Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Jocus(“we”, “us”) collects, uses, and shares information when you use our website, apps, and services (the “Service”). By using the Service, you agree to this Policy.

1. Information we collect

Information you provide

• Account details such as your name, email address, and password (or Google sign-in).
• Profile information such as your bio, roles, and optional payment handles (Venmo, PayPal, Cash App) that you choose to display.
• Content you create such as jokes, setlists, notes, shows, lineups, the pay you set for each spot, production teams and co-producer splits, roster entries, invites, submissions, and the earnings and payout figures you record.
• Recordings you upload as tapes, along with the transcript and the measurements we take from them. You choose which recordings to upload, one at a time; nothing is captured automatically, and the Service never records you.
• Communications you send us, such as support requests.

Information collected automatically

• Basic technical and usage data (such as device, browser, and log information) needed to operate and secure the Service.
• Approximate location only when you use location features (for example, the “near me” show search), based on your device’s input.

2. How we use information

• Provide, maintain, and improve the Service.
• Authenticate you, process subscriptions, and deliver features you use.
• Enable the connections you initiate — for example, delivering an invite to a performer or listing a show you mark public.
• Communicate with you about your account, transactions, and support.
• Detect, prevent, and address fraud, abuse, and security issues.
• Comply with legal obligations.

3. How information is shared

We do not sell your personal information. We share information only:

• With other users, at your direction. Content you choose to make public or share (such as a public show, a bit or a tape you send another comic for notes, a submission to a producer, a show you run with co-producers, or your press kit at the visibility you set — producers on Jocus, or a public page) is visible to the relevant users. When you add a co-producer, what they can see depends on the access level you give them. Your plan, payment handles, and account email are not part of a public listing.
• With service providers that help us run the Service, including Google Firebase (hosting, authentication, database), Google Cloud / Vertex AI (transcribing a tape you upload), Stripe (payment processing), Resend (transactional email), and Google Maps / Places (venue lookup). These providers process data on our behalf under their own terms and privacy policies. Google does not use content sent to Vertex AI to train its models, and a tape is sent only when you upload one.
• For legal reasons when required by law or to protect the rights, safety, and security of Jocus, our users, or the public.
• In a business transfer such as a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, subject to this Policy.

We do not process your card numbers directly; payments are handled by Stripe.

4. Data retention

We keep your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the Service, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. When you delete your account, we delete or anonymize your personal information, except where we must retain it (for example, records required for tax or accounting).

Tape audio is an exception with a much shorter clock: a recording is deleted within a day of upload unless you ask us to keep that one. What survives either way is the transcript and the numbers — what you said, where the room laughed, how long the bit ran — which is the part that is worth keeping and the part that is not a recording of a room full of people. Nothing is kept by default and nothing is kept in bulk: keeping is a choice you make one tape at a time, and a tape you kept can have its audio deleted on its own, without losing the transcript. You can also delete a tape outright at any time, which removes the audio immediately along with everything measured from it.

Sending a tape to another comic does not move that clock. A recording you have not kept is still deleted within a day, and the comic you sent it to is left with what you were left with — the transcript and the numbers. Deleting the tape outright ends their access to all of it.

5. Your choices and rights

• Access and export. You can download a copy of your data from your account.
• Update. You can edit your profile and content at any time.
• Delete. You can have your account and its content deleted by emailing us. We handle these requests by hand today, so we recommend exporting anything you want to keep first.
• Cancel. You can cancel a paid subscription at any time.

Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights over your personal information. To exercise any right, contact us at support@jocus.app.

6. Security

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your information. Your data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS) and encrypted at rest by our infrastructure provider, and every request is checked against per-account access rules before any record is returned.

Your jokes are yours. The joke vault carries the tightest permission on the Service: a joke is returned only to the account that wrote it and to the comics that writer personally hands it to for notes. Jocus staff and administrators have no in-app access to your material — there is no support tool, no admin screen, and no internal report that can display it, and it is not counted in our own usage statistics. Like any hosted service, a small number of engineers can reach the underlying database in order to operate it; that access is restricted, and we do not use it to read your material. If you need help with something in your vault, we will have to ask you what it says.

Tapes carry the same promise. A recording, its transcript, and its measurements are returned only to the account that uploaded it and to the comics that comic hands the tape to. There is no admin screen that can play a tape or read its transcript, and tapes are not counted in our usage statistics. A tape is sent to our transcription provider once, when you upload it, and is deleted from that provider as soon as the transcript comes back.

A comic you hand a tape to can listen to it and read it, and that is all: nothing in the app lets them change it, attach it to anything of their own, or pass it along to somebody else. Their player is issued a link that lapses within the hour and is re-issued only while the share still stands, so taking a tape back stops the playing rather than leaving a working link behind in somebody's history.

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

7. Children

The Service is not directed to children and is intended for users who are at least 18 years old. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

8. International users

We operate the Service using providers that may store and process data in the United States and other countries. By using the Service, you understand your information may be processed in locations with different data protection laws than your own.

9. Changes to this Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will update the “Last updated” date above and, where appropriate, notify you.

10. Contact

Questions about your privacy? Reach us at support@jocus.app or visit our Support page.