Privacy Policy

Crucial Tracks is operated by Jason Dettbarn as part of Eko Wave LLC. We care about your privacy and want to be upfront about how we handle your data. This policy is written in plain language because we think you deserve to actually understand it.

What we collect

When you create an account, we collect your name, email address, and a password (which is securely hashed — we never store it in plain text). If you connect your Apple Music account, we store the token needed to look up songs on your behalf.

When you use the site, our servers automatically log basic technical information like your IP address and browser type. This is standard web server stuff — we need it to keep things running and to troubleshoot problems.

What we don't do

We don't sell your data. We don't share it with advertisers. We don't build profiles about you to serve targeted ads. There are no ads here at all, and there never will be.

Cookies

We use a single session cookie to keep you logged in. That's it. No tracking cookies, no third-party cookies, no cookie banners with 47 toggles. Just the one cookie that makes the site work.

Third-party services

We use NeatStats for basic, privacy-friendly analytics. It helps us understand how the site is being used (page visits, browser types) without tracking you across the web or building a profile about you. From NeatStats:

We don't do any gross stuff—no fingerprinting, no cross-site tracking, no behavioral tracking, and no cookies or local storage.

We use Apple Music's API to power song lookups and listening features. When you search for or share a track, that request goes through Apple's services.

We use Buy Me a Coffee for sending tips and support. BMAC uses Stripe for payment processing.

We use Fourthwall for our merchandise. They handle the store hosting, payment processing, creation and fulfillment of the items, and customer service for us.

Your data, your control

You can export your posts at any time via the JSON export in your settings, or subscribe to your own RSS feed. Your data is yours and we make it easy to take it with you.

If you delete your account, we'll remove your personal data from our systems. Some content may persist in backups for a reasonable period, but we won't use it.

Changes to this policy

If we make significant changes to this policy, we'll let you know. We're not going to sneak anything past you.

Questions?

If you have any questions about this policy or how we handle your data, reach out to us at hello@crucialtracks.org.