Version 3.1 · Effective October 17, 2026 — AI-assisted legal review; not reviewed by a licensed attorney
Movie Snob is made by Maximus Development LLC, a small independent company in Texas. This policy explains what information the App touches, how it is used, and what choices you have. Where this policy says "we" or "us," it means Maximus Development LLC.
The short version: your movie library stays on your phone and in your own iCloud. If you choose to create an account, we keep your email address so you can sign in. If you also choose to turn on Friends, we keep the small piece of your list you have agreed to share with the friends you accept. Nothing is public unless you choose to share a link or post a feature idea (Section 4).
Sign-in information (optional). Movie Snob offers Sign in with Apple so you can sync across devices. This is optional — the App works fully without it. If you do sign in, Apple shares your name and email, or a private relay address if you choose to hide your email. That information is stored only on your device and is never sent to us, to our analytics tool, or to any third party — unless you create a Movie Snob account with it (next paragraph).
Account information (optional). You can create a Movie Snob account with an email address and password, or with Sign in with Apple. We store your email address, whether it has been verified, and a one-way scrambled version ("hash") of your password — we cannot read your actual password. If you use Sign in with Apple, we also store the anonymous identifier Apple gives us for you. The App works fully without an account, and an account does not upload or back up your movie library.
Friends (optional; needs an account). If you turn on Friends, you choose a username and a display name; those two are visible to people who look you up by username or use your invite. For each film in your list, the only things shared with the friends you accept are: the film's title and ID, your reaction tier, your score rounded to two decimals, its rank within that tier, and whether it is your all-time #1. We also store your friend list, pending requests, the people you have blocked, invite codes you create (scrambled), picks you send or receive (a film plus one preset reason — there is no free-text messaging), questions you ask a friend to settle and their answers, and reports you file or that are filed about you. Your reviews, notes, watch dates and watchlist are never shared or sent to us, and any film you mark "Hide from friends" is never shared.
Anonymous community scores. To build a future community score for each film, the App sends each film's ID, your reaction tier and your score rounded to one decimal. These are tied only to a random identifier created on your phone — we store only a scrambled version of it — never to your account, email, name, reviews, notes or dates, so they cannot be traced back to you. A film's community average is only ever shown once at least 20 people have rated it. You can turn this off in Settings, which also deletes what your phone has sent.
Movie data you create. Your movie logs, ratings, notes, reviews, and watchlist are information you generate by using the App. See Section 3 for where it lives.
Location (optional, one-time). If you ask Movie Snob to show current box-office movies for your region, we request "when in use" location from iOS and convert it on the spot into a two-letter country code. Only that country code is used or stored. See Section 7.
Product analytics. We use PostHog to understand how the App is used — which screens get opened, which recommendations get watched, and whether the App crashed or froze (an anonymous report of the kind of failure and the App version, delivered by Apple's system diagnostics). These events are tied to a random identifier generated by PostHog and are not linked to your name, email, Apple ID, or any other identifier that identifies you to us. We do not use session recording or screen replay, and we do not use Apple's advertising identifier for analytics. You can turn analytics off entirely — see Section 10.
Advertising data. We show non-personalized ads through Google AdMob. See Section 6.
By default, your data stays on your device. Your movie library (logs, ratings, notes, reviews, watchlist) is never stored on a server we control. The only data we keep on our servers is the account and Friends information and the anonymous community scores described in Section 2, and account and Friends data only if you create an account or turn on Friends.
If you turn sync on, your ratings, watchlist, notes, reviews, and favorites sync through Apple's CloudKit into your own private iCloud account. That is Apple's private per-user storage — we cannot access it, and it is not stored on any server we control. Sync is free for everyone. If that ever changes, we will update this policy.
If sync is off, your data stays on your device only.
We operate a small server, hosted by Cloudflare, that does the things below.
Movie information relay. Movie information requests from your device go through our server, which forwards them to The Movie Database and returns the results, so our access credentials are not embedded in the App. The relay receives your device's IP address and the movie or search term you are looking up — not your name, email, Apple ID, movie logs, ratings, notes, or watchlist. We do not keep logs of these requests. To protect the service from abuse, each IP address is limited to a number of requests per minute; that count is held in memory only briefly and is not stored.
Accounts. If you create an account, the server stores the account information in Section 2, plus the sign-in sessions for your devices (which expire after 60 days and record the app's device type) and short-lived counters that include your IP address, used to slow down password guessing. Expired sessions and counters are cleared out automatically.
Friends. If you turn on Friends, the server stores the Friends information in Section 2 and shows your shared list only to people you have both accepted as friends, who have not been blocked by either of you, and only while "Share my rankings with friends" is on.
Community scores. The anonymous scores in Section 2, stored under a scrambled random identifier.
Notifications. If you use Friends and allow notifications, we store the push token Apple issues for your phone, your time zone (so we never notify you between 10 PM and 8 AM) and a record of what we sent, linked to your account, so we can tell you when a friend adds you, accepts, tags you, or sends you a pick or a question. Apple delivers them; they contain names and film titles only, never scores. Turning notifications off, signing out or deleting your account removes the token.
Share links. If you share one of your rankings as a link, anyone who opens that link can see your display name, that one film, its place in your ranking and its score. The link itself carries the card; we do not store it.
Feedback and feature ideas. If you send feedback or post an idea in the Feature Wishlist, we store what you write, a random identifier created on your phone (used only to limit spam and count upvotes, never linked to your account) and, for feedback, the app version. Feature ideas are shown to everyone who opens the Feature Wishlist, without your name; feedback is seen only by us. Please don’t include personal details. To have something you wrote removed, email moviesnob@icloud.com.
