Privacy Policy

The Friction Network (“Friction”, “we”, “us”) operates a subscription streaming service available at thefrictionnetwork.tv and through our mobile and TV apps. This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and the choices you have. By creating an account, you agree to this Policy.

You give us

• Email address and password (via our auth provider, Clerk).
• Profile details you optionally add (display name, profile picture).
• Billing information collected by Stripe when you subscribe. We never see or store your full card number; we receive only tokenized references and the last four digits.
• Anything you send us via support email or in-app messages.

Collected automatically

• Playback events: which titles you start, pause, complete, and how long you watched. Used to power the “Continue Watching” row, recommendations, and royalty reports for creators.
• Device and browser metadata: user agent, screen size, OS, approximate region (derived from IP), preferred language.
• Network performance metrics from our video QoE provider (Mux Data): rebuffer events, startup time, error counts. This data is used in aggregate to improve playback quality.
• Error and crash diagnostics from Sentry when something breaks in the app.
• Standard server logs from our hosting provider (Vercel), including IP addresses, retained for up to 30 days.

• Operate the service: authentication, playback, billing.
• Personalize the catalog (My List, Continue Watching).
• Send service email: receipts, billing notices, password resets, important changes.
• Detect fraud, abuse, and account-sharing.
• Generate aggregated analytics about catalog performance and pay royalties to filmmakers.
• Comply with legal obligations and respond to lawful requests.

We do not sell your personal information. We do not show third-party advertising on the platform.

We use a small set of vendors to operate the service. Each processes only the data needed for its specific purpose:

• Clerk — account, password, and session management.
• Stripe — subscription billing, payment processing, tax handling.
• Cloudflare — video delivery (Stream), poster storage (R2), DNS, and DDoS protection.
• Mux Data — aggregated video playback quality metrics.
• Resend — transactional email delivery.
• Sentry — error and crash diagnostics.
• Supabase — managed PostgreSQL database hosting.
• Vercel — web application hosting.

Each vendor is bound by their own privacy policy and a data processing agreement with Friction.

• Account records are kept while your account is active and for 30 days after you delete it (to satisfy chargeback and fraud-investigation windows).
• Billing records are retained for the period required by tax and accounting law (typically 7 years).
• Playback event logs older than 24 months are aggregated and stripped of personal identifiers.
• Server access logs are kept for 30 days.

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, export, or delete your personal information; to object to or restrict certain processing; and to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.

To exercise any of these rights, email privacy@thefrictionnetwork.tv. We will respond within 30 days.

California residents may exercise rights under the CCPA / CPRA; EU and UK residents may exercise rights under the GDPR.

The service is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child has signed up, please contact us and we will remove the account.

We use HTTPS everywhere, encrypt data at rest, restrict access to production systems on a need-to-know basis, and maintain SOC2-conscious controls on our hosting providers. No system is perfectly secure; if we become aware of a breach affecting your account, we will notify you promptly.

Friction is operated from the United States. If you access the service from outside the United States, your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States, which may have data-protection laws different from your jurisdiction.

We may update this Policy. The “Last updated” date at the top reflects the current version. If we make material changes we will email subscribers and post a notice in the app.

Privacy questions: privacy@thefrictionnetwork.tv
All other support: hello@thefrictionnetwork.tv