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Watch Vault Media

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Privacy Policy

Last updated October 24, 2026

The short version: the Watch Vault Media app has no account, no server of ours, no analytics and no advertising. What you save, switch and search stays on your device. The web version has no account, analytics or advertising either, and keeps nothing about its readers (section 7). This website sets no cookies and has no accounts, forms or analytics.

1. What this policy covers

This policy covers https://watchvaultmedia.com (“this site”), the Watch Vault Media app for iPhone and iPad (“the app”) and the web version at watchvaultmedia.app (“the web version”), all published by Aveneg Technologies, LLC (“we”, “us”). For the app, this page is its privacy policy.

2. What this website collects

Very little. The site is a set of static pages: no accounts, no forms, no cookies, no analytics and no advertising. Nothing on it asks who you are. Cloudflare, which hosts the site, generates the standard web server logs that come with serving any website (for example, IP address and request time, for security and reliability). We do not use them to identify you.

3. If you email us

If you write to one of the addresses on our Contact page, we receive your email address and whatever you send. We use it only to answer you. We do not add you to a mailing list, sell it, or share it with anyone other than the providers that deliver and hold our email.

4. Third parties of this site

This site is hosted by Cloudflare, Inc., which also routes mail sent to our addresses. Cloudflare’s own privacy policy governs its handling of data in those roles. No other third party’s code or content is loaded by this site.

5. What the app keeps

The app is a reader. It has no account and no server of ours, and it sends us nothing. It keeps the following on your device, in the app’s own database, and nowhere else:

  • Your sources, with their switches, and any source you added by its feed address.
  • Saved copies of the latest stories and videos the app fetched, kept so the list opens at once and still shows the latest stories when a source cannot be reached. A copy holds the headline, the publisher’s picture address, the publisher’s short summary and the link; never an article.
  • Saved items: stories, videos and podcast episodes you chose to keep. An episode is kept as its card and the address of its audio.
  • For podcasts: where you stopped in each episode (the last 200), which episode was played last, for Siri’s Resume, and your order of channels and shows. For each episode you download, its card, the name of its file, the audio file itself and a copy of its picture, in the app’s own folder, left out of iCloud and device backups, until you remove it or delete the app.
  • The calendar: the last copy of the list of fairs and auctions, and the copy the app carries from when it was built, shown when the website cannot be reached and nothing newer is saved.
  • For the widgets: the four newest stories (headline, source, time and a link back into the app), with a small copy of each picture, in a folder on the device that only the app and its widgets can read. It is replaced after each check for new stories. The widgets show only that copy, connect to nothing themselves, count nothing and send no alerts.
  • Settings: text size, appearance, the last topic you chose, when you last looked, and whether the first-launch screen has been shown.

Nothing records which story, video, source or writer you opened, and what you type in search is looked up in what the phone already holds: it is sent to no site and no server. There are no notifications of any kind. The app asks for no permission: not your location, contacts, photographs, camera, microphone or notifications. Its privacy manifest declares no tracking and no collected data.

If your device is backed up to iCloud, or to a computer, Apple’s backup may include the app’s data, as it does for other apps. That backup is Apple’s, under Apple’s terms. Deleting the app deletes what it kept.

The app sends nothing to us. Apple, not the app, may give us aggregate statistics and crash reports from people who have chosen in iOS Settings to share them with app developers, and from TestFlight testers. Those carry no stories, sources or searches.

6. What the app connects to

The app uses the network, and says where. We run none of these connections and see none of them:

