Privacy Policy

• Account. Your email address, the display name you choose, and the avatar you pick.
• Activity. Titles you save to your watchlist, episodes you open and how far you watched, your preferred genres and tropes, and notification settings.
• Subscription. Your plan, its status and renewal dates, and payment records (amount, date, method type and the Razorpay reference). We never see or store your card, UPI or bank details.
• Reports. Anything you tell us in a content report.
• IndianBL Scouts — only if you join. Your pen name and whether it may be shown on titles you find; your confirmation that you are 18 or older and live in India, and when you gave it; the Scout Program Terms version you accepted; your suggestions (the YouTube links, and any notes and replies you write); the name as registered on your UPI ID and the UPI ID itself, which we encrypt; your earnings ledger and withdrawals, including amounts, dates and bank transfer references (UTRs); and a keyed, one-way hash of the network address you joined and suggested from, used only to spot duplicate accounts.
• IndianBL Stories — if you read or write. If you write: your pen name and bio; your confirmation that you are 18 or older, live in India and that your stories are yours to tell, and when you gave it; the Stories Program Terms version you accepted; every version of your stories with our editors' notes; and what your stories earned. If you like, comment on, share or report a story: those actions, your comments and your share links. To count reads and keep earnings fair we use a random identifier kept in a cookie on your browser and a keyed, one-way hash of your network address — never the address itself. Commenters without a pen name appear as an anonymous “Reader” with a number, never by their account name.
• Usage analytics. Which pages and titles are opened, the searches and filters used, whether playback starts and roughly how far it gets, and the device type, browser and approximate location (country or city) that Google Analytics derives from the connection. It is tied to a random identifier stored in your browser, never to your name, email address or account, and we remove anything that looks like an email address or phone number from page addresses and search terms before they are sent.
• Technical. Standard server logs (IP address, browser, pages requested) kept briefly for security and debugging.

We do not run advertising trackers or sell data to anyone.

• to sign you in and keep your account secure;
• to remember your watchlist and let you resume where you left off;
• to take payment for Premium and decide what you can play;
• to shape the home page and recommendations around what you like;
• to understand, in aggregate, which parts of IndianBL people use, so we know what to build and curate next;
• to send the notifications you have switched on, such as new episodes from creators you follow, and essential messages about your account or payments;
• to review reports and keep the catalog accurate;
• if you are a scout, to review your suggestions, credit and pay your rewards, keep the records Indian tax and accounting rules require, and prevent fraud such as one person holding several accounts;
• if you write for IndianBL Stories, to review and publish your stories, count readers' engagement with them, credit and pay what they earn, and stop fake engagement such as one person liking from several accounts.

A small number of providers process data on our behalf:

• Razorpay handles every payment. Card and bank details go directly to Razorpay under its own privacy policy.
• YouTube plays the video. We use the privacy-enhanced embed, which does not set YouTube cookies until you press play. Once playing, YouTube's terms and privacy policy apply.
• Google Analytics (Google) measures how IndianBL is used, as described under “Usage analytics” above. Its advertising features — Google signals and ad personalisation — are switched off, and it receives no account details. Google may process this data on servers outside India.
• Email delivery providers send sign-in links and notifications to the address you gave us.
• Banks and UPI apps. When we pay a scout, the payee name, UPI ID and amount go to IndianBL's own bank or UPI app to make the transfer, under that provider's terms.
• Hosting and database providers store the service and its data on secured infrastructure.
• DiceBear renders the generated avatar you choose; it receives only the style and seed, never your account details.

We set one essential cookie to keep you signed in, and a short-lived one during sign-in that tells our analytics whether you signed in or created an account; it is deleted as soon as it has been read.

Google Analytics sets two first-party cookies, named _ga and _ga_…, holding a random identifier that lets it count returning visits. They are not used for advertising. You can switch analytics off for this browser below, and it stays off automatically if your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal. YouTube may set its own cookies once a video starts playing.

Account and activity data stay for as long as your account exists. Payment records are kept for the period Indian tax and accounting rules require, even after the account is closed. Server logs are deleted within a short rolling window. Google Analytics keeps event-level usage data for the retention period set on our account — never more than 14 months — and then deletes it. You can clear your watch history yourself at any time from the History page.

For IndianBL Scouts: the earnings ledger, withdrawals, transfer references, payout details and our staff audit log are kept for the period Indian tax and accounting rules require (up to eight years), even after you leave or delete your account. Suggestions stay while your account exists; when it is deleted, your notes, replies and the way you said you know a title are removed, and only the link, its decision and any reward record are kept, so the same title can't be credited twice. Hashed network addresses are deleted after 90 days.

For IndianBL Stories: a story's text is kept while it's yours — deleting a story, or your account, deletes its text straight away. Earnings and payout records are kept as described above. Per-browser read counts are deleted after 30 days, and share-link visits and hashed network addresses after 90 days.

• See and correct. Your name, avatar and preferences are editable under Account.
• Notifications. Switch each kind on or off in Preferences. Essential account and payment messages cannot be disabled while you hold a subscription.
• Analytics. Switch usage analytics off for a browser in the Cookies section above. It is off automatically if your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal.
• Download your scout data. Scouts can download their profile, suggestions, ledger and withdrawals from the Scout profile page, with payout details masked.
• Download your stories data. Writers can download their profile, every version of their stories, their comments and what their stories earned from the Writer profile page.
• Delete. Delete your account yourself from Account → Delete my account. We remove it, keeping only what the law requires — for scouts, the payout records described above. A scout with money due is paid out first.
• Complain. You may raise a grievance with us first; if unresolved you can approach the Data Protection Board of India.

IndianBL is for adults. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18, and we remove any account we learn belongs to a minor.

Sign-in links expire after ten minutes and work once. Data travels over HTTPS and is stored in access-controlled databases. Only administrators who need it to run the service can see account details, and their actions are logged.

Scouts' UPI IDs are encrypted before they are stored and shown masked everywhere. The full ID is shown only to the administrator paying you, at the moment they pay, or to an administrator who records a reason — and every such view is logged. Changing your payout details emails you and pauses withdrawals for 48 hours, in case someone else got into your account.

When we change this policy in a meaningful way we will update the date above and tell account holders by email or in-app before the change applies.