The short version. Sputnik Radio doesn’t collect, sell, or share personal information. There are no accounts, ads, analytics, or tracking. The app doesn’t talk to any server we run, so we have no way to see what you listen to.
This policy covers the Sputnik Radio app for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and CarPlay, and this website. “We” and “us” mean Jeff Greco, the developer of Sputnik Radio.
What stays on your device
To work, Sputnik keeps a few things in its own storage on your device. None of it is sent to us.
- Your settings, such as whether songs always start from the beginning.
- Recent, the list of songs you’ve played in Sputnik (up to the last 500), and the last station you listened to.
- Station information, a short-lived copy of what each station is playing, so lists load quickly.
- A playback log of events like song changes and errors, used to troubleshoot playback. It’s capped in size, kept on your device, and never sent anywhere by the app.
Deleting the app deletes all of this.
What syncs through your iCloud
Your favorite stations and liked songs (each song’s title, artist, artwork link, and when you liked it) are stored in your own iCloud account so they’re the same on all your devices. This data is part of your Apple Account and is handled under Apple’s Privacy Policy. We can’t access it.
Apple Music
With your permission, Sputnik uses Apple’s MusicKit to check that your account can play Apple Music, to look up songs and their album art in the Apple Music catalog, to play songs, and to create and update a playlist called “Sputnik Liked Songs” in your Apple Music library. Playback and your library are handled by Apple under Apple’s Privacy Policy. You can turn off Sputnik’s access at any time in Settings → Privacy & Security → Media & Apple Music.
Siri
When you play a station, Sputnik tells Siri on your device which station you played, so Siri learns the station names you use and can suggest them. If you give Sputnik permission to use Siri, requests you speak are processed by Apple under Apple’s Privacy Policy. Sputnik receives only the station you asked for. You can turn this off in Settings → Apps → Sputnik → Siri.
Other services the app connects to
Sputnik loads the station list and the songs each station has played from XMPlaylist (xmplaylist.com), an independent service that publishes them. These requests don’t include any account, device identifier, location, or listening history. Like any internet request, they do reveal your device’s IP address to XMPlaylist, whose handling of requests is covered by its own policies.
Everything else the app uses comes from Apple: Apple Music (songs and album art), iCloud, Siri, and the App Store, as described above.
What we don’t do
- No accounts or sign-in.
- No analytics, crash-reporting, or advertising software.
- No tracking across other apps or websites, and no advertising identifier.
- No access to your location, contacts, photos, camera, or microphone. (Siri listens on Apple’s behalf, not Sputnik’s.)
- No selling or sharing of personal information, because we don’t have any.
If you email us
If you write to support, we use your email address and whatever you include only to reply to you. We don’t add you to a mailing list, and we keep support email only as long as it’s needed to help you.
This website
This site doesn’t use cookies, analytics, or tracking. The “Download on the App Store” badge on the home page is loaded from Apple, and our web host keeps standard server logs (such as IP addresses and pages requested) for security and reliability.
Children
Sputnik doesn’t collect personal information from anyone, including children under 13.
Changes to this policy
If how Sputnik handles information changes, we’ll update this page and the effective date above before the change ships in the app.
Contact
Questions about privacy? Email sputnik@jeffgreco.com.