Privacy policy
How VICE handles information.
VICE privacy policy
Who we are
VICE is a private, internal tool run by Makers First, the talent-management company that works with the YouTube creator Caylus. It helps a small invited team decide which videos to make. VICE is not sold, has no public sign-up, shows no ads and doesn't sell or rent data to anyone.
Contact for anything in this policy: travis@makersfirst.com.
YouTube API Services
VICE uses YouTube API Services. By using VICE you agree to be bound by the YouTube Terms of Service. Google's handling of data is covered by the Google Privacy Policy.
What VICE collects
1. Public information from YouTube, Reddit, Twitch and Rockstar
- YouTube (through the YouTube Data API): public channel information (name, channel id, subscriber, view and video counts), public video information (title, publish time, view, like and comment counts, thumbnail image), and which channels a channel features. VICE tracks GTA-related creators to spot videos that are doing unusually well.
- Reddit public posts and Twitch public clips and streams about GTA, and Rockstar Games news posts.
- VICE never uploads, edits, comments, likes or subscribes, and never downloads or re-hosts videos.
2. Caylus's own channel analytics (with his permission)
If someone signed in to Caylus's channel connects it, Google asks them to allow two read-only permissions: YouTube Analytics (yt-analytics.readonly) and YouTube (youtube.readonly). VICE then reads that channel's analytics (views, watch time, audience retention, traffic sources, impressions and click-through rate). VICE accepts the grant only for Caylus's channel; any other channel is refused and its access is revoked immediately. The access key Google issues is stored encrypted.
3. Comments
- Comments on Caylus's videos: VICE reads public comments to understand what his audience likes and asks for. It stores the comment text, like and reply counts, times and the comment's YouTube id. The commenter's channel id is stored only as a keyed hash (so one person counts once). VICE never stores commenters' names, profile pictures or channel links.
- Comments on other creators' videos: for some trending videos, VICE reads one page of public comments to see what viewers are reacting to. These comments are sent to Claude for analysis and not stored by VICE.
4. Team members' information
For the people invited to use VICE: username, a password hash (never the password itself), the two-step sign-in secret, backup-code hashes, passkey public keys if you add one, your role, your Discord user id if you link Discord for alerts, and your alert preferences. For security, VICE records sign-in sessions and an audit log of actions, including IP address and browser type.
Cookies
VICE sets only the cookies it needs to keep you signed in (__Host-vice) and to finish account setup (__Host-vice_setup). No advertising, analytics or tracking cookies.
How VICE uses information
To find trends among GTA creators, measure how Caylus's videos perform, summarize what his audience says, and suggest video ideas to the team. VICE doesn't build profiles of individual viewers or commenters, doesn't contact them and doesn't use data for advertising.
Who VICE shares information with
| With | What | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic (Claude API) | Public video titles, thumbnail images, public comment text (no names or channel ids), trend signals from Reddit, Twitch and Rockstar news (such as post and clip titles), and VICE's own summaries | To label thumbnails, sort comments and draft video ideas |
| API requests | To read YouTube data | |
| DigitalOcean | Everything VICE stores (it hosts the server and backups) | Hosting |
| Discord | Alerts to team members (video titles, view numbers, links) | Team notifications |
Anthropic processes API data under its own commercial terms and privacy policy (anthropic.com/legal).
VICE doesn't sell personal information. It discloses information to others only when the law requires it.
How long VICE keeps information
| Information | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Public YouTube data about other channels and videos (statistics, titles, thumbnails, featured channels) | Up to 30 days after it was fetched, then deleted or fetched again fresh |
| Caylus's channel analytics | While his channel stays connected; deleted at once on Disconnect, or within 7 days after access is removed at Google |
| Comments on Caylus's videos | 30 days. Per-day sentiment numbers (no text, no ids) are kept longer |
| Comments on other creators' videos | Not stored |
| Thumbnail images | 30 days |
| Reddit posts and Twitch clips | 30 days |
| Backups (encrypted, on DigitalOcean) | Up to 30 days: nightly backups are kept 14 days by default and never more than 30, so anything deleted above is gone from every backup within 30 days |
| Team accounts | While the account is active. Sessions end after 12 hours idle or 3 days. |
Revoking Google access
Caylus (or whoever connected the channel) can remove VICE's access at any time:
- in Google's security settings at https://security.google.com/settings/security/permissions ("Third-party apps with account access"), or
- by asking the VICE owner to press Disconnect on the Caylus performance page, which revokes the access at Google.
After access is removed, VICE stops reading the channel's analytics. Disconnect deletes the access key and every analytics number VICE pulled at once; if access is removed in Google's settings instead, VICE deletes the access key at once and the analytics within 7 days (unless the channel is connected again in that time).
Your choices
- Commenters: if you'd like a comment you posted on Caylus's videos removed from VICE sooner, email us with the video and comment; deleting it on YouTube also stops VICE from reading it again.
- Team members: ask the owner to remove your account; your sessions end immediately.
Children
VICE isn't meant for children and its users are adult team members. Caylus's audience includes young viewers, so comments VICE reads may come from children; VICE stores no names or profile details, and hashes channel ids.
Security
Two-step sign-in for every user, passwords stored as scrypt hashes, the Google access key encrypted (AES-256-GCM), encrypted backups, an append-only audit log, HTTPS only.
Changes
We'll update the date at the top when this policy changes.
VICE uses YouTube API Services. Privacy policy · YouTube Terms of Service · Google Privacy Policy