Privacy Policy

When you create an account, we collect your email address, password (stored as a salted hash, never in plain text), the role you sign up as, and anything else you choose to add to your profile — a display name, bio, tags, and profile photo.

ByUs is only for people 18 and older, so when you create an account you confirm that you’re 18 or older. We don’t ask for your birthday. Accounts created between October 7 and October 23, 2026 entered a birthday instead; it’s never shown on your profile or to creators or other members.

If you’re a creator, connecting Stripe shares your Stripe account identifiers with us so we can route payouts; we don’t receive or store your bank details or card numbers, which stay with Stripe. If you’re a fan, your payment details are entered directly into Stripe’s checkout and never touch our servers.

We also automatically collect basic technical information — IP address, browser type, and general usage activity — used for security purposes like rate-limiting and fraud prevention.

If you ask us to email you something free, like the podcast starter kit on our guides, we keep your email address and what you filled in so we can send it. We only email you again if you tick the box asking for tips, and every one of those emails lets you unsubscribe.

When you accept our legal terms, we keep an acceptance record containing your user ID, account role, the versions accepted, date and time, signup method, IP address, and browser user-agent. This helps us demonstrate consent and enforce our agreements.

For paid memberships and payment-dispute handling, we may keep limited account-activity records such as a successful sign-in, when a subscription started or was canceled, and whether subscriber-only content or media was accessed. These records are tied to the relevant account and payment where possible. We do not store card numbers, raw passwords, session tokens, or full request bodies in these payment-evidence records.

We use your information to run your account, process subscriptions and payouts, verify your email address, send account-related emails (verification, password resets, receipts), prevent fraud and abuse, and improve ByUs. We don’t sell your personal information.

We keep a record that you confirmed you’re 18 or older (and, for accounts that entered one, the birthday) only to show ByUs checked. ByUs isn’t meant for anyone under 18. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we close it and delete its personal information, except anything the law or a payment matter requires us to keep.

Limited payment and account-activity records may also be used to investigate refunds, unauthorized-payment reports, and card disputes, and to provide factual evidence to payment processors or financial institutions when a dispute needs a response.

We share what’s necessary to run the service with the vendors that power it — Stripe for payments and payouts, our hosting and database providers, and our email provider for transactional messages. Photos and videos uploaded to ByUs, including profile and cover pictures, go through an automatic safety scan run by our video provider and by Google Cloud, which check them for sexual content and violence; they use them only to run that check for us. Apart from the creators you join (see below), we don’t share your information with anyone else except where required by law.

Creators you join. When you become a paying member of a creator, that creator can see your name, email address, tier, and when you joined, and can download this as a member list or have it sent automatically to tools they connect, such as an email newsletter service. This is so they can keep in touch with you about their work and bring their members along if they ever move to another service. Creators agree to use member details only to communicate about their own work, never to sell or hand them to anyone else, and to stop emailing you if you ask. Once you leave a creator, you’re no longer included in any new member list they download.

When a payment is refunded, reported as unauthorized, or disputed, relevant transaction and account-activity information may be shared with Stripe, card networks, or the financial institution handling the dispute as needed to investigate or respond.

A creator’s public profile, posts, and tier information are visible to anyone who visits their page, by design. Your email address is never shown publicly; only the creators you pay can see it.

Activity creators see. In their Inbox, creators see the display name and photo of people who follow them, like or comment on their posts, join, or pay them, so they can say thanks. They don’t see your email address unless you’re a paying member.

If you add a phone number in Settings, we use it only to send the texts you asked for: a verification code, and a text when a creator you subscribe to publishes a new post. Message frequency varies with how often those creators post. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to any text to stop them, or HELP for help, or remove your number in Settings at any time.

We don’t sell, rent, or share your phone number or your consent to receive texts with anyone for their marketing. Your number is shared only with the text-message provider that delivers our messages, and it isn’t included in any member list a creator can see or download.

Members and creators can send each other private messages on ByUs. A conversation is visible only to the two people in it. We store messages so you can read them later, and we email you a short notice when you get one (who it’s from, never the message itself), which you can turn off in Settings.

The ByUs team doesn’t read private messages, except a message someone reports to us, or where we need to investigate fraud or a safety problem, or the law requires it. A reported message is kept with the report so we can review it.

Fans can book one-on-one video calls with creators who offer them. Calls run through our video provider, Daily (daily.co), in a private room that only the creator and the fan who booked can join. Calls are not recorded by ByUs or by Daily. Daily processes the live audio and video only to run the call, along with technical details such as join times, and we use those join times to confirm whether the call happened before anyone is charged.

We store the booking: who it’s with, the time, the price, and any note the fan adds (seen only by that creator). We email both people about the booking, any cancellation, and a reminder before the call.

Members’ meetings. Creators can also host group video meetings for their members. These run through Daily the same way, in a private room that only the creator and the members they invited can join, and they are not recorded by ByUs or by Daily. Other people in the meeting can see and hear you if you turn on your camera or microphone, and they see the display name on your ByUs account. We store the meeting’s title, time and who it’s for, and we email invited members about it unless they turned off post emails.

Live chat and showdowns. When you chat during a live, everyone watching sees your message with your display name, and the creator can remove it. If you tip during a live, the chat shows your name with the tip unless you untick “Show my name” (then it says “Someone”). We keep live chat messages and cheer counts with the live. A showdown is shown on the hosting creator’s live stream, so the guest creator’s camera and voice are part of that stream and its safety copy, and anyone signed in to ByUs can watch it on the showdown page. We email a creator when another creator invites them to a showdown, and when a showdown starts we email the members and followers of both creators who have live alerts turned on.

