Welcome to YTKits ("we", "our", or "us"). We are committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring transparency regarding how we handle data. This Privacy Policy outlines the types of information we collect, how it is processed, shared, and stored, and your privacy rights under applicable global regulations including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA), and Google AdSense / YouTube API Services policies.

By accessing or using our website (https://www.ytkits.com/) and suite of creator tools, you acknowledge and agree to the practices described in this Privacy Policy.

1. Information We Collect

YTKits is designed to prioritize user privacy. The majority of our YouTube channel analysis, revenue estimation, keyword extraction, and category checking tools can be utilized without creating an account or providing personally identifiable information (PII).

A. Non-Personal & Technical Data

When you visit YTKits, our servers and analytics providers automatically log basic technical information, including:

• Device & Browser Attributes: Browser type, browser version, operating system, preferred language, and screen resolution.
• Network Identifiers: IP address (anonymized where applicable), internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, date/time stamps, and clickstream behavior.
• Tool Usage Metrics: Search queries submitted (e.g., YouTube channel handles or video IDs), tool features accessed, error logs, and performance metrics.

B. User-Provided Information

If you explicitly submit information through our forms or services (such as our contact form, feedback widget, or user registration features), we may collect:

• Contact details such as your name and email address.
• Communication logs and user feedback content.
• Account authentication tokens if you authenticate via third-party providers (e.g., Supabase authentication).

2. YouTube API Services & Google Disclosures

YTKits utilizes official YouTube API Services to retrieve publicly available YouTube data (such as public subscriber counts, video view counts, published dates, public channel metadata, and publicly listed video tags).

A. Compliance with YouTube Terms & Google Privacy Policy

By using YTKits features that fetch data from YouTube, you agree to be bound by:

1. YouTube Terms of Service: https://www.youtube.com/t/terms
2. Google Privacy Policy: http://www.google.com/policies/privacy

B. YouTube Data Handling & Storage

• YTKits only requests and processes publicly available YouTube data.
• We do not access, store, or request private YouTube user account data, private video metadata, or personal Google account credentials.
• Cached YouTube API data stored on our servers is refreshed regularly and purged in strict accordance with YouTube API Services Developer Policies.
• Users can revoke YTKits’ access to data via the Google Security Settings page: https://security.google.com/settings/security/permissions.

3. Cookies, DART Cookies & Google AdSense

We use cookies, web beacons, local storage, and similar technologies to enhance user experience, analyze website traffic, and display customized advertisements.

A. What Are Cookies?

Cookies are small text files stored on your device by your web browser. They allow websites to remember user preferences, maintain session state, and optimize performance.

B. Google AdSense & Third-Party Advertising

We display advertisements served by Google AdSense and authorized third-party ad networks to keep YTKits free for creators.

• DART Cookies: Google, as a third-party vendor, uses cookies (including the DART cookie) to serve ads based on a user's visit to YTKits and other websites on the Internet.
• Interest-Based Advertising: Third-party ad vendors may collect non-personally identifiable information about your visits to this and other websites to provide relevant advertisements about goods and services of interest to you.
• Personalized vs. Non-Personalized Ads: Depending on your location and cookie consent selections, Google may serve personalized ads based on your online profile or contextual, non-personalized ads.

C. How to Opt-Out of Personalized Advertising

You have the right to manage your ad preferences or opt out of interest-based advertising at any time:

• Google Ad Settings: Customise or opt out of Google personalized ads at https://adssettings.google.com/ or https://myadcenter.google.com/.
• Network Advertising Initiative (NAI): Opt out of third-party ad vendor cookies at https://optout.networkadvertising.org/.
• Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA): Opt out via https://www.aboutads.info/choices/.
• Your Online Choices (EU/UK): Manage preferences at https://www.youronlinechoices.com/.

4. Google Analytics & Third-Party Services

We partner with trusted service providers to run our web platform efficiently and measure engagement.

A. Google Analytics (GA4)

We use Google Analytics to track aggregate website usage, traffic trends, and demographic reports. Google Analytics uses cookies to collect anonymous metrics such as session duration, pageviews, bounce rates, and rough geographic region.

• You can install the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout to prevent data collection by Google Analytics across all websites.

B. Summary of Third-Party Data Processors

5. How We Use Your Data

We use collected information exclusively for legitimate business purposes:

1. Tool Functionality: Processing public queries, generating monetization confidence scores, calculating RPM estimations, and retrieving channel art.
2. Platform Improvement: Identifying UI bottlenecks, optimizing API query speeds, and developing new features for creators.
3. Security & Spam Protection: Preventing malicious automated scraping, rate-limit abuse, bot attacks, and illegal abuse of our API gateways.
4. Communication: Responding to user inquiries, technical support tickets, or feedback submitted through our contact channels.
5. Ad Personalization & Legal Compliance: Serving relevant ads under publisher policies and fulfilling accounting/legal reporting mandates.

We do not sell, rent, trade, or lease your personal information or search query histories to third-party data brokers.

6. Your Rights Under International Privacy Laws

Depending on your geographic location, you possess specific statutory rights regarding your personal data.

A. GDPR Rights (European Economic Area & UK Users)

If you reside in the EEA or UK, you have the right to:

• Right of Access: Request copies of any personal data we hold about you.
• Right to Rectification: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Right to Erasure ("Right to be Forgotten"): Request deletion of your personal data under certain conditions.
• Right to Restrict or Object: Object to or restrict processing of your personal data.
• Right to Data Portability: Obtain a structured copy of your data for transfer to another service.

B. CCPA / CPRA Rights (California Residents)

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act and California Privacy Rights Act:

• Right to Know: Request disclosures regarding categories of personal data collected, sources, and commercial purposes.
• Right to Delete: Request deletion of personal information collected from you.
• Right to Opt-Out of Sale or Sharing: We do not sell personal data. You can opt out of cross-context behavioral advertising via our cookie consent controls.
• Non-Discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising your CCPA rights.

To exercise any of these rights, please submit a request via our Contact Page or email support@ytkits.com. We respond to all verified requests within 30 days.

7. Data Retention & Security

A. Data Retention

• Public YouTube data fetched during searches is stored transiently in short-term cache memory (Redis/in-memory) to manage API quota limits and is refreshed routinely.
• Contact inquiries and communication logs are retained for up to 12 months for customer service tracking before permanent deletion.

B. Security Safeguards

We implement robust administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect data against unauthorized access, loss, alteration, or disclosure. These measures include:

• Mandatory HTTPS (TLS 1.3/SSL) encryption across all web traffic.
• Secure API key rotation and strict backend rate limiting.
• Anonymization and hashing of sensitive server logs.

8. Children's Privacy (COPPA Compliance)

YTKits is designed for adult content creators, marketers, and researchers. Our tools are not directed to children under the age of 13 (or under 16 in certain European jurisdictions). We do not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from children. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided personal data to us, we will immediately delete such information from our databases.

9. External Links to Third-Party Websites

Our website and blog articles may contain hyperlinked resources, creator tools, or external websites operated by third parties. YTKits has no control over and assumes no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party websites. We encourage you to review the privacy policy of every website you visit.

10. Updates to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically to reflect changes in our operational practices, regulatory obligations, or service offerings. Any revisions will be posted on this page with an updated "Last Updated" date. Continued use of YTKits following the publication of changes signifies your acceptance of the updated policy.

11. Contact Us

If you have questions, feedback, or legal inquiries regarding this Privacy Policy or our data protection practices, please contact us through our official support channels:

• Contact Form: https://www.ytkits.com/contact/
• Email: support@ytkits.com
• Response SLA: We endeavor to acknowledge and address all inquiries within 24 to 48 hours.