Aloud

Privacy Policy

Updated 27 September 2026

Aloud is built so your documents never leave your Mac. This page covers the little that does: what is collected, what it is used for, who else receives it and how, and how it is kept safe.

What is collected

In the app

• Nothing you read. The documents and pages you open, the text you select in other apps and what you copy are read on your Mac, with the voices on your Mac, and are never uploaded or sent anywhere.
• Your library, your settings and the day your trial started are kept on your Mac and never sent to me. Your key is kept there too; a subscriber's key is the one thing the app sends, as the next point says.
• There is no account, no analytics and no tracking in the app.
• Aloud goes online for three things only, and all three go to aloud.work. Once you have said it may, it checks for updates once a day. If you choose a Kokoro voice, it downloads the voices, and again whenever an update needs a newer copy. And if you subscribe, near the end of each month it sends your key to aloud.work to check that the subscription is still paid, and gets back the key for the month ahead.
• Like any download, those requests carry your IP address and standard details such as the version of Aloud and of macOS. They carry nothing about you or your files, and the subscription check carries only your key.

On this website

• aloud.work has no analytics, no advertising and no tracking. Its fonts and images come from aloud.work itself, so a visit reaches no other company.
• Cloudflare, which hosts the site, handles the standard details of every visit: your IP address, your browser's name and version, and the page you asked for.
• Cloudflare also runs a small script that helps it tell people from bots, and sets one cookie, cf_clearance, to remember the result. It is there for security only. The site sets no cookies of its own.

When you buy

• Checkout is run by Link, a Stripe service that sells Aloud on my behalf as the seller of record. On Link's checkout page you give Link your email, your payment details and the name and billing address that go with them.
• Once you have paid, aloud.work keeps a small record of the purchase: the email you used at checkout, the amount and currency, when the checkout was opened and when you paid, Stripe's reference for the payment and, for a subscription, for the subscription, and the id your key carries.
• Your name, your address and your card details are not part of that record. Your card details never reach aloud.work at all.

When you write to me

• If you email me, I have your address and what you wrote.

How it is used

• Update checks and voice downloads are answered with the update or the voices, and used for nothing else.
• The key a subscription's check sends is used to look up that subscription and answered with a new key, and for nothing else.
• Link uses your payment details to take the payment, work out any tax, send your receipt, handle refunds and prevent fraud.
• I use the purchase record to show you your thanks page and key, to renew a subscription's key, to find your purchase when you write to me, and to refund you.
• Cloudflare uses the details of each visit to serve the site and to protect it from abuse.
• I use your emails to answer you.

None of it is sold, used for advertising, used to build a profile of you, or used to train AI models. I will not send you marketing email, and I will not email you at all unless you write first or something about your purchase needs it.

Who it is shared with, and how

Only these parties receive anything, and only in these ways.

• Link and Stripe take the payment. You give them your payment details yourself, on Link's checkout page, over an encrypted connection. aloud.work tells Stripe only what is being bought. When a subscriber's copy of Aloud checks its subscription, aloud.work asks Stripe whether that subscription is paid and until when. Once you have paid, Stripe sends aloud.work your email and the payment's reference, in a signed message over HTTPS. Link handles your details under Link's privacy policy.
• Cloudflare hosts aloud.work and its downloads, and stores the purchase records. It receives every request to the site as it serves it, and it stores and processes this information on my behalf, as my service provider, under Cloudflare's privacy policy.
• If the law requires it. I would disclose a purchase record only in answer to a valid legal demand, such as a court order, and only what it requires. I would tell you first unless the law forbids it.
• If Aloud changes hands. Should Aloud ever be sold, the purchase records would go to the new owner, who would have to keep to this policy, and you would be told by email.

Nobody else receives anything. I do not sell, rent or trade personal information, or share it for advertising.

How it is kept safe

• Every page, download and payment message on aloud.work travels over HTTPS, so it is encrypted on the way. A plain http:// address is redirected to HTTPS, and browsers are told to use nothing else.
• Your card details go only to Link, on a checkout page run by Stripe, which is certified to PCI DSS Level 1, the highest level of the card industry's security standard. aloud.work never sees or stores them.
• aloud.work accepts a payment message only when it carries Stripe's signature and was sent in the last five minutes, so a forged or replayed message cannot create a purchase.
• Purchase records are stored with Cloudflare, which encrypts them at rest with AES-256. A record holds only what is listed above.
• Only I can reach the records, through my Cloudflare and Stripe accounts. Those accounts, and my email, are protected by two-factor sign-in.
• The secret keys the site uses, for Stripe and for signing unlock keys, are kept in Cloudflare's encrypted store for secrets, never in the site's code.
• Your thanks page holds your key, so it is kept out of search engines and does not pass its address on to other sites.
• Aloud is signed with my Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, and every update is checked against my cryptographic signature before it installs. Your key is checked on your Mac against a signature too, so unlocking Aloud needs no connection; only a subscription's monthly renewal does.
• No system is perfectly secure. If I learn that anyone has got at the purchase records, I will email the people affected without undue delay, say what happened, and tell the authorities where the law requires it.

How long it is kept

• A purchase record is kept for as long as Aloud is sold, so your thanks page, a subscription's renewals, refunds and help keep working, unless you ask me to delete it sooner.
• Link and Stripe keep their own record of the payment for as long as their policies and the tax and financial laws they are under require.
• Cloudflare keeps the details of visits for as long as its own policy says.
• Your emails stay in my inbox for as long as they help me help you, and I delete them if you ask.

Your rights

Wherever you live, write to kevxu@umich.edu and within 30 days I will tell you what is held about you, send you a copy, correct it or delete it. Deleting the record of a $29 purchase does not lock Aloud: your key keeps working. A subscription's record is what its renewals are looked up by, so cancel the subscription before you ask me to delete it. What Link holds, you can ask Link about directly, or I will pass your request on.

In the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, the purchase record is kept because our contract needs it, and the rest because I have a legitimate interest in keeping the site secure and answering you. You can object to that, ask for your information in a portable form, and complain to your data protection authority. Your information is stored and handled in the United States and wherever Cloudflare and Stripe run their services, under the safeguards their data protection terms provide.

In California, I do not sell or share personal information as the California Consumer Privacy Act defines those words, and I will not treat you differently for using any of these rights.

Children

Aloud is not directed at children under 13, or under 16 in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, and I do not knowingly collect their information. If you think a child has bought Aloud, write to me and I will delete the record.

Changes, and who is responsible

Aloud is made by one person, Kevin Xu, in the United States, who is responsible for the information on this page. If this page changes, the date at the top changes with it.

See also the terms of service and the refunds page.