We do not sell your personal information, and we are not a data broker.
Movie Snob shows native, in-list ads through Google AdMob to keep the App free. Every ad request the App makes is explicitly marked non-personalized. We do not request IDFA-based ad personalization, we do not share Apple's advertising identifier, and the App does not show an App Tracking Transparency prompt, because it is not doing IDFA-based tracking.
Even for non-personalized ads, Google processes some technical information in order to serve ads, measure their performance, and prevent fraud — including device type, IP address and the general location it implies, the app you are using, and coarse ad-interaction data. Google acts as an independent data controller for that processing. We do not control what Google or its ad partners do with it, and Google's own privacy policy governs it.
Movie Snob also includes Apple's SKAdNetwork identifiers, which let ad networks measure ad effectiveness without tracking individual users.
In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, Google’s consent message asks for your choice first (see Section 11).
There is no way to turn ads off today. An ad-free option may be part of a future paid tier, and we will update this policy if that happens.
Movie Snob can optionally use your location to show current box-office movies for your region. If you allow it, iOS provides "when in use" location, and we use Apple's Core Location and geocoding to convert it into a two-letter country code such as "US." Nothing more precise than that is stored or used.
That country code is sent to TMDB, through our relay, to filter box-office results. We never store your precise coordinates and never send them to TMDB, PostHog, AdMob, or anyone else.
This is entirely optional. You can decline the prompt, or turn it off later in iOS Settings, and pick your country manually instead, with no loss of any other functionality.
Data stored only on your device is deleted when you delete the App.
Data synced through CloudKit lives in your own iCloud account. Deleting the App does not automatically delete it — that is how iCloud works for every app. You can manage or delete it through your Apple iCloud account settings.
You can export a CSV copy of your diary and watchlist at any time from Settings > "Export My Data." You can permanently erase your diary, watchlist, ratings, and rank — on this device and in your iCloud sync — from Settings > "Delete My Data." Deleting your account. Settings > Account > Delete Account permanently deletes your account from our server straight away — your email address, password hash, sign-in sessions, push tokens, and all your Friends data (profile, shared list, friendships, blocks, invites, picks, settle questions and watched-together tags). Your friends stop seeing you immediately.
Turning Friends off. Turning off "Share my rankings with friends" hides your list from friends straight away; hiding a single film removes it from what friends see.
Reports. If you report someone, your name is removed from the report when you delete your account. Reports about a user are kept after they are resolved for up to 12 months, so we can spot repeat abuse, then deleted.
Community scores. Turning them off in Settings deletes everything your phone has sent. If you use “Delete My Data” without turning them off first, the scores stay as anonymous film ratings: the random identifier on your phone is erased, so they can no longer be linked to you or to any device.
Two things that button cannot reach, so that you know. Product analytics events are not linked to your identity, which means we cannot pick out one person's events to delete — but you can turn analytics off entirely in Settings, and we will stop collecting them. And any technical data Google holds from serving ads is governed by Google's own privacy policy and controls.
We do not retain your precise location at all — see Section 7. Relay request logs are covered in Section 4.
Movie Snob is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us with information, contact us at moviesnob@icloud.com so we can remove it.
Where your app store tells us your age category, we use it only to make the App behave appropriately for your age. We never receive the underlying identity documents or verification method — only the category. See Terms of Use, Section 4.
Accounts and Friends are only for people aged 13 and over, like the rest of the App. We do not knowingly create accounts for children under 13; if we learn that we have, we delete the account.
Movie Snob is a small, independent project. Rather than offering different rights depending on where you happen to be, we offer the same choices to everyone:
We do not sell your personal information and we are not a data broker. We do not have a legal or compliance team, and we are not claiming certification under any particular privacy framework. What we are claiming is that this policy accurately describes what the App does. If it ever stops being accurate, that is a bug and we want to hear about it.
Movie Snob is available worldwide. If you are in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, Section 11 also applies to you.
Who is responsible. Maximus Development LLC (Texas, USA) is the controller for the information described in this policy. Contact: moviesnob@icloud.com.
Why we use your information. To provide the App and the features you choose, such as accounts and Friends (to perform our agreement with you). To keep the service secure and working, prevent abuse and handle reports (our legitimate interests). Product analytics and anonymous community scores only with your consent: both start off for you, and you can turn them on or off at any time in Settings > Privacy, Data & Legal.
Ads. Before any ad is requested, Google’s consent message asks for your choice about storing or accessing information on your device. Ads remain non-personalized either way. You can change your choice later in Settings > Privacy, Data & Legal > Ad privacy choices.
Your rights. You can ask to access, correct, delete, restrict or receive a copy of your information, object to our use of it, and withdraw consent at any time without affecting what happened before. Most of this you can do yourself in Settings; for anything else, email moviesnob@icloud.com and we will reply within one month. You can also complain to your local data protection authority.
International transfers. We and our service providers (Apple, Cloudflare, PostHog and Google) process information in the United States. Where required, these transfers rely on the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses or the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, as provided by those services.
Age. If you are under the age at which your country lets you consent to online services yourself (between 13 and 16, depending on the country), ask a parent or guardian before turning on analytics, community scores or Friends.
We rely on Apple's built-in security for on-device storage, iCloud and CloudKit, and Sign in with Apple. Passwords are stored only as a salted PBKDF2 hash, and sign-in sessions and invite codes only as hashes. Our server holds no movie library data. No method of storage or transmission is completely secure. If we learn of a breach that affects your account information, we will tell you as the law requires.
We may update this policy as the App evolves. If a change is material, we will show it to you in the App and ask you to accept it before you continue. For minor changes, we will update the version and date at the top.
Questions about this policy: moviesnob@icloud.com.