Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Appleosophy (“Appleosophy,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) is an independent Apple news publication owned and operated by Redfruit Media LLC, a Delaware limited liability company. This policy explains how we handle personal information when you visit appleosophy.com, read our stories and Newswire, leave a comment, or send us a message or tip (together, the “Website”).

For readers in the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, Redfruit Media LLC is the data controller for the personal information described in this policy. Our address is:

Redfruit Media LLC
15602 Patrica St, Suite 50
Austin, TX 78728
United States

You can reach us about anything in this policy through our contact form or at contact@redfruitmedia.com.

2. Information we collect

Information you give us

Contact form: your first and last name, email address, phone number (optional), country, the team and type of inquiry you choose, your subject, and your message.
Tips form: your name, email address, subject, and tip.
Comments: your name, email address, and comment. Your name and comment are published with the story; your email address is never published.
Anything else you choose to share, such as links or details included in a message, or an email you send us directly.

Our secure tips portal is a separate service designed for confidential communication, with its own privacy practices. This policy does not cover information you submit there.

Information collected automatically

When you visit the Website, we and the providers that help us run it may automatically collect:

Your IP address and the approximate location derived from it
Browser type, device type, operating system, and language
Pages and stories viewed, how far you scroll through a story, links clicked, and the page that referred you
The date and time of your visit
Identifiers stored in cookies and similar technologies

When you post a comment, we also record your IP address and browser user agent with it to help prevent spam and abuse.

Push notifications

If you choose to receive push notifications about new stories, we use OneSignal to deliver them. Your browser asks for your permission first, and nothing is sent until you allow it. OneSignal then collects a push subscription identifier for your browser, your browser and device type, operating system, language, time zone, approximate location derived from your IP address, and whether you received or clicked a notification. You can turn notifications off at any time from the notification button on the Website or in your browser’s site settings.

Information stored on your device

To remember your preferences, the Website stores a small number of settings in your browser’s local storage, such as your light or dark theme choice and whether you dismissed a site announcement. These settings stay on your device and are not sent to us.

3. How we use information

We use the information we collect to:

Read and respond to your messages, and evaluate and report on the tips you send
Publish and moderate comments
Operate, secure, and improve the Website
Understand which stories and sections readers find useful
Send push notifications about new stories, if you turn them on
Show advertising that keeps Appleosophy free to read, and measure how it performs
Detect, prevent, and respond to spam, fraud, abuse, and security issues
Comply with the law and enforce our terms

Information you include in a tip may be used in our reporting. We verify information before deciding whether to publish it, and we only credit you by name if you ask us to.

4. Legal bases for processing (EEA, UK, and Switzerland)

If you are in the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, we rely on the following legal bases under the GDPR, the UK GDPR, and Swiss data protection law:

Consent for analytics cookies, for advertising cookies and personalized ads, and for push notifications. You can withdraw your consent at any time (see Cookies and your choices); this does not affect processing that happened before you withdrew it.
Legitimate interests for responding to the messages and tips you send us, publishing and moderating comments, keeping the Website secure and protected from spam and abuse, and running and improving our publication. We balance these interests against your rights, and you can object to this processing at any time.
Legal obligation where we must keep or disclose information to comply with the law.

We do not sell your personal information for money. We share information only as described here:

Service providers that operate parts of the Website for us and may only use your information to provide their services. These include:
- Cloudflare, for hosting, content delivery, security, and the Turnstile check that protects our forms and comments from bots
- Our WordPress hosting provider, which stores our stories and comments
- ZeptoMail by Zoho, which delivers contact form messages and tips to our team’s inboxes
- OneSignal, which delivers push notifications to readers who turn them on
- Google Analytics, which helps us understand how the Website is used
Advertising partners. Mediavine manages the advertising on the Website, and Mediavine and its partners may collect information through cookies and similar technologies, as described in Mediavine programmatic advertising.
Affiliate partners. We use Skimlinks to turn some links to retailers into affiliate links. If you buy something after following one of these links, Skimlinks and the retailer may use cookies to attribute the purchase so we can earn a commission. This does not change the price you pay.
Redfruit Media, our parent company, when you send a message to the Redfruit Media advertising team or the Executive Board.
Professional advisors, such as lawyers and accountants, when needed.
Authorities and others when the law requires it, or when needed to protect the rights, property, or safety of our readers, our team, or others.
A buyer or successor in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets, with notice where required.