When you view a creator’s members-only photos or videos, we show a faint watermark over them with your display name and a short code from your account ID, so a copy that gets shared can be traced. The watermark is shown only on your own screen; we don’t share your name with anyone else to do this, and it never includes your email address.

If you use a private podcast feed, we note which network each episode download comes from, kept only as a scrambled code (not your IP address) and deleted after 30 days, so we can tell if a feed link is being shared and let you know.

When a creator goes live with the Go live button, their camera and microphone run through Daily (daily.co), the same provider as video calls, in a private room only the creator is in. Daily passes the live picture and sound to our video provider, which shows it to the creator’s members. We keep a record of when each live started and ended, to apply the time limits.

When a creator goes live, our video provider saves a copy of the stream. Viewers can’t watch these copies. ByUs keeps them only for safety: to check reports, to run the same automatic scan we run on uploaded videos, and to enforce our rules.

So a live can start the moment a creator taps Go LIVE, the built-in camera starts sending to our video provider while the creator is still on the preview screen (for up to 5 minutes). Nobody can watch it until they tap Go LIVE, and if they close the preview instead, it stops. That preview time can be part of the safety copy above.

When you watch a live, the creator and others watching see how many people are watching, and may briefly see “your name joined” when you open it or “your name liked the live” when you first send hearts. The top 3 supporters of a live show a No. 1, 2 or 3 badge next to their name in the chat. If you join a creator on camera as a guest, your camera picture and voice are part of the live and its safety copy, through our video provider, Daily. In a showdown, the top 3 supporters on each side show with their display name and picture, or as “Someone” if they sent their tips or gifts without showing their name.

While you watch a live, the people in it see how many are watching, and a short “your name joined” note when you first open it. In a showdown, the top supporters on each side (from free cheers, tips and gifts) show with their display name and picture; if you sent a tip or gift without showing your name, you show as “Someone”.

We delete each copy after 30 days, unless the stream was reported, flagged by the scan, or ended by ByUs, or we need it for a safety issue, a legal claim, or because the law requires it. If you report a live stream, we keep your report with your account; the creator isn’t told who reported it.

While a stream is on, ByUs also looks at about one still picture a minute. Automated tools from our providers (Google, with Anthropic as a backup) check it for sexual or violent content and for risky activity, like streaming while driving. A creator may see a “stay safe” note, and the ByUs team may be alerted to take a look. If the tools are very sure they see sexual or violent content in two pictures in a row, the live ends automatically and the team reviews it. These pictures aren’t saved; we keep only a short note of what was found.

Stories disappear from ByUs after 24 hours. We keep each story’s photo or video for 7 more days so we can look into reports, then delete it, unless it was reported, flagged by our automatic scan, or is needed for a safety issue or a legal claim. Story photos and videos get the same automatic scan as other uploads.

When you watch a story while signed in, we note that you saw it, so the ring around that creator turns grey for you and the creator can see how many people watched. Creators see the number of views, not who watched.

Our video provider listens to the sound in videos creators post and writes captions for them automatically, so people can watch with the sound off. The captions are stored with the video and shown to the same people who can watch it.

If you’re a member of a creator, or tap “Notify me” on one of their upcoming lives, we may email you when they go live and remind you before a live you asked about. A few weeks after a paid membership ends, we may send you one note showing what that creator has posted since (at most once every 6 months per creator). Every one of these emails has a link to stop them, and you can turn them off in Settings.

We use a session cookie to keep you signed in. It’s required for the site to function and isn’t used for advertising or cross-site tracking.

We also set two small ByUs-only cookies that last up to 90 days: one remembers how you first found a creator’s page (for example from Discover or a link they shared), and one remembers if you arrived through another member’s invite link, so that member can be credited if you join. They hold only the creator’s ID and a short code, never your name or contact details, and aren’t shared with anyone.

Earlier versions of sign-up used two small cookies for the birthday check: one carried the birthday for about 30 minutes while signing up with Google or Apple, and one stopped a browser from signing up for 24 hours after an under-18 birthday. New sign-ups don’t set them, and any that remain expire on their own.

If you reach ByUs by clicking one of our ads on Google, we load Google’s ad measurement tag, which may set Google cookies so we can see whether the ad led to a sign-up. It’s only loaded for visitors who arrive from a Google ad (and for up to 30 days afterward on that browser); everyone else browses ByUs without it. We don’t send Google your name, email address, or payment details. You can manage Google ad personalization at adssettings.google.com.

We keep your account information for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account, we remove or anonymize your personal information within a reasonable time, except where we’re required to retain records (for example, payment, fraud-prevention, dispute, tax, or legal records that need to be kept for a longer period).

Legal-acceptance records may be retained after account deletion when reasonably necessary to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims and meet legal obligations.

You can review and update your profile information at any time from your account settings, and you can request that we delete your account and associated personal data by emailing us.

Two settings put your name in front of other people, and both are off unless you turn them on: “Show me as a top supporter” (your name and photo on creator pages) and “Thank me by name in credits” (creators you support may include your display name when they thank members, like at the end of a video). Turning either off stops new uses, but ByUs can’t remove credits a creator already published.

ByUs is a U.S. company, and the information we collect is stored and processed in the United States by us and the providers listed above. If you live outside the United States, for example a creator in Canada, your information is transferred to and handled in the United States, where privacy laws may differ from yours. We protect it the same way wherever you live.

Passwords are hashed, sensitive account actions are rate-limited, and traffic to ByUs is encrypted in transit. No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable, industry-standard steps to protect your information.

If we make material changes to this policy, we’ll update the date at the top of this page, list the change on our What changed page, and email account holders.

ByUs is operated by Ryon Digital LLC. Questions about this policy, or want to access, correct, or delete your data? Email us at support@byusapp.com.