Terms of Services | Impressum | Privacy Policy
Privacy Policy
Last updated: 01.10.2026 — Effective: 31.10.2026
1. Who we are
This Privacy Policy describes how comprehensive meaning s. r. o. (“we”, “us”, “our”) collects, uses, and shares personal data when you visit hourcast.io or use the Hourcast service at app.hourcast.io (together, the “Service”).
Controller details:
- Company: comprehensive meaning s. r. o.
- Registered address: Karpatske namestie 7770/10A, 831 06 Bratislava, Slovak Republic
- Company ID: 56 261 471
- VAT ID: SK2122256191
- Registered: Commercial Register of the Bratislava III City Court, Section: Sro, File: 178555/B (link)
- Contact for privacy matters: [email protected]
We are the data controller for personal data processed in connection with the Service. The founder/operator personally handles all privacy-related requests, data subject requests, and data breach notifications.
2. Scope
This Privacy Policy applies to:
- The marketing website at hourcast.io
- The application at app.hourcast.io
- All transactional and marketing emails we send
- All support communications
It does not apply to third-party services we link to (such as Google Ads, Stripe checkout pages, or external podcast platforms), which have their own privacy policies.
3. Data we collect
3.1 Information you provide
- Account data: email address, name, password (stored as a hash), language preference, timezone
- Payment data: processed by Stripe. We do not store full card details. We retain the Stripe customer ID, subscription ID, billing email, and the last four digits and brand of the payment method
- Communications: the content of any emails or support messages you send us
- Marketing preferences: your opt-in choices for newsletters and product updates
3.2 Information from your Google Ads account
When you connect your Google Ads account by pasting our script, we receive:
- Your Google Ads customer ID (account number)
- Campaign, ad group, and ad metadata (names, status, budgets, bidding strategy)
- Performance metrics (impressions, views, completions, watchtime, cost)
- Video asset IDs and durations
- Audience and demographic targeting data
We do not access any other part of your Google Ads account. The script is read-only except for budget shifts within the campaign groups you define.
3.3 Information collected automatically
- Log data: IP address, browser type and version, operating system, referrer URL, pages visited, timestamps
- Device data: device type, screen resolution, language preference
- Cookies and similar technologies: see Section 5
3.4 Session recordings (Microsoft Clarity)
We use Microsoft Clarity, a behavioral analytics service provided by Microsoft Corporation, on both hourcast.io and app.hourcast.io to record user sessions, including mouse movements, clicks, scrolls, and page navigation.
This means your interactions inside the paid dashboard may be recorded in addition to your activity on the marketing site. Recordings help us improve usability and debug issues.
Clarity runs in its Balanced masking mode. Anything you type into an input box or select in a dropdown — including email, password and payment fields — is masked in the browser and never sent to Microsoft. In addition, email addresses and numbers displayed on the page are masked.
Clarity is an analytics cookie and does not load until you grant analytics consent. You can decline it, or withdraw your consent at any time, via the cookie settings link in our footer. Microsoft processes this data in the United States; see the Microsoft Privacy Statement for details.
3.5 Server-side tagging
We operate a server-side tagging container, hosted by Stape, on our own subdomain load.pluto.hourcast.io. Instead of your browser sending data directly to each advertising provider, your browser sends it to this container, and the container forwards it to the providers named in this policy.
Because the container runs on a hourcast.io subdomain, the cookies it sets are first-party cookies. These can have a longer lifetime than the equivalent cookies set directly by a third-party script.
Server-side tagging does not change what we collect or who we share it with. It changes the route the data takes. Every non-essential tag in the container stays subject to your cookie consent and does not fire until you grant it.
3.6 Data we share with advertising platforms
Where you have granted marketing consent, we share event data (for example: page view, signup, purchase) with the advertising platforms we use, so we can measure which ads bring us customers.
Meta (Facebook, Instagram). We use the Meta Pixel in your browser and the Meta Conversions API from our server-side container. Alongside the event, we send your email address in hashed form (SHA-256), which Meta uses to match the event to an account. Your email address is never sent to Meta in plain text.
