Rest of World (ROW) Privacy Policy

EFFECTIVE AS OF JULY 3, 2024

Acast Stories, Inc., along with its direct and indirect subsidiaries (together referred to as “Acast”, “we”, “us” or  “our”), is committed to respecting your privacy and we always aim to achieve a high level of protection and security for your personal information.

1. INTRODUCTION

In this Privacy Policy (the “Policy”) we aim to explain how and why we collect, use and share your personal information, and how you can exercise your rights with respect to your personal information.

This Policy applies to:

  • Listeners of Acast-hosted podcasts, including listeners of Acast Premium Content such as Acast+ or Acast+ Access (“Listeners”). 
  • Advertisers who purchase our advertising products and services, including agencies representing an advertiser (“Advertisers”). 

This Policy applies to Listeners and Advertisers located outside of the EEA, Switzerland or the UK (together “you” or “your”). If you are a Listener or an Advertiser located in the EEA, Switzerland or the UK, or if you are a Podcaster, please read our GDPR Privacy Policy available here.

By listening to podcasts on Acast’s website or through any third-party platform, by subscribing to Acast+ / Acast+ Access Content, or by purchasing advertising products and services from Acast (together, the “Acast Services”) you do so with the knowledge that your personal information will be collected, used and shared as described in this Policy. If you do not agree with the terms of this Policy, we ask you to not use the Acast Services.

Acast Stories, Inc., located at 408 Broadway 2nd Floor, NY, 10013 United States is the data controller responsible for the processing of your personal data according to this Policy.

2. CATEGORIES OF PERSONAL INFORMATION THAT WE COLLECT AND PROCESS

Below, we outline the categories of personal information that we have collected and processed about you during the past 12 months, based on how you interact with the Acast Services.

2.1 Listeners

If you are a Listener, we collect your personal information to provide you with a podcast listening experience, including providing you with Acast+/ Acast+ Access Content, and more generally to improve the Acast Services. Below we outline the categories of personal information we collect and process about you:

A. Name, contact information and other identifiers.

Real name, alias, Facebook ID, Google ID, email address, user account name, Internet Protocol (IP) address, cookie data, user agent, advertising ID (MAIDs), session ID or other similar identifiers.

B. Geolocation data.

We obtain your general location (country, region or state) from identifiers such as your IP address or where we are required to obtain this information to calculate taxes based on your jurisdiction if you are an Acast+ Listener. Please note that geolocation data does not include your precise geolocation as defined under applicable laws. 

C. Usage data.

Internet or other electronic network activity information, including, but not limited to listening history, podcasts you subscribe to or have subscribed to, podcast categories you have marked as being of interest to you, browsing history, search history, ad listening history, communications between you and Acast (e.g. for support purposes), and other information based on your interactions with our website, social media platforms, or any advertisement.

D. Commercial information.

Our payment processor collects your payment information when you purchase our Premium Content services such as Acast+, including your name and credit or debit card information. Acast is restricted from accessing your primary account number and your CVC. We may, however, access cardholder name, last 4 digits and expiry month and year of your credit card for detecting, monitoring and preventing fraud or unauthorised payment transactions. Furthermore, we retain records of payment history and invoicing history associated with products or services you purchased from Acast.

E. Survey and research data.

Information provided through your participation in surveys or through feedback and reviews.

F. Inferences drawn from other personal information.

Information reflecting your interests, preferences and demographics based on your online and offline activities, including advertising segments we obtain from our Advertising Partners. If you do not wish for our Advertising Partners to provide us with your personal information, please see Section 10 “Opting out of third party data providers” below.

2.2 Advertisers

If you are an Advertiser, we collect personal information pertaining to you (if you are a natural person), or your employees and/or representatives (if you are a legal person) to offer our advertiser-facing products and services. The Acast Group company that enters into the agreement with the Advertiser is the data controller responsible for the processing of personal information as described in this Section. Below we outline the categories of personal information we process about you: 

A. Name, contact information and other identifiers.

Name, postal address, email address, telephone number, user account name, Internet Protocol (IP) address, cookie data, advertising ID, user agent, session ID or other similar identifiers.