We may also share aggregated or de-identified information that cannot reasonably identify you.

6. Cookies and your choices

The Website and our partners use cookies and similar technologies to:

Keep the Website working and secure, including protecting our forms and comments from bots
Measure audiences with Google Analytics, which tells us which pages are viewed, how readers reach us, and how far they read
Serve and measure advertising through Mediavine and its partners, including personalized advertising
Track affiliate purchases through Skimlinks
Deliver push notifications through OneSignal, if you turn them on

EEA, UK, and Switzerland

If you visit from the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, analytics and advertising cookies are off until you choose otherwise in the consent prompt that appears when you first visit. You can review or change your choices at any time through the privacy settings link or button provided by that prompt. If you decline, we still collect limited, cookieless signals that Google Analytics uses to estimate overall traffic without identifying you, and you will still see non-personalized ads.

Everywhere else

Outside those regions, analytics and advertising cookies are on by default. You can turn off personalized advertising using the choices described in Mediavine programmatic advertising and US state privacy rights.

Browser controls

You can block or delete cookies and clear local storage in your browser settings. Some features may not work properly without them. To stop Google Analytics from collecting data in your browser on any website, you can install the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. Learn more in How Google uses information from sites that use its services.

Global Privacy Control

We honor the Global Privacy Control signal. When your browser sends it, we treat it as a request to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information for personalized advertising.

7. Mediavine programmatic advertising

Mediavine Programmatic Advertising (Ver 1.1)

The Website works with Mediavine to manage third-party interest-based advertising appearing on the Website. Mediavine serves content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use first and third-party cookies. A cookie is a small text file which is sent to your computer or mobile device (referred to in this policy as a “device”) by the web server so that a website can remember some information about your browsing activity on the Website.

First party cookies are created by the website that you are visiting. A third-party cookie is frequently used in behavioral advertising and analytics and is created by a domain other than the website you are visiting. Third-party cookies, tags, pixels, beacons and other similar technologies (collectively, “Tags”) may be placed on the Website to monitor interaction with advertising content and to target and optimize advertising. Each internet browser has functionality so that you can block both first and third-party cookies and clear your browser’s cache. The "help" feature of the menu bar on most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to receive notification of new cookies, how to disable existing cookies and how to clear your browser’s cache. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information at All About Cookies.

Without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of the Website content and features. Please note that rejecting cookies does not mean that you will no longer see ads when you visit our Site. In the event you opt-out, you will still see non-personalized advertisements on the Website.

The Website collects the following data using a cookie when serving personalized ads:

IP Address
Operating System type
Operating System version
Device Type
Language of the website
Web browser type
Email (in hashed form)

Mediavine Partners (companies listed below with whom Mediavine shares data) may also use this data to link to other end user information the partner has independently collected to deliver targeted advertisements. Mediavine Partners may also separately collect data about end users from other sources, such as advertising IDs or pixels, and link that data to data collected from Mediavine publishers in order to provide interest-based advertising across your online experience, including devices, browsers and apps. This data includes usage data, cookie information, device information, information about interactions between users and advertisements and websites, geolocation data, traffic data, and information about a visitor’s referral source to a particular website. Mediavine Partners may also create unique IDs to create audience segments, which are used to provide targeted advertising.

If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices to opt-in or opt-out of this data collection, please visit National Advertising Initiative opt out page. You may also visit Digital Advertising Alliance website and Network Advertising Initiative website to learn more information about interest-based advertising. You may download the AppChoices app at Digital Advertising Alliance’s AppChoices app to opt out in connection with mobile apps, or use the platform controls on your mobile device to opt out.

For specific information about Mediavine Partners, the data each collects and their data collection and privacy policies, please visit Mediavine Partners.

8. How long we keep information

Messages and tips are not stored on the Website. They are delivered to our team’s email inboxes, where we keep them for as long as we need to respond, follow up, or report on them, and then delete them. Ask us if you would like your message deleted sooner.
Comments stay published with the story they were left on, along with the name you provided. The email address, IP address, and user agent recorded with a comment are kept with it so we can moderate it. You can ask us to remove a comment at any time.
IP addresses used for rate limiting our forms and comments are kept for no more than 10 minutes.
Google Analytics data linked to cookie or device identifiers is kept for no longer than 14 months. Aggregated reports, such as page views and traffic totals, do not identify you and are kept indefinitely.
Push notification subscriptions are kept until you turn notifications off or your browser stops accepting them, after which OneSignal deletes them according to its own policies.
Advertising and affiliate data is kept by Mediavine, its partners, and Skimlinks according to their own policies.

We may keep information longer when the law requires it or to resolve disputes and enforce our terms.

9. Your rights

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

Access the personal information we hold about you and receive a copy of it
Correct inaccurate information
Delete your information
Restrict or object to how we use your information, including processing based on our legitimate interests
Receive your information in a portable format
Withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on it
Opt out of the sale or sharing of your information for personalized advertising

To make a request, contact us and choose “Privacy Request” as the type of inquiry, or email contact@redfruitmedia.com. We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request, and we will respond within the time the law requires (one month in the EEA and UK, and 45 days in California). You may use an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf where the law allows. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your privacy rights.

If you are in the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland and are unhappy with how we handle your information, you have the right to complain to your local data protection authority. In the UK, that is the Information Commissioner’s Office. We would appreciate the chance to address your concern first.

10. US state privacy rights

Residents of California and other US states with comprehensive privacy laws have additional rights. In the past 12 months, we have collected the following categories of personal information, from the sources and for the purposes described above:

Identifiers, such as your name, email address, phone number, IP address, cookie identifiers, and push subscription identifiers
Internet or other electronic network activity, such as pages viewed and interactions with ads
Approximate geolocation derived from your IP address
Inferences that advertising partners may draw about your interests
Other information you choose to provide, such as the content of messages, tips, and comments

We disclose these categories to our service providers for business purposes. Allowing Mediavine and its partners to use advertising cookies on the Website, and using Skimlinks, may be considered a “sale” or “sharing” of personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising under some state laws. We do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16, and we do not intentionally collect sensitive personal information.

To opt out, turn on Global Privacy Control in your browser, use the advertising choices in Mediavine programmatic advertising, or contact us. You can visit the Website without creating an account.

11. International transfers

Appleosophy is operated from the United States. If you visit from another country, your information will be processed in the United States and in other countries where our providers operate, which may have different data protection rules than your own. When we transfer personal information from the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland, we rely on safeguards recognized by those laws, such as the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses, the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, or a provider’s certification under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and its UK and Swiss extensions.

12. Children’s privacy

The Website is not directed to children under 13, or under 16 in the EEA and UK, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

13. Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational measures to protect personal information. The Website is served over HTTPS, and access to messages, tips, and comment details is limited to the people who need it for their work. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

If a data breach affecting your personal information occurs and notice is required, we will take reasonable steps to notify you and, where appropriate, post a notice on the Website. We aim to do so within 7 business days of determining that notice is required, or sooner if the law requires it. Where the GDPR or UK GDPR applies, we will notify the relevant supervisory authority within 72 hours of becoming aware of a reportable breach.

14. Links to other sites

Our stories link to other websites, retailers, and services, and some content may come from embedded services such as YouTube or social networks. Those services have their own privacy practices, which we do not control, and may set their own cookies when you view embedded content. Please read their policies before giving them your information.

15. Email communications

We only email you to reply to a message or tip you sent us. If we ever send marketing email, we will not use false or misleading subject lines or sender information, and every message will include a clear way to unsubscribe, which we will honor promptly.

16. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we will post the updated policy on this page and update the version and effective date shown above. If we make material changes, we may also give additional notice, such as a banner on the Website.

17. Contact us

If you have questions about this policy or how we handle your information, contact us or email contact@redfruitmedia.com.