OpenAI (ChatGPT Ads). We use the OpenAI Ads pixel in your browser and the OpenAI Conversions API from our server-side container, for the same purpose.
LinkedIn. We use the LinkedIn Insight Tag to measure conversions and build advertising audiences.
If you decline marketing cookies, these tags do not fire and no event data is sent to Meta, OpenAI or LinkedIn. You can withdraw consent at any time via the cookie settings link in our footer.
4. How we use your data and legal bases (GDPR Article 6)
| Purpose | Legal basis |
|---|---|
| Provide and operate the Service | Performance of contract — Art. 6(1)(b) |
| Process payments and renewals | Performance of contract — Art. 6(1)(b) |
| Send transactional emails (welcome, password reset, monthly summary, alerts) | Performance of contract — Art. 6(1)(b) |
| Send marketing emails (newsletters, product updates) | Consent — Art. 6(1)(a) |
| Analytics (Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Microsoft Clarity) | Consent — Art. 6(1)(a) |
| Advertising (Meta Pixel and Meta Conversions API, OpenAI Ads pixel and OpenAI Conversions API, LinkedIn Insight Tag, retargeting, custom audiences) | Consent — Art. 6(1)(a) |
| Routing advertising events through our server-side tagging container | Consent — Art. 6(1)(a) |
| Security, fraud prevention, abuse detection | Legitimate interest — Art. 6(1)(f) |
| Comply with legal obligations (tax, accounting) | Legal obligation — Art. 6(1)(c) |
You opt into marketing emails in one of two ways:
- At signup, by checking the marketing opt-in box on the registration form
- Via a separate newsletter signup form on hourcast.io
You can unsubscribe at any time via the link in every marketing email or by emailing [email protected]. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.
5. Cookies and tracking
We use cookies and similar technologies for:
- Strictly necessary (always on): authentication, session management, security, payment processing, load balancing
- Analytics (consent required): Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Microsoft Clarity
- Marketing/advertising (consent required): Meta Pixel, OpenAI Ads pixel, LinkedIn Insight Tag
Some advertising cookies are set as first-party cookies by our server-side tagging container on load.pluto.hourcast.io (see Section 3.5), which can give them a longer lifetime than the same cookies set by a third-party script. They are subject to the same consent requirement as any other non-essential cookie.
Non-essential cookies do not load until you grant consent via the cookie banner (managed by the Complianz consent platform). You can change or withdraw your consent at any time via the cookie settings link in our footer.
For a detailed cookie list (categories, providers, retention), see our Cookie Policy.
6. Subprocessors and third parties
We use the following third-party providers to operate the Service. Each has its own privacy policy and security commitments.
| Provider | Purpose | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Railway | Application hosting (backend, database) | EU West (Amsterdam, Netherlands) |
| Websupport, s.r.o. | WordPress hosting (marketing site, dashboard) | Slovak Republic |
| Cloudflare | DNS, CDN, DDoS protection | Global (with EU routing where available) |
| Stripe | Payment processing | USA / Ireland (EU) |
| Mailjet | Transactional and marketing emails | France (EU) |
| Google (Google Ads, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager) | Advertising platform connection, web analytics | USA / EU |
| Stape | Server-side tagging container hosting | EU West (Belgium) |
| Microsoft (Microsoft Clarity) | Session recording and behavioral analytics | USA |
| Meta Platforms | Advertising and conversion tracking (Meta Pixel, Meta Conversions API) | USA / Ireland (EU) |
| OpenAI | Advertising and conversion tracking (ChatGPT Ads pixel, OpenAI Conversions API) | USA |
| Advertising and conversion tracking | USA / Ireland (EU) | |
| Wordfence | WordPress security plugin | USA |
| Complianz | Cookie consent management | EU |
Data flowing through Stape: Stape hosts the server-side container that receives event data from your browser and forwards it to the advertising platforms named in this policy.