B. Usage data.

If you are using the Acast Self-Serve Platform (“Advertiser Platform”), we collect internet or other electronic network activity information, such as pages visited and other information based on your interactions with the Advertiser Platform.

C. Commercial information.

We collect your billing information when you enter into an agreement with Acast, and in some cases our payment processor collects your credit card information when you purchase our advertiser-facing products or services with a credit card. We retain records of payment history and invoicing history associated with products or services you purchased from Acast.

D. Survey and research data.

Information provided through your participation in surveys, or through feedback and reviews.

3. HOW WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Acast obtains the categories of personal information listed in Section 2 above from the following categories of sources:

• Information obtained directly from you. This is the personal information that is provided directly by you, for example, when you sign-up to subscribe to Acast+ Content and create an account, when you purchase advertiser-facing products and services from us and enter into an agreement with Acast or when you establish an account in the Advertiser Platform, when you communicate with our support team for podcast-related assistance. This information generally includes your contact details and account information such as first and last name, email address and telephone number. You may also provide us with your personal information when you participate in surveys or research conducted by Acast.

• Information obtained via automated means. This is the personal information that we automatically collect when you use the Acast Services. For example, when you listen to or otherwise access Acast-hosted podcasts on our website or on any third-party platform we automatically collect identifiers such as your IP address and User Agent. In addition, Acast and/or our third-party service providers may use certain data collection technologies such as cookies, web beacons (also known as pixels or pixel tags), and/or other similar technologies which automatically collect certain information across your various podcast listening devices (such as your mobile phone, computer, tablet or other similar device) about you and your listens, your interaction with advertisements, visits to this and other websites, mobile websites and/or mobile applications. The information collected through cookies or web beacons may be used and shared with our selected partners to provide you with content and advertisements about products and services of interest to you (across those various devices), to measure the effectiveness of advertisements, to determine the popularity of certain content and more generally to better understand how you interact with the Acast Services. For more information about your opt-out choices with respect to Acast and our selected partners, please see Section 9 “Additional Privacy Rights” below.  

•  Information received from third parties. We may receive or collect information from third parties, and combine it with other information we may have already received or collected from you. For example, we may receive advertising segments from third party data providers that are tied to your IP address and use it to deliver targeted advertisements to you based on those segments. If you do not wish for our third-party data providers to provide us with your personal information , please see Section 10 “Opting out of third-party data providers” below.   

4. WHY WE COLLECT AND PROCESS YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may collect, use and share your personal information for one or more of the following purposes. We will not use personal information we have collected from you for additional purposes that are incompatible with the below-listed purposes without providing you reasonable notice.

4.1 Listeners

If you are a Listener, we collect and process the categories of personal information listed in Section 2 for the following purposes:

  • Make the Acast Services available to you. 
  • Validate you as a listener. 
  • Identify the device you are using and deliver content to your podcast player. 
  • Provide you with personalized ads and offerings.  
  • Customized language and frequency of ads.
  • Provide aggregated listening reports to our podcasters, Advertisers and other partners of Acast. 
  • Analyze and measure the effectiveness of podcast advertising campaigns. 
  • Match and combine personal information collected from you with information received from Advertising Partners, including information received from third-party data providers, to create advertising segments and deliver targeted advertisements based on those segments.   
  • Provide pseudonymized data about your listening activity to podcasters using Acast+ Access services. Pseudonymized data means that your data is identified by a code rather than your name or other directly identifying information.  
  • Manage your Acast+ membership (if any). 
  • Ascertain that you have made required payments before accessing Acast+ Content.
  • Allow podcasters to communicate with you in connection with your Acast+ membership and send you email marketing messages (with your consent).
  • Provide pseudonymized podcast listening reports to podcasters using Acast+ Access services.  
  • Compile anonymized statistics for insights, analytics, marketing, advertising and other purposes. 
  • Evaluate, test and develop new Acast features, technologies, products and/or services.
  • Provide you with support and to respond to your inquiries, including to investigate and address your concerns and monitor and improve our responses.
  • Conduct surveys and research. 
  • Understand, diagnose troubleshoot and fix issues with the Acast Services. 
  • Help maintain the safety, security, and integrity of Acast’s Services and prevent, detect  or block misuse or fraudulent behavior.
  • Perform any legal obligations Acast may have.  
  • Respond to law enforcement requests as required by applicable law, court order, or governmental regulations.
  • As otherwise specifically described to you when collecting your personal information.

