Privacy
kame turns a web page into speech. It has no accounts, no sign-in, and no advertising. This page describes everything it collects, which is little, and everything it keeps, which is less.
The link you paste
When you submit a URL, it is sent to kame's server so the page can be fetched, the article extracted, and the text read aloud.
That URL is written to the server's log. The log line records the address you submitted, how long the request took, whether it succeeded, and — if it failed — why. It carries no IP address and no account, because there are no accounts. It does carry the anonymous install id described below, so the same install's requests can be counted together.
kame fetches the page from its own server, not from your device, so the site you link to sees kame's request, not yours.
IP addresses
kame's server receives your IP address, as every web server does. It is used for one thing: enforcing the limit of 40 articles per hour per address, which is what stops one visitor consuming a machine that serves everyone. The counter is held in memory and is lost whenever the server restarts.
IP addresses also appear in the ordinary web-server access log, alongside the path requested and the response code. Those lines are not joined to the article log described above.
The anonymous install id
kame wants to know how often people come back — whether an app is used once a week or twice a day — without knowing who they are. To do that it generates a random identifier the first time you use it: 32 characters with no meaning, derived from nothing about you or your device.
It is worth being precise about the word "anonymous". The id cannot name you, and kame holds nothing to connect it to a person. But it does let kame see that the same install came back, which is the whole point, so under the GDPR it counts as personal data and is treated that way here.
Because it is random rather than derived, you can get rid of it:
- On the website it is a cookie named
kame_id, set by kame's own server and unreadable by any script on the page — which is what keeps it out of anything sent to Google. It lasts 13 months, the maximum European regulators recommend for an analytics cookie. Clearing your cookies removes it. - In the apps it is a value in the app's own private storage, sent with each request. Deleting the app removes it.
Either way you get a new one next time, and the old one is not recoverable — nothing links the two.
The id is set only where you have not said otherwise. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal, kame treats that as a standing refusal and sets nothing. Where a cookie banner is required, nothing is set until you accept, and declining clears any id you already had.
How long any of it is kept
kame does not archive, export, or back up its logs, and does not load them into any analytics or reporting tool. They exist only in the rolling log buffer of the hosting provider that runs the server, and age out of it on their own. There is no long-term store of submitted URLs and no database of them to search.
Being straight about what the logs do allow while they exist: each sentence kame speaks writes an operational line recording how long synthesis took, and that line carries the install id and the sentence's position. So for a recent article the logs can show that one install reached a particular point in it. This is a by-product of measuring whether the server is keeping up, not an attempt to follow anyone's reading, and kame does not assemble it into histories or profiles — but it is there, and it would be misleading to describe the id as enabling only a visit count.
Articles and their audio live in the server's memory while you are reading, and are discarded when the server evicts them or restarts. Nothing is written to a database, because there is no database.
The website and the apps differ
This is the one place where the two are not the same, so it is worth being exact.
The website, kameread.com
The website loads Google Analytics, and also sends kame's own events (an article was opened, playback reached the halfway mark) to kame's server. Analytics is held back until you accept it: nothing is stored and no analytics cookie is set before then. The URL you submitted is deliberately kept out of everything sent to Google — it goes only to kame's own server log, as described above.
The iOS and Android apps
Neither app contains Google Analytics or any other third-party analytics,
tracking, advertising, or crash-reporting code. Neither uses an advertising
identifier. Each app talks to kameread.com and to nothing else,
always over HTTPS.
The apps keep four things on your device, in their own private storage: your chosen voice, your chosen speed, the last URL you opened so the app can offer it again, and the anonymous install id described above. Sentence audio is written to the operating system's cache directory while you listen. All of it is removed when you delete the app, or clear its data.
The Android app requests four permissions, and no others: internet access; two foreground-service permissions, which Android requires in order to keep audio playing when the screen is off; and permission to post a notification, because on Android 13 and later the media notification is the lock-screen control.
What kame never does
- It does not sell or rent anything about you.
- It does not share data with third parties. The hosting provider that runs the server processes requests on kame's behalf and for no other purpose.
- It does not build a profile or a recommendation model, and does not try to work out who you are. The install id above counts visits; it is not joined to anything that could identify you.
- It does not ask for your name, email address, phone number, contacts, photos, location, or microphone.
Children
kame is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect anything from them. It has no accounts, so it never asks anyone's age.
Your choices
Because there are no accounts, there is nothing to log into and nothing to delete on a server — the only records are the transient logs described above, which are not tied to a person. The install id is the one identifier kame holds, and you control it directly: clear your cookies on the website, or delete the app on a phone, and it is gone. Declining the cookie banner, or sending a Global Privacy Control signal, stops it being set at all.
Changes
If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it.
Contact
Questions about any of the above: kamereadcom@gmail.com.