Microsoft Clarity: unlike our other providers, Microsoft does not act solely as a processor on our behalf — Microsoft states that Clarity is GDPR-compliant as a data controller and that Microsoft has access to the data, which means Microsoft also processes it for its own purposes under the Microsoft Privacy Statement.
International data transfers: where personal data is transferred outside the European Economic Area (EEA), we rely on Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) approved by the European Commission, on adequacy decisions, or on other lawful transfer mechanisms.
7. Data retention
We retain personal data only as long as necessary for the purposes described above.
| Data category | Retention period |
|---|---|
| Active account data | For the duration of your subscription |
| Account data after cancellation | 12 months, then deleted or anonymized |
| Payment and invoicing records | 10 years (Slovak tax and accounting law) |
| Server logs (IP addresses, request logs) | 6 months |
| Microsoft Clarity session recordings | 30 days (9 months if a session is labeled or favorited) |
| Microsoft Clarity click and heatmap data | 9 months |
| Marketing email consent records | Until consent is withdrawn, then 3 years for proof of consent |
| Backup copies | Up to 30 days after deletion from primary storage |
After the retention period, data is permanently deleted or irreversibly anonymized.
8. Your rights under GDPR
If you are in the EEA, UK, or Switzerland, you have the following rights:
- Right of access (Art. 15): get a copy of your personal data
- Right to rectification (Art. 16): correct inaccurate data
- Right to erasure (Art. 17): request deletion (“right to be forgotten”)
- Right to restriction (Art. 18): limit how we process your data
- Right to data portability (Art. 20): receive your data in a machine-readable format
- Right to object (Art. 21): object to processing based on legitimate interest, including direct marketing
- Right to withdraw consent (Art. 7): withdraw any consent at any time, without affecting prior lawful processing
- Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority (see below)
How to exercise your rights
We currently handle data subject requests on an informal, ad-hoc basis. To exercise any rights under GDPR (access, rectification, erasure, portability, objection), contact us at [email protected] with the request and the email address associated with your account. We will respond within 30 days.
We will manually verify your identity and process the request by deleting or exporting data from PostgreSQL, WordPress, Mailjet, Stripe, and any other system where it is stored. We aim to respond within 30 days, as required by Art. 12(3) GDPR.
Supervisory authority
If you believe we have mishandled your personal data, you can lodge a complaint with the Slovak Data Protection Authority:
Úrad na ochranu osobných údajov Slovenskej republiky Hraničná 12, 820 07 Bratislava 27, Slovak Republic Tel: +421 2 3231 3214 Email: [email protected] Web: https://dataprotection.gov.sk
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority in your EU country of residence.
9. Security
We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect personal data, including:
- TLS encryption for all data in transit
- Encrypted database storage
- Restricted administrative access (limited to the founder/operator)
- API key authentication for backend endpoints
- A web application firewall (Wordfence) that blocks malicious requests before they reach the application
- Cloudflare rules that block automated scanning for backups, configuration files and other sensitive paths
- Automatic security updates for core, themes, plugins and server dependencies
If a personal data breach occurs, we will notify the Slovak Data Protection Authority within 72 hours of becoming aware, in accordance with Art. 33 GDPR. Where the breach is likely to result in a high risk to the rights and freedoms of affected users, we will notify those users without undue delay (Art. 34 GDPR).
10. Children
The Service is not intended for individuals under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, contact [email protected] and we will delete it.
11. Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of material changes by email at least 30 days before they take effect. The “Last updated” date at the top of this document indicates when it was last revised.
12. Contact
Privacy questions, data subject requests, and breach reports:
comprehensive meaning s. r. o. Karpatske namestie 7770/10A 831 06 Bratislava Slovak Republic
Email: [email protected] Company ID: 56 261 471 VAT ID: SK2122256191
This Privacy Policy is provided in English. Translations may be available for convenience; in case of conflict, the English version controls.
13. Cookie Settings
You can review, change, or withdraw your cookie consent at any time by clicking the link below. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.