4.2 Advertisers

If you are an Advertiser, we collect and process the categories of personal information listed in Section 2 for the following purposes:

  • Provide you with advertising products and/or services. 
  • Manage our ongoing contractual relationship (to the extent an ad/sponsorship campaign has been purchased).
  • Provide you with offers, information and relevant marketing related to our advertising products and/or services. 
  • Provide assistance and support in connection with matters related to an ongoing or completed campaign.
  • Receive and administer invoicing and payments in relation to advertisements sold (if applicable) and provide information related to such payments.
  • Give you access to anonymized statistics related to the performance of an ad/sponsorship campaign.
  • Communicate with you.
  • Provide you with support and to respond to your inquiries, including to investigate and address your concerns and monitor and improve our responses.
  • Conduct surveys and research. 
  • Compile anonymized statistics for insights, analytics, marketing, advertising and other purposes.
  • Evaluate, test and develop new Acast features, technologies, products and/or services.
  • Understand, diagnose, troubleshoot and fix issues with the Acast service.
  • Help maintain the safety, security, and integrity of Acast’s Services and prevent, detect or block misuse or fraudulent behavior.
  • Perform any legal obligations Acast may have. 
  • Respond to law enforcement requests as required by applicable law, court order, or governmental regulations.
  • As otherwise specifically described to you when collecting your personal information.

5. WHO DOES ACAST DISCLOSE, SELL OR SHARE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION WITH?

5.1 Disclosing Your Personal Information

Acast may disclose your personal information to a recipient for a business purpose as outlined above under Section 4 in the following circumstances:

Service providers - We may share your personal information with our third-party service providers that perform certain services on our behalf. These service providers are only allowed to use your personal information in accordance with our instructions and pursuant to a written contract. We do not sell your personal information to our third-party service providers. We may also share your personal information with third-party digital marketing agents to conduct marketing activities on our behalf, such as Prospect Global Ltd (trading as Sopro), for more information visit https://sopro.io/.   

Other Acast group companies - We may share your personal information with other companies within the Acast group (including our subsidiaries) in order to carry out our daily business operations and provide you with the Acast Services described in this Policy.

Business transfers - If we sell all or part of our business, or make a sale or transfer of assets, or are otherwise involved in a merger or business transfer, or in the event of bankruptcy, we may transfer your personal information to one or more third parties as part of that transaction.

As required by law and similar disclosures - We will share your personal information with a third-party if we are required to do so by law or if we in good faith believe that such action is necessary to comply with a legal obligation under applicable law or a valid legal process. We will also share your personal information where it is necessary for our legitimate interests or those of a third-party and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. Such legitimate interests may include protecting and defending our rights, or protecting the safety of any person.

Acast may disclose the following categories of personal information to the recipients outlined above, or has done so in the preceding 12 months:

  • Category A: Name, contact information and other identifiers.
  • Category B: Geolocation data. 
  • Category C: Usage data.
  • Category D: Commercial information.
  • Category E: Survey and research data. 
  • Category F: Inferences drawn from other personal information.

5.2 Selling or Sharing Your Personal Information

Certain applicable data protection laws include specific obligations for businesses that sell or trade personal information, or businesses that share personal information for targeted advertising purposes. Selling or trading personal information under applicable data protection laws means providing a third party with personal information in exchange for valuable services and does not mean that Acast has exchanged your personal information for money. Targeted advertising means displaying advertisements to an individual based on personal information obtained from the individual's activities over time and across nonaffiliated websites, online applications or services to predict that individual's preferences or interests. Targeted advertising is generally enabled by technologies that collect information about you across your various devices, such as cookies or mobile advertising identifiers.

