This policy explains what the Pythous app for Android ("the app") collects, why, who it is shared with, and the choices you have. The app is published by Pythous ("we", "us"). The Pythous website has its own Privacy Policy. If you have any questions, email us at apythous@gmail.com.
1. In short
- The app works without an account. It never asks for your name, email address, phone number, contacts, photos or files.
- Your settings and saved articles are stored only on your phone.
- Your location is read only when you tap "Use current location", and only to work out prayer times, the Qibla direction and your city's name. Never in the background.
- The app shows ads from Google AdMob, which uses your phone's advertising ID. In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland the app asks for your consent first.
- The app has no analytics, and we do not sell your personal information.
2. What stays on your phone
The place you choose for prayer times, your zodiac sign, your prayer settings (calculation method, Asr method, Hijri date adjustment and Ramadan mode), your notification settings, the articles you save for offline reading, and the data for the home-screen widget are stored only on your phone. We never receive them. They are deleted when you clear the app's data or uninstall it.
Reminders for prayer times, sehri and iftar, the ayah of the day, the horoscope and the daily summary are scheduled on your phone. The Qibla direction and the daily outlook are calculated on your phone.
3. Permissions the app asks for
- Location (only while you use the app). Asked for only when you tap "Use current location". The app reads your position once to find prayer times and the Qibla direction for where you are. You can choose a city by name instead, and the app works fully without this permission.
- Notifications. To show the reminders you turn on, and new-article alerts.
- Alarms & reminders. So prayer reminders arrive at the exact minute. Without it, Android may deliver them a few minutes late.
- Run at startup. To set your reminders again after your phone restarts.
- Internet. To load prayer times, articles, the horoscope, the ayah of the day and ads.
- Advertising ID. Used by Google's ads SDK (see section 5).
4. Services the app connects to
To show its content, the app connects directly from your phone to these services and sends only what each feature needs:
- Prayer times: Aladhan (api.aladhan.com). Receives the coordinates of the place you chose and your calculation settings.
- Your city's name: BigDataCloud (api.bigdatacloud.net). Only when you tap "Use current location", it receives your coordinates and returns the name of the place.
- City search: Open-Meteo (geocoding-api.open-meteo.com). Receives the text you type in the search box.
- Horoscope: freehoroscopeapi.com. Receives the zodiac sign you chose.
- Ayah of the day: Al Quran Cloud (api.alquran.cloud) for the text and translations, and cdn.islamic.network for the recitation, only when you tap Listen. Nothing about you is sent beyond the request itself.
- Articles: pythous.com and our storage provider, Google Cloud Storage, for articles and their images, including the searches you make in the Blog.
- New-article notifications: Firebase Cloud Messaging, a Google service. If you allow these notifications, Firebase gives your installation of the app a random push token, which the app sends to our server so we can send you new-article notifications. The token isn't linked to your name or any account. See Privacy and Security in Firebase.
- Ads: Google AdMob. See section 5.
Like any internet request, each of these services also receives your IP address, and its own privacy policy applies to what it receives.
5. Advertising (Google AdMob)
Ads help keep Pythous free. The app shows banner ads below the content of some screens and, now and then, a full-screen ad when you open an article. There are no ads on the ayah of the day or the Qibla compass, and no ad appears when you open the app from a notification. Ads are limited to content suitable for general audiences with parental guidance (Google's "PG" rating).
The ads come from Google AdMob. To choose, show and measure ads, limit how often you see the same ad, and prevent fraud, Google's Mobile Ads SDK collects and sends to Google:
- your phone's advertising ID;
- your IP address, from which an approximate location can be worked out;
- information about your phone and the app, such as the phone model, Android version and language;
- how you interact with ads, such as which ads were shown and whether you tapped them;
- diagnostic information, such as crashes and performance of the ads.
Where the law allows it or you have given consent, Google and its advertising partners may use this information to show personalised ads. Learn more about how Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services and read Google's Privacy Policy.
Your choices:
- If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, the app shows Google's consent message the first time you open it, and no ads load until you have answered. You can change your answer at any time in the app under Alerts → Privacy → Ad privacy choices. If you don't consent to personalised ads, Google may still show non-personalised ads, which are based on the app and approximate location rather than on your interests.
- Anywhere, you can reset or delete your advertising ID, or opt out of personalised ads, in your phone's settings (on most Android phones: Settings → Google → Ads, or Settings → Privacy → Ads).
6. Sharing and selling
We do not sell or rent your personal information. Information leaves your phone only as described in sections 4 and 5, or when required by law or to protect the rights, property or safety of Pythous, our users or others.
7. How long information is kept, and deleting it
- On your phone: until you remove it in the app, clear the app's data, or uninstall the app.
- Push tokens are stored on our server. Turning new-article notifications off in the app, or uninstalling it, makes your token stop working, so it can no longer reach your phone. We may keep a token that no longer works.
- Server logs of requests to pythous.com are kept for a limited period for security and troubleshooting.
- Information collected by Google for ads is kept according to Google's Privacy Policy.
To ask us to delete information we hold about you, email apythous@gmail.com.
8. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete or export your personal information, and to object to or restrict certain processing. To make a request, email apythous@gmail.com. We will respond within the time required by applicable law.
9. Children
The app is not directed at children under 13, 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.
10. Security
The app uses encrypted (HTTPS) connections to every service listed above. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.
11. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time, for example when the app gets new features. When we do, we will post the new version here and update the "Last updated" date above.
12. Contact
Questions or requests about this policy: apythous@gmail.com, or use our contact page.