Commonplace is a reading tracker made by Tim Lockridge. This policy explains what the app does with your information. The short version: your reading library is yours, it is stored in your own iCloud account, and the developer cannot see it.
What is not collected
Commonplace has no accounts, no sign-up, and no server operated by the developer. There are no analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising identifier, and no third-party tracking code of any kind in the app.
Nothing you record — the books you read, your notes, ratings, dates, or reading history — is ever sent to the developer.
Where your library is stored
Your library lives in two places, both of which you control:
- On your device, in the app's own storage.
- In your private iCloud database, if you are signed in to iCloud. This uses Apple's CloudKit private database, which is tied to your Apple Account. The developer has no access to it. Apple's handling of that data is governed by the Apple Privacy Policy.
If you connect a micro.blog account, its API token is stored in the iOS Keychain on your device.
When the app contacts other services
Commonplace has no book database of its own, so looking up a book means asking someone who does. These requests happen only when you take an action that requires them, and they carry only what the lookup needs: a title, author, or ISBN. Your notes, ratings, and reading history are never included.
Searching for or adding a book sends your search terms to:
- Apple Books / iTunes Search
- Open Library (Internet Archive)
- Wikidata (Wikimedia Foundation)
- Inventaire
Requests to Open Library include a header identifying the app, its version, and a contact email address for the developer, which that project asks API users to provide. It does not identify you.
Book covers are downloaded from those same services when you add a book or choose a cover.
Importing a magazine issue fetches the issue's contents from that magazine's website — currently Clarkesworld, Uncanny Magazine, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, or Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Each magazine's back catalog (issue and story titles, authors, and dates) ships inside the app, so browsing past issues happens without contacting the magazine's site at all; the app fetches only current listings, issue contents the bundled copy doesn't have, and cover images, which are always loaded from the magazine's own site.
Sharing a link to Commonplace causes the share extension to fetch that page so it can find the book — or, for a supported magazine, the issue or story — being described. It requests the page you shared and nothing else, except for a magazine share, where it also fetches the issue's cover image (and, for a shared story, the issue page the story belongs to) from that same magazine's site. Unless you switch the toggle off before saving, the link itself is kept with the book as a note — stored like any other note, on your device and in your private iCloud database, and sent nowhere.
If you connect micro.blog, and only then, the app sends book information and reading status to micro.blog using your token, so it can update your bookshelves there. This happens according to the Shelf Syncing preferences you set in Settings, which can be set to never sync. micro.blog's handling of that data is governed by its own privacy policy.
As with any internet request, these services can see your device's IP address. Each is operated independently and handles data under its own policy, linked above.
What is stored on your device
To avoid repeating the same lookups, responses from the book services and magazine sites above are cached in the app's cache folder on your device for up to seven days. Cover images you save are stored with their book, magazine, or story. None of this is shared with anyone.
Deleting your data
- Settings → Delete All Data permanently removes every book, magazine, story, and note from the app.
- Settings → micro.blog → Manage Connection → Disconnect removes the stored token. Books already added to your micro.blog shelves stay there; you can remove them at micro.blog.
- Deleting the app removes its local storage. Data already synced to iCloud is removed through your device's iCloud storage settings.
Exports you create through Settings → Import & Export are ordinary files saved wherever you choose to put them, and are outside the app's control once saved.
Children
Commonplace does not collect personal information from anyone, including children.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the updated version will be posted here and the date at the top will change. Substantive changes will be noted in the app's release notes.
Contact
Questions about this policy can go to tim@timlockridge.com.