earworm

Privacy policy and community guidelines

Last updated November 10, 2026. The same text is in the app under Settings.

Who runs earworm

earworm is a music journal for friends, run by Marco Del Rizzo in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. He is responsible for the personal information earworm holds. Questions, or a request about your data: support@earworm.reviews.

What earworm collects

• Your account: your email address and password (kept only as a secure hash), or the name and email Apple or Google share when you sign in with them. With Sign in with Apple you can hide your email.
• Your profile: your name, username, picture, bio, note and Top 3.
• Your age: you tell earworm your birthday once. It keeps only that you confirmed you're 13 or older, and when, never the birthday itself. Where a US state's law asks for it, your iPhone may share your age range from Apple instead.
• What you post: reviews, ratings, comments, reactions, lists, pins, friends and friend requests, reports, and messages with any pictures you send.
• Listening, if you connect it: from Apple Music, how often you've played each album in your music library and when you last played each song; from ListenBrainz, the public listens of the account you name, and your ListenBrainz token once, to check the account is yours (it isn't kept); from an Android phone with Record listening on, the song, artist and album that music apps are playing; from Spotify history files you choose, the counts and times of your plays (the files themselves never leave your phone). earworm keeps play counts per album, and your listens (songs and times) from the last 35 days for On repeat, Listening now and your live history, which only you see.
• What you're playing right now, if you turn on Show what I'm playing: the song, artist and album, from your Android phone, the Music app on your iPhone while earworm is open, or, with Now playing from Discord on, what Discord shows you playing (Spotify, for example), seen by earworm's bot while you're in earworm's Discord server and never counted as a play. It's kept until a few minutes after the song ends.
• Your records, if you connect Discogs: your Discogs username and the vinyl in your public collection, refreshed every few hours and deleted when you disconnect. If you sign in to Discogs to add records, earworm also keeps the access Discogs gives it, used only to add or take out the records you choose; disconnecting deletes it.
• Discord, if you connect it: your Discord account's id and name, and the access Discord gives earworm, used only to tell Discord you're an earworm member (for the earworm member role in earworm's Discord server) and to take that away again. Disconnecting deletes it. With Now playing from Discord on, earworm's bot also sees what Discord shows you playing, and keeps only yours. If you post your reviews in a Discord server, earworm also keeps which server you turned that on in, and the ids of the posts its reviews bot makes there, to edit or remove them.
• The camera, if you scan a record: your phone reads the barcode itself, and only the barcode's number is sent, to find the record on Discogs. No picture leaves your phone.
• How the app is doing: when you last used it, its version, the kind of device, which home feed view you see, whether you're online now, crash reports, and which screens and features you use. Only the owner sees these.
• Notifications: your device's notification address, to send the alerts you choose.

When you play songs from Apple Music, your phone, or Apple's own player in your browser on earworm on the web, plays them from Apple directly; earworm doesn't receive what you play, and on the web you sign in to Apple Music with Apple, not earworm.

How it's used

Only to run earworm: showing your profile and posts to members, your feeds, messages and notifications, keeping earworm secure, moderating it, fixing problems, and seeing which features people use, to improve them. earworm has no ads, never sells or rents your information, and doesn't track you across other apps or websites. Information from your Apple Music account is used only for earworm's own features and never for advertising.

Who sees what

Members can see your profile, your friends, your public lists, and the comments and reactions you leave. They can see your reviews and Top 3 too, unless you make your profile private: then only your friends see them, and your ratings don't count toward any album's average or the charts. Your play counts appear only if you turn that on, and plays from a ListenBrainz account only once you've shown it's yours. With Show what I'm playing on, your friends see the song you're playing and the last one you played in the past 10 minutes. If you connect Discogs, members can see your Discogs username and which albums you have on vinyl. If you connect Discord, people in earworm's Discord server can see that you're an earworm member, with your earworm username. If you turn on posting your reviews in a Discord server with earworm's reviews bot, everyone in that server sees each new review you write (the album, your stars and your words, with your earworm name and picture), and your rating of an album can appear under other members' posts about it. A private profile can't post its reviews. Your saved albums and listening diary are private.

Messages are seen by the people in the conversation. They are stored on earworm's servers without end-to-end encryption, and a moderator reads a message when it's reported. Uploaded pictures have public but unlisted addresses, so don't upload anything sensitive. The owner can see data when that's needed to run, secure or moderate earworm.

Services earworm uses

earworm's data is stored by Supabase in Canada (Montreal). These services also handle data for earworm:

Cloudflare: the domain name earworm.reviews, storage for album covers, and earworm's Discord bot.