  • Publishers’ feeds. To list new stories, the app asks each source you have switched on for its public feed, straight from your device, and names itself “WatchVaultMedia”. It asks no source more than once in 15 minutes on its own; checking for new stories yourself asks sooner, but never more than once a minute. Each publisher receives the request as any feed reader’s request, including your device’s IP address, and handles it under its own policy. Pictures shown in the list are loaded from the publisher’s own servers the same way. For the widgets, after a check the app fetches the picture of each of the four newest stories once, naming itself the same way, and keeps a small copy.
  • Reading a story. Reading opens the publisher’s page inside the app, in Safari’s Reader view where the page has one. The page is then the publisher’s: its own cookies, analytics and advertising, if it has any, work as they would in Safari. The app can also open it in Safari itself.
  • Videos. The app reads each channel’s public YouTube feed and shows thumbnails from YouTube’s servers. Opening a video loads YouTube’s own player; YouTube, a Google service, receives that request and handles it under its privacy policy.
  • A feed you add. The app asks that address once to check it is a feed, then as for any source.
  • Podcasts. For each show that is on, the app asks for the show’s public podcast feed, as for any source, and loads the show’s art from where the feed names it. Pressing Play streams the episode’s audio from the address in the feed. The show’s own audio host (for example Buzzsprout, Simplecast, Acast, Podbean, Blubrry or Spotify for Creators) sees that request and counts the play, as it does for any podcast app. Some episodes pass through Podtrac, a service that counts listens, and the app says so next to the show. Pressing Download fetches the episode’s audio and picture from the same places, only when you press it, over whatever connection the device has, including mobile data, and the system carries it on while the app is in the background. The audio host may count a download as it counts a play. “Open at” opens the show’s page in the in-app Safari view. Videos are never downloaded.
  • The calendar. When you open Calendar, the app asks watchvaultmedia.app/calendar.json for the list of fairs and auctions, at most once every six hours. It sends nothing beyond the request itself. The list is kept by hand by us; a monthly check against the organisers’ own pages proposes changes, and each is published only once we approve it. Opening an event, and Add to Calendar, fetch nothing: Add to Calendar opens Apple’s own New Event screen, and the app asks for no calendar permission and keeps nothing. A “More information at” link opens the organiser’s page in the in-app Safari view.
  • Siri. On iOS 17 and later, Siri and Shortcuts offer “Resume my podcast” and “Play my latest download”. The app asks for no Siri permission and learns only which of the two was asked.
  • Older stories. On a Source page, Older may ask the site for its next page of stories, only when you press it.
  • Optional tips. The Support screen, reached only from Settings, offers four tips through Apple’s App Store. The app contacts the store only while that screen is open. A tip unlocks nothing, and the app remembers nothing about it. Payment is Apple’s, under Apple’s terms; we receive no card or account details.

7. The web version

The web version at watchvaultmedia.app is the same reader in a browser. It has no account, no analytics, no advertising and no third-party scripts, and it sets no cookies of its own. It shares nothing with the app: there is no account and nothing to sync.

  • The feed helper. A browser may not read other sites’ feeds itself, so a small Cloudflare Worker, the same one that serves the pages, fetches a source’s public feed and hands it back, naming itself “WatchVaultMedia”. It keeps each feed for 15 minutes, answers only with feeds, stores nothing about you, and is set not to log what was asked. It runs on Cloudflare, which as the host handles each request as any host does; what Cloudflare itself records is outside the helper’s control.
  • Pictures and stories. Pictures load from each publisher’s own server, and video thumbnails from YouTube’s image servers, straight from your browser. A story or video opens the publisher’s page, or YouTube, in a new tab, and sends no referrer. Each then handles the visit under its own policy.
  • In your browser. The browser’s own storage keeps the starting list of sources and recent copies of each source’s feed items (headline, picture address, excerpt and link, never the article). Clearing the site’s data removes it.
  • Podcasts are not on the web version; they are in the phone and iPad app only.
  • Search runs in the browser. What you type leaves it nowhere.
  • Sources. It reads the starting set of sources, less any that refuse the web host’s servers; the phone app still reads those.
  • The tip link. The web version carries one optional link to a Buy Me a Coffee page, a separate service whose payments are processed by Stripe. It opens in a new tab with no referrer. That page sets its own cookies and may use advertising technologies, as its own banner says; that is Buy Me a Coffee’s, not ours. We receive no payment, name or email. A tip is never required and unlocks nothing.

8. Children

The app and this site are not directed to children, and we knowingly collect nothing from anyone.

9. Changes

We may update this policy. The date at the top of this page is the version in effect.

10. Contact

Questions about this policy: privacy@watchvaultmedia.com