1. Who We Are
Sonboa is a social video app for creating, sharing, discovering, and messaging about short-form and long-form human-made videos. This Privacy Policy applies to the Sonboa mobile app, Sonboa websites, and related services that link to this policy.
The Sonboa app is operated by Sonboa.
Questions about this policy can be sent to support@sonboa.com.
2. Information We Collect
Account Information
We collect information you use to create and manage an account, such as email address, authentication provider information, user ID, date of birth, display name, handle, profile photo, bio, profile link, account status, and safety prompt status.
We use date of birth to determine whether you are old enough to use Sonboa, apply age-appropriate safety settings, configure advertising and personalization controls, and comply with platform rules and applicable law. We may require date of birth before you can complete onboarding or use certain features.
Content You Provide
Sonboa collects the videos, thumbnails, captions, hashtags, interests, overlay text and styling choices, comments, messages, reactions, shared post messages, profile details, report notes, A.I. policy attestations, and A.I. investigation evidence that you choose to provide.
Sonboa accesses your camera or photo library only when you choose to record, select, or upload content through the app.
Contacts and Social Graph Information
We collect information about follows, followers, blocks, blocked-by relationships, direct message threads, read markers, message previews, and conversation membership so we can operate social and messaging features.
Usage, Feed, and Engagement Information
We collect app activity needed to operate feeds and recommendations, including video display views, qualified plays, playback sessions, watch duration, active viewing time, loop counts, completion signals, likes, comments, report counts, and other engagement counters. These signals help rank feeds, detect trending videos, reduce spam, and keep creators' metrics accurate.
Device, Diagnostics, and Security Information
We collect technical information such as device and app identifiers, crash logs, diagnostics, IP address, App Check verification data, Turnstile verification results, Remote Config values, operating system, app version, and timestamps. These help us secure the service, prevent automated abuse, troubleshoot issues, and improve reliability.
Advertising Information
Sonboa uses Google AdMob. AdMob and its partners may collect or receive advertising identifiers, device information, app activity, approximate location inferred from IP address, and ad interaction data, depending on your platform settings and applicable consent requirements.
Sonboa may limit, disable, or change advertising for users whose age is unknown and for users who are under 18. Where required by law or platform policy, we use age-related ad request settings intended to limit ad personalization and mature ad content.
3. How We Use Information
We use information to:
- Provide, personalize, and maintain Sonboa.
- Create accounts, authenticate users, and protect accounts.
- Upload, store, process, transcode, display, and share videos and thumbnails.
- Power feeds, search, direct messages, comments, profiles, reports, blocks, and notifications.
- Verify age eligibility and apply age-appropriate feature and advertising restrictions.
- Recommend videos and measure video performance, quality, and trending signals.
- Review posts and reports for safety, policy compliance, and A.I. policy enforcement.
- Detect, prevent, and respond to spam, fraud, abuse, automated signups, and security incidents.
- Send service emails, moderation notices, and account-related communications.
- Serve, measure, and improve advertising where advertising is enabled.
- Debug crashes, monitor performance, and improve the app.
- Comply with legal obligations and enforce our terms and policies.
4. Public Content and Visibility
Public profiles and public posts may be visible to other Sonboa users and may appear in feeds, search, shared links, previews, and other product surfaces. Sonboa currently does not offer an account-wide public/private profile toggle, so you should assume that profile details and posts you publish may be visible to other users unless a specific feature says otherwise.
Direct messages are intended for the participants in the conversation, but Sonboa may access message metadata and message content when needed for safety, abuse prevention, support, legal compliance, or service operation.
Teen accounts may have additional messaging protections. For example, Sonboa may require mutual follows before a teen can start or participate in a direct message thread, show safety reminders, limit message content that includes contact information or links, and prevent messaging until age information is available.
5. How We Share Information
We may share information in the following ways:
- With other users, when you post, message, comment, react, follow, share, or otherwise use social features.
- With service providers that help us host, store, process, secure, analyze, moderate, deliver, and improve Sonboa.
- With advertising and measurement providers when advertising features are enabled.
- With law enforcement, regulators, courts, or other parties when required by law or to protect rights, safety, and security.
- With a successor or affiliate in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, or sale of assets.
We do not sell personal information for money. Some privacy laws may define certain advertising or analytics disclosures as a "sale" or "sharing." You can use your device and platform privacy controls to limit ad tracking where available.
6. Service Providers and Third-Party Services
Sonboa uses third-party services to operate the app. These services may process data as described in their own policies and agreements. We require service providers that process user data for Sonboa to protect that data in a way that is consistent with this Privacy Policy and applicable law:
- Google Firebase and Google Cloud for authentication, database, storage, functions, app integrity, remote configuration, and infrastructure.
- Google Cloud Vision and Video Intelligence for image and video safety review.
- Mux for video processing, storage, playback, thumbnails, and webhook events.
- Algolia for user, hashtag, connection, and video search indexing.
- Sentry for crash reporting, diagnostics, and error monitoring.
- SendGrid for service and moderation emails.
- Cloudflare Turnstile for human verification and bot prevention.
- OpenAI moderation services for reviewing text such as captions, hashtags, and overlay text.
- Google AdMob for mobile advertising and ad measurement.
- Apple, Google, and Firebase Auth providers when you use their sign-in options.
7. Content Moderation and A.I. Policy Review
We use automated systems, user reports, and human moderator review to help enforce Sonboa's policies. This can include reviewing captions, hashtags, overlays, thumbnails, videos, comments, messages, reactions, reports, report notes, account information, profile information, and evidence submitted during an A.I. investigation.
Confirmed policy violations may result in content removal, posting limits, account suspension, or account termination as described in our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.
8. Retention
We keep information for as long as needed to provide Sonboa, protect users, comply with law, resolve disputes, enforce policies, and maintain security and backups.
If you delete your account, Sonboa attempts to delete your account, profile, posts, videos, profile photos, follows, likes, and related storage files. Some information may be retained or replaced with a deleted-user placeholder where needed to preserve conversation context, safety records, audit logs, legal obligations, or the integrity of other users' experiences. For example, comments or messages may be tombstoned as deleted rather than fully removed from another user's thread.
9. Your Choices
- You can update profile information in the app.
- You can delete your own posts and request account deletion from the app or at sonboa.com/delete-account/.
- You can block users, hide conversations from your inbox, and report posts, profiles, comments, or messages where those tools are available.
- You can use device settings to control camera, photo library, notifications, and advertising permissions.
- You can use Apple, Google, and device controls to limit ad tracking and personalized advertising where available.
10. Security
We use technical and organizational measures designed to protect information, including authentication, App Check, access controls, storage rules, encrypted transport, monitoring, and abuse prevention. No online service can guarantee perfect security.
11. Children and Teens
Sonboa is not directed to children under 14, and users under 14 are not permitted to create an account. If our age screen indicates that a user is under 14, we prevent that user from completing onboarding and accessing social features such as posting, commenting, messaging, and personalized feeds.
If you believe someone under 14 has provided personal information to Sonboa, contact us so we can review and take appropriate action, which may include deleting the account and associated personal information where required.
For teen users who are old enough to use Sonboa, we may use additional safeguards such as age-aware advertising settings, messaging eligibility checks, mutual-follow requirements for direct messages, safety reminders, content filters, reporting, blocking, and moderation.
12. International Processing
Sonboa and its service providers may process information in the United States and other countries where we or they operate. These countries may have privacy laws different from those in your location.
13. Changes to This Policy
We may update this policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will update the effective date and may provide additional notice through the app or website.
14. Contact
For privacy questions, requests, or concerns, contact support@sonboa.com.