Acast may sell, trade or otherwise share your personal information for purposes outlined in Section 4 above in the following circumstances:

Advertising Partners - We may sell, trade or otherwise share your information with third party advertising partners, including advertising data partners that provide us with advertising segments, advertising measurement partners that help us and our Advertisers analyze and measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns, and other advertising partners we work with to show you ads that we think may interest you. If you would like more information about this practice and your opt-out choices with respect to Acast and our Advertising Partners, please see Section 9 “Additional Privacy Rights” and Section 10 “Opting out of third-party data providers” below.

Acast may sell, trade or otherwise share the following categories of personal information with the third parties identified above, or has done so in the past 12 months:

  • Category A: Identifiers such as your IP address and user agent. 
  • Category B: Geolocation data based on your IP address. 
  • Category C: Usage data.

You can opt-out of targeted advertising advertising from participating members of the following advertising industry associations:

Network Advertising Initiative

Digital Advertising Alliance

https://www.aboutads.info/choices/ (for website ads)

https://youradchoices.com/appchoices (for ads in mobile apps)

Please note that not all companies that serve targeted ads participate in these opt-out programs, so even after opting-out, you may still receive ad targeting cookies from certain companies.

6. SECURITY AND RETENTION PERIODS

6.1 Security

We have implemented appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect the security of your personal information. These measures include routines for pseudonymization and deletion of the data, vulnerability management, and policies for access control and security monitoring. For more information regarding how we guard your personal information against unauthorized access, please visit security.acast.com.

6.2 Retention Periods

We keep your personal data only as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes set out in this Policy. When determining the retention period, we take into account various criterions, such as the type of information collected and processed, the nature and length of our relationship with you, the impact on such a relationship if the data is deleted, and mandatory retention periods provided by law or statute of limitations.

Listeners

If you are a Listener without an Acast+ account, we will retain your personal information for 60 days after collection.

If you are a Listener with an Acast+ account, we will retain your personal information until you request deletion of your Acast+ account and any personal information associated with it. You can request deletion of your Acast+ account and any associated personal information by emailing us at support@acast.com. If you have consented to receiving marketing communications directly from the podcaster, you can withdraw your consent at any time by using the opt-out feature provided in the email. Please note that the podcaster, not Acast, is solely responsible for honoring your opt-out request.

Advertisers

Your personal information is retained for as long as you use our advertising products and services, or if you are a Self-Serve Advertiser until you request deletion of your Self-Serve account and any personal data associated with it. You can request deletion of your Self-Serve account and any associated personal data by emailing us at support@acast.com. Thereafter, we may retain invoicing and payment records to comply with any legal, accounting or reporting obligation Acast may have.

If you are an Advertiser that subscribed to our newsletters, your personal information is retained until you choose to unsubscribe from our newsletter.

7. INFORMATION ABOUT COOKIES 

When you use the Acast Services or visit our website, we and our third party partners may use cookies or other similar technologies to understand how you interact with our Services/website and provide you with a personalized user experience.

For more information about cookies, including which cookies we use and how to opt-out or manage your cookie settings, please visit our Cookie Policy available here.

8. YOUR DATA PRIVACY RIGHTS

We strive to provide you with choices regarding the personal information you provide to us. This Section 8 describes your rights with regard to our processing of your personal information and explains how you may exercise those rights.

If you are a resident in the State of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Montana, Oregon, Texas, Utah or Virginia, you have additional rights under Section 9 below.

8.1 Know/Access, Correction and Deletion Right

Right to Know/Access - Under certain circumstances and as permitted by law, you have the right to know and access the personal information we process about you, including the categories of sources from which the personal information is collected, the purposes for collecting the personal information and the categories of third parties to whom we disclose your personal information. You also have the right to request a copy of the personal information we collect about you.

Right to Correct - Under certain circumstances and as permitted by law, you have the right to ask us to update or amend your personal information where it is inaccurate or incomplete.

Right to Delete - Under certain circumstances and as permitted by law, you have the right to request that we delete your personal information. Please note that there are situations where Acast is unable to delete your data, for example when the data is still necessary to process for the purpose for which it was collected, Acast’s interest to continue to process the data overrides your interest in having it deleted, or because we have a legal obligation to keep the data.

