Privacy Policy

Last updated July 2026

The Whole Feed ("we", "us", "the app") is operated by Virtual Runaway. This policy explains what information we collect when you use thewholefeed.com or our iOS/Android apps, why we collect it, and the choices you have. If anything here is unclear, contact us at the address below.

Information you provide

Account details — username, email address, and password (stored as a one-way hash — we never store or can recover your actual password). If you sign in with Google or Apple instead, we receive only the account identifier and email they provide.
Content you share — the links, comments, and notes you post, plus the page title, description, and thumbnail we fetch from the link itself so it can render as a card.
Friend and interest signals — who you add as a friend, which authors or sites you mark "Interested" in, and which ranking signals you mute. These exist to power your own feed and are never sold or shared outside the app.
Optional phone number — if you choose to add one, only a one-way hash is stored, used solely to help contacts who already have your number find you. We never store or access your address book.

Information collected automatically

Session cookies — a single cookie keeps you signed in. It's required for the app to function and isn't used for tracking across other sites.
Basic request logs — IP address and request metadata, retained briefly for abuse prevention (rate limiting) and security, via our infrastructure provider (Cloudflare).
Ranking signals derived from your activity — to power the optional "For You" ranking, we compute a taste profile from links you share or mark interesting (via on-platform machine learning that runs entirely within our infrastructure — this data is never sent to an external AI vendor). You can see exactly which signals affect your ranking, and Pro members can mute or reweight any of them.

Advertising

The web version of The Whole Feed may show ads served by Google AdSense; our native iOS and Android apps may show ads served by Unity LevelPlay (ironSource). These partners may use cookies or device identifiers to serve and measure ads, and may collect information about your device and browsing activity as described in their own policies:

Where required, you can opt out of personalized advertising through Google's Ad Settings or your device's ad-tracking controls.

How we use your information

To operate the feed and friend graph, rank posts, prevent spam and abuse, respond to support requests, and — where ads are shown — support the ads described above. We do not sell your personal information.

What we share

Your shares, and content within them, are visible to whichever audience you choose when posting — friends only, everyone, or a specific person. We share data with the infrastructure and advertising partners named in this policy strictly to operate the service; we do not sell data to third parties or share it for their independent marketing purposes.

Your choices

Edit or remove your phone number any time in the app.
Mute any individual ranking signal, or (Pro) reweight it, from a post's "why am I seeing this" panel.
Set your profile page to public, friends-only, or private.
Request deletion of your account and associated data by emailing us at the address below — we'll confirm once it's done.

Children's privacy

The Whole Feed is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them.

Changes to this policy

We'll update the date at the top of this page when this policy changes. Material changes will be communicated in-app.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data: contact@virtualrunaway.com