Apple: Sign in with Apple, iPhone notifications, Apple Music's catalog, previews and playback, the support@earworm.reviews mailbox, and sending account emails such as password resets.

Google: Sign in with Google and Android notifications.

Vercel (United States): hosts earworm.reviews and earworm on the web (app.earworm.reviews), so it sees your IP address when you visit them.

Apple Music, MusicBrainz and the Cover Art Archive: your phone or browser asks them for album details and covers, so they see your IP address.

Discogs: if you connect your collection, earworm's server reads it from Discogs by the username you enter. When you look up or add a record, earworm's server asks Discogs for it, and adds it to your collection with your sign-in.

Discord: if you connect it, earworm tells Discord that you're an earworm member, with your earworm username, so you can have the earworm member role in earworm's Discord server. You can disconnect in Settings, or remove earworm from Authorized Apps in Discord. If you turn on Now playing from Discord, earworm's bot in that server sees what Discord shows you playing; earworm uses it only to show your friends what you're playing now, and turning it off, or disconnecting Discord, deletes it at once. If you run /earworm connect in a Discord server with earworm's reviews bot (earworm's own server, or any other server it has been added to) and press Post my reviews here, the bot posts each new review you write in that server's review channel, and edits or removes the post when you change or delete the review. The covers in those posts come only from the Cover Art Archive.

PostHog (United States): crash reports, which screens and features are used, and switching new features on and off. These are linked to your account unless you turn off Share usage stats in Settings; with it off, crash reports still go, but without your account. PostHog doesn't get what you write or post, or your location.

ListenBrainz: if you connect it, earworm's server reads your public listens from ListenBrainz every few hours, by the username you enter. If you prove your account, earworm's server checks your token with ListenBrainz once and doesn't keep it.

Some of these process data outside Canada, including in the United States. earworm gives each only what it needs to do its job, and each is bound by its terms to protect that information as well as this policy does.

How long it's kept

Your account and what you've posted are kept until you delete your account. Crash reports are deleted after 90 days, the record of which feed view you used after 90 days, and your listens (songs and times) after 35 days. What you're playing now is gone a few minutes after the song ends. When you disconnect Apple Music or ListenBrainz, earworm keeps only that source's total and its most played album's count for 30 days, so connecting again can't reset its limits; no albums or songs are kept. Plays from a Last.fm account connected before October 27, 2026, when earworm stopped reading Last.fm, are deleted 30 days after that, or sooner if you remove them. Notes disappear after a day. Reviews posted in Discord, and earworm's record of those posts, are removed when you stop posting there, make your profile private, disconnect Discord, delete the review or delete your account. Backups, kept privately to recover from mistakes, are deleted after 90 days. PostHog keeps crash reports and usage stats for up to a year.

Your choices

• Change your profile at any time, and turn off notifications, showing your plays, Show what I'm playing, or Share usage stats in Settings.
• Disconnect your listening in Settings to delete your play counts, your Discogs collection to delete your records, and Discord to take away the earworm member role and delete the link (that also stops posting your reviews in Discord, and removes the posts).
• Stop posting your reviews in a Discord server with /earworm stop there. The posts already made are removed.
• Export your library from Settings.
• Delete your account in Settings. Your profile, uploads, reviews, comments, lists, listening history, records and messages are removed straight away, and PostHog deletes what it has about you within a day. If you signed in with Apple, earworm asks Apple to end its access, or shows you how to do it yourself. Copies other members saved can't be recalled.
• Ask for a copy of your information, or for a correction, at support@earworm.reviews. You'll get an answer within 30 days.

If you're unhappy with how your information is handled, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (priv.gc.ca), or to the data protection authority where you live.

Children

earworm is for people 13 and older. Accounts found to belong to someone younger are deleted.

Security

earworm uses encrypted connections and limits who can reach data. If a breach puts you at real risk of significant harm, you and the Privacy Commissioner of Canada will be told, as the law requires.

Changes

When this policy changes, the date at the top changes too. If a change matters, the app will say so.

On your device

Local mode keeps your journal on this device, and connecting an account doesn't upload it unless you choose to copy it in. Account data is kept on the device for reading offline, and removed when you sign out.

On a computer, earworm on the web keeps your sign-in, a copy of your account data (so pages open quickly) and the album covers it has shown in your browser's own storage. Signing out removes the copy of your data. It sets no cookies for ads or tracking.

Community guidelines

Be kind. earworm doesn't allow unlawful, hateful, harassing, threatening or sexually explicit material, or anything you don't have permission to share. Some language is refused automatically. Report anything through its menu, and block a person from their profile. Reports are reviewed within 24 hours, and content and accounts that break these rules are removed. Music artwork and previews belong to their owners.