Privacy Policy — Lyricus
Last Updated: January 2025 | Effective Date: January 2025
1. Introduction & Overview
Welcome to Lyricus, accessible at https://lyricus.cloud. Lyricus is Sri Lanka's premier open digital archive dedicated to documenting, transliterating, and preserving the rich heritage of Sinhala music, song lyrics, chords, and musical literature for educational and non-commercial informational purposes.
We deeply value your personal privacy and are steadfastly committed to safeguarding your personal data in accordance with international data protection regulations, including the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the UK GDPR, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA), and Google AdSense Publisher Policies.
This Privacy Policy sets forth how we collect, process, store, disclose, and protect your information when you visit our website, use our search and directory features, submit lyrics or article contributions, interact with community features, or interact with advertisements served on our platform.
2. Information We Collect
We collect information in three primary ways:
- Information You Provide Directly: When you register or sign in via Google OAuth, we receive your basic Google profile details (name, email address, Google ID, and profile picture). We never receive or store your Google account password. When you submit lyrics or contact us, we store your submitted text and contact details.
- Automated Technical & Log Information: Our infrastructure automatically records technical log entries including IP addresses, browser type, operating system, device dimensions, referring pages, date and time stamps, and requested resource paths.
- Cookies & Local Storage: We use cookies to maintain session states, remember theme preferences, respect cookie consent choices, and serve compliant advertisements.
3. Google AdSense & Advertising Disclosures
Mandatory Google AdSense Disclosure: Google is an authorized third-party vendor on Lyricus. Google uses cookies, including the DoubleClick cookie, to serve advertisements on our site based on users' prior visits to Lyricus.com and/or other websites across the Internet. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its certified advertising network partners to deliver targeted, interest-based advertisements.
You can opt out of personalized advertising at: Google Ads Settings, AboutAds.info, or NAI Opt-Out Tool.
For users in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland, Lyricus adheres to Google Consent Mode v2. We do not trigger personalized advertising cookies without explicit affirmative user consent.
4. Cookie Policy & Preference Management
Cookies are compact data text files stored in your web browser. We use the following categories:
- Strictly Necessary Cookies: Required for core website security, authentication tokens, CSRF protection, and saving your cookie consent status. These cannot be switched off.
- Performance & Analytics Cookies: Help us understand which lyrics and articles are most visited, measure page load speeds, and identify broken links (e.g. Google Analytics with IP anonymization).
- Advertising & Marketing Cookies: Set by Google AdSense and third-party advertising partners to build a profile of your interests and serve contextual or personalized ads.
5. GDPR & International Privacy Rights (EEA / UK)
If you reside within the EEA, UK, or Switzerland, you have the following statutory rights:
- Right to Access (Art. 15): Request a copy of any personal data we hold about your account.
- Right to Rectification (Art. 16): Ask us to correct inaccurate data or complete missing information in your profile.
- Right to Erasure (Art. 17): Request permanent deletion of your user account and personal details (Right to be Forgotten).
- Right to Data Portability (Art. 20): Request an export of your contributed data in a structured, machine-readable format.
- Right to Object & Restrict (Art. 18 & 21): Object to processing based on legitimate interests or request restrictions on certain processing activities.
- Right to Withdraw Consent: Withdraw consent at any time without adverse penalty.
To exercise GDPR rights, email us at privacy@lyricus.cloud. We respond within 30 calendar days free of charge.
6. California Consumer Privacy Rights (CCPA / CPRA)
Under the CCPA/CPRA, California residents have specific rights:
- Categories of Personal Information Collected: Identifiers (name, email, IP address) and internet activity logs (pages viewed, search queries, ad interactions).
- We Do Not Sell Personal Information: Lyricus does NOT sell, rent, or lease your personal identifiable information to third parties for monetary consideration.
- Non-Discrimination: We will never discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA/CPRA rights.
7. Children's Online Privacy Protection (COPPA)
Lyricus is a general audience cultural and educational music archive. We do not knowingly target or collect personal identifiable information from children under the age of 13 (or under 16 within the EEA). If you are a parent or guardian and discover that your child has provided us personal information, please contact us immediately at privacy@lyricus.cloud.
8. Data Security, Retention & Subprocessors
- Encryption in Transit & Rest: All web traffic is strictly encrypted using modern TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3 (HTTPS).
- Database Isolation: User profiles and content contributions are securely maintained in hardened MongoDB clusters with strict role-based access controls.
- Third-Party Subprocessors: Google Cloud/OAuth (identity), Google AdSense & Analytics (advertising and analytics), EmailJS (contact form relaying).
- Data Retention: We retain account data only for as long as your account remains active or as required by legal record-keeping requirements.
9. Contact Our Data Protection Team
For privacy questions or data subject requests: