Privacy policy

grouphugs analytics is a private YouTube analytics, reporting and packaging-testing dashboard that grouphugs, a YouTube video growth agency, runs for the channels we manage. Channel owners ("clients") authorize access to their YouTube data through Google's official sign-in, and the grouphugs team uses that data to produce reports and improve the channel's videos. It is a managed service, not a self-serve product.

This app uses YouTube API Services. By authorizing it you also agree to the YouTube Terms of Service. Google's own handling of your data is described in the Google Privacy Policy.

When a channel owner connects their channel, they grant the app the following access. We request nothing beyond it:

• YouTube channel and video data (scope youtube.readonly): channel profile, video list, titles, descriptions, thumbnails, publish dates, and public comments on the channel's videos.
• YouTube Analytics data (scope yt-analytics.readonly): viewing reports such as views, watch time, impressions, click-through rate, traffic sources, audience retention, demographics and subscriber counts.
• Monetary YouTube Analytics data (scope yt-analytics-monetary.readonly): estimated revenue figures, so reports can include earnings.
• YouTube video management (scope youtube.force-ssl): used to update a video's title or thumbnail as part of packaging tests the channel owner has engaged us to run, and to read caption tracks for content analysis. Every change we make is written to an audit log with a snapshot of what was there before, and the original title and thumbnail are kept so they can always be restored.
• Google account email (scope userinfo.email): the address of the account that authorized the connection, so we know who granted access.

• Team accounts: grouphugs staff sign in with their grouphugs.co Google Workspace accounts. We record their email address and which pages of the app they use.
• Operational logs: standard technical logs (timestamps, request paths, error reports) needed to run and secure the service.

The app sets cookies to keep users signed in, plus one short-lived cookie on grouphugs staff accounts so the internal page record described above does not count the same visit twice. There are no advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

• Building analytics dashboards and reports for the connected channel and sharing them with the channel's own team.
• Running title and thumbnail tests the channel owner has asked for, and measuring their results.
• Analyzing audience signals (for example retention curves, search terms and comment themes) to guide the channel's content strategy.

We do not sell any data. We do not use it for advertising. We do not show ads. Data from one client's channel is used for that client's work, not to benefit another client.

grouphugs analytics' use and transfer to any other application of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

We share data only with the service providers that run the app, and only so they can provide their service to us:

• Vercel hosts the application.
• Supabase provides the database where the data is stored, encrypted at rest.
• Anthropic and Voyage AI analyze channel content on our behalf so we can produce summaries, sentiment readings, theme groupings and written analysis of test results for the channel owner. What we send them can include public comment text, video captions, video titles and tags, thumbnail images, screenshots of the channel's own YouTube Studio test results, performance and test metrics, and our team's own notes about a video. They act as processors: we do not permit them to use this data to train AI models, and we do not use Google user data to train any AI model ourselves.

Beyond these providers, we do not transfer Google user data to anyone, except if required by law.

• All traffic to and from the app uses HTTPS.
• The Google access credentials (OAuth tokens) that connect a channel are encrypted by the app before being stored, on top of the database's own encryption at rest.
• Only signed-in grouphugs team members can access the dashboard, and client-facing report links are unlisted, token-protected and read-only.

• We keep a connected channel's data while the channel is connected and the engagement is active, refreshing stored YouTube data regularly through the YouTube API so it stays current.
• A channel owner can revoke the app's access at any time from their Google Account security settings. Revoking immediately stops the app from fetching any new data.
• To have stored data deleted, email lank@grouphugs.co and we will delete the channel's stored YouTube data and credentials within 7 days.

If this policy changes in a meaningful way, we will update this page and notify connected clients by email. The effective date at the top always reflects the current version.

Questions about privacy or your data: email lank@grouphugs.co. See also our terms of service.