Privacy Policy
Outsource Network is the app Outsource uses to run its own Instagram account, @outsourcedaily. It publishes our posts, and it answers people who ask us for an article by commenting a keyword on one of our posts. It is not offered to other businesses and nobody else can sign in to it. This page says exactly what it collects and why.
If you never comment a keyword or message us
We collect nothing about you. We do not read or store comments that do not contain the keyword, and we do not store messages from people who have not asked us for an article.
If you comment the keyword on one of our posts
Instagram tells us that the comment happened. We then send you one direct message. To do that, and to avoid messaging you twice, we store:
- your Instagram-scoped user ID (a number Instagram gives us that identifies you to our account only) and your username;
- which post you commented on, the ID of the comment, and when.
We do not store the text of your comment.
If you reply or tap a button in that conversation
- When you tell us you followed, we ask Instagram whether your account follows @outsourcedaily. Instagram answers yes or no. We store that answer and the time, so that we can send you the article and so that we do not keep asking.
- We store that you have messaged us, and when you last did, because Instagram only allows us to reply within 24 hours of your last message.
- We do not store the text of your messages, with one exception: an email address you choose to send us (see below).
- Everything the app sends is an automatic reply to something you did. It never starts a conversation and never sends reminders. Anything else you write to us is read by a person, not the app.
The article link
The link we send goes through our own address (outsource-daily.vercel.app/r/…) before it forwards you to the article. When it is opened we record the time. That is all we record: no cookie is set, and we do not keep your IP address, device or browser. The link is unique to you and the post, so a recorded time is connected to your Instagram-scoped ID. We use it to learn which stories people actually read.
The mailing list
After sending an article we may invite you, once, to join our mailing list. It is optional, and the article is yours either way. If you join, in the conversation or through the form on this site, we store your email address, your first and last name and, if you choose to give it, your phone number, together with the date, the wording you agreed to, and which post you came from. A copy of each sign-up is kept in a Google Sheet that only Outsource can open. We use it only to send you Outsource emails: stories about the business behind music, and industry events. If you use the form on this site, a scrambled (one-way hashed) form of your IP address is held for up to one hour, only to stop the form being abused. It is not connected to your email address, and a sign-up through the form is never connected to your Instagram account. Every email has an unsubscribe link. You can also reply UNSUBSCRIBE in the Instagram conversation, or email us, and we will remove it.
What we do not do
- We do not sell or rent personal information, and we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers.
- We do not use what Instagram tells us about you (your ID, username, or whether you follow us) for advertising, for building profiles, or for anything other than running the conversation you started.
- We do not use cookies, advertising pixels or third-party analytics on this site, and we do not track you across other sites or apps.
- We do not collect your profile picture, follower count, contacts or location. We hold your name only if you give it to us when joining the mailing list.
Stopping the messages
Reply STOP in the conversation at any time. The app will confirm once and will not message you again, even if you comment the keyword later. Reply START to undo that.
Who processes the data
- Meta (Instagram) delivers comments and messages to us and carries our replies.
- Vercel hosts this site and runs the app.
- Upstash provides the database where the records above are kept. It is reached only over encrypted connections.
- Google (Google Sheets) holds the copy of mailing-list sign-ups.
Like any web host, Vercel keeps short-lived technical logs of requests to this site. They act on our instructions and do not use the data for their own purposes. Some of them store data in the United States.
How long we keep it
- Conversation records (your ID, username, the posts you asked about, follow checks): deleted automatically 90 days after your last interaction with the app.
- Link records and open times: deleted automatically after one year.
- Your mailing-list details (name, email, phone): until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete them; the sheet row is cleared at the same time.
- Short-lived technical markers that stop us answering the same comment twice: up to 8 days.
Your choices and rights
You can ask us what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete all of it: see Data deletion. If you are in the EU, UK or a US state with a privacy law, those rights are yours by law; we extend them to everyone. We rely on your request (you asked for the article) to process conversation data, and on your consent for email, which you can withdraw at any time.
The app is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect their information.
Publishing
The app also publishes Outsource's own posts to Outsource's own Instagram account and reads statistics about those posts. The access tokens that allow this are stored privately by Outsource, are never shared, and can be revoked at any time from the Instagram account's settings (Apps and websites). Where a post includes third-party material, it is used with the rights holder's permission or under an open licence, and credited.
Changes
If we change what we collect, we will change this page first and update the date at the top.
Contact
Questions or requests: hello@meirakami.md