
12. International Data Transfers
NeoLibrary is available worldwide, and our infrastructure and service providers may be located in a different country than you are, which can mean your data is processed somewhere with different data-protection laws than where you live. Where we transfer personal data out of the EEA or UK to a country not already recognized as offering an adequate level of protection, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or the equivalent UK mechanism.
13. Privacy Rights: GDPR (EEA/UK)
If you're located in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, the EU GDPR and UK GDPR give you the right to access the personal data we hold about you; correct inaccurate or incomplete data; request erasure (“right to be forgotten”), subject to legal exceptions; restrict or object to certain processing, including for direct marketing or the aggregated data uses in Section 6; receive a copy of your data in a portable format; and withdraw consent at any time where we rely on consent as our legal basis.
To exercise any of these rights, contact us through the Contact page. You can also lodge a complaint with your local data-protection supervisory authority at any time.
14. Privacy Rights: California (CCPA/CPRA)
If you're a California resident, the CCPA, as amended by the CPRA, gives you the right to know what personal information we've collected about you and why; delete personal information we've collected, subject to certain exceptions; correct inaccurate personal information; opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information; and limit the use of sensitive personal information.
We do not sell your personal information for money. Outside of the advertising described in Section 9, which may qualify as “sharing” under CPRA's broad definition, we do not share your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising either. Turn it off any time in Account Settings → Data, under “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information.” That control is available to every account, not gated behind a California residency check. We won't discriminate against you (for example, by denying service or charging a different price) for exercising any of these rights.
To exercise a CCPA/CPRA right, contact us through the Contact page. You may designate an authorized agent to submit a request on your behalf, subject to identity verification.
15. Children's Privacy
NeoLibrary requires account holders to be at least 13, as described in our Terms. We don't knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 13. If we learn that we've collected data from a child under 13 without appropriate consent, we'll delete it.
16. Changes to This Notice
We may update this Notice as NeoLibrary's practices change; for example, if we add a new data product, launch paid tiers, or change service providers. We'll post the updated version here with a new effective date; if a change is significant, we'll look for an additional way to let you know before it takes effect.
17. Contact Us
Questions about this Notice, or a privacy rights request? Visit our Contact page. The Legal section there covers exactly this.