8.2 How to submit a Know/Access, Correction or Deletion Requests

You can submit a Know/Access, Correction or Deletion request through one of the following methods:

Please note that you have the right to make these requests, but we may not be able to fulfill certain requests if we are not able to verify your identity to the extent required by law. For example, if you are a Listener without an Acast+ account, we keep your personal information for 30 days after it was collected and do not keep sufficient information necessary to re-identify and link you to a prior visit to the Acast Service after the 30-day retention period has expired. As such, we may be unable to verify and honor your request. 

We will respond to your request within forty-five (45) days (or such other reasonable timeframe having regard to the nature of your request and as permitted by law) of the date on which we receive the request.

Requests made through agents

Only you, or an agent legally authorized to act on your behalf, can submit a request to exercise your rights related to your personal information. If you designate an authorized agent to act on your behalf, we will require the agent to provide us with a written authorization signed by you. We may need to verify your identity and confirm that you provided the authorized agent permission to submit the request on your behalf.

Non discrimination

We will not discriminate against you for exercising your data privacy rights. However, if you request deletion of your personal information, we may not be able to provide you with the same products or services.

Complaints

If you have any concerns or complaints about Acast’s processing of your personal information, please email us at privacy@acast.com and we will attempt to resolve your complaint. If you do not consider our response satisfactory, you may contact your relevant local data protection authority. 

Appeals process

If your request is denied you may to the extent permitted by law have the right to appeal the denial in accordance with the instructions provided to you when the denial was made.

9. ADDITIONAL DATA PRIVACY RIGHTS

California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Montana, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Virginia residents have, in addition to the rights set out in Section 8 above, the following rights.

9.1 Right to Opt-Out

Opt-out of Sale/Share of your personal information - If you are 16 years of age or older, you have the right under California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Montana, Oregon, Texas, Utah and Virginia State Laws to direct us to not sell or share your personal information to third parties at any time, or otherwise direct us not to use your personal information for targeted advertising purposes (“Right to Opt-Out”). Please note that we do not sell/share any personal information of users that we actually know are less than 16 years of age.

How to submit an Opt-Out Request

You can submit an Opt-Out request through one of the following methods:  

You do not need to create an account with us to exercise your Opt-Out Right. We will only use personal information provided in an Opt-Out request to review and comply with the request. If you are exercising your right by email or telephone, please provide us with:

  • your contact information, including your name and email address;
  • the public IP address you use to access Acast Services. You can use this tool to find your IP address: https://www.ipvoid.com/my-ip/

9.2 Right to Limit

If you are a California resident you have the right to request that we limit the use and disclosure of your sensitive personal information for purposes other than those specified in Section 7027(m) of the CCPA Regulations. Please note that Acast does not collect or process any sensitive or special category data as defined by applicable laws.

10. OPTING OUT OF THIRD PARTY DATA PROVIDERS

As described in Section 3 above, we use data we receive from third-party data providers including Nielsen, TapAd, and Liveramp, to facilitate targeted advertising within your podcast listening experience. If you want our third-party data providers to stop providing us with your information, please use: 

Please note opting out of targeted advertising does not opt you out of being served ads. You will continue to receive untargeted generic ads. Should you choose to opt-out of third-party data providers, Acast cannot be held responsible for the effectiveness or completeness of any third-party opt-out functions.

11. CHILDREN

The Acast Services are not directed at children under the age of 13 and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13 years. If we learn that we’ve collected  personal information from a child under the age of 13, we will make reasonable efforts to delete this information from our database as soon as practically possible. 

12. CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

We reserve the right to modify or amend the terms of this Policy at any time. When we make changes to this Policy, we will post the updated Policy on our website and update the Policy’s effective date. Your continued use of the Acast Services following the posting of changes will be deemed an acceptance of those changes.

13. CONTACT

If you have any questions or concerns about this Policy please send us an e-mail at privacy@acast.com or reach out to Acast's Data Protection Officer at dpo@acast.com. You may also write to us at the address below.

Acast Stories Inc.
408 Broadway 2nd Floor
10013 New York
United States