Privacy Policy

Effective 26 August 2026. This policy covers thesounddetective.com and the Dust 12.47 trial.

Who we are

The Sound Detective is the plugin label of Digital Dust Studio ("we"). Privacy questions and requests: whoisdetective47@gmail.com.

What we collect, and why

Mailing list ("the Case File"). If you sign up, your email address (and first name, if you give it) is sent to Kit (formerly ConvertKit), the service that stores our list and sends our email. We use it to send plugin news, early access, and launch discounts — nothing else. We do not sell or share the list. Your address is not stored in your browser or anywhere on this site itself.

Trial activation. To issue and enforce the 14-day Dust 12.47 trial, our licensing service keeps an activation record: the email you request the trial with, a one-way identifier derived from your machine (so one trial covers one machine — we cannot reconstruct anything about your computer from it), the license type, and issue/expiry dates. The plugin stores its license file locally and verifies it offline; it does not phone home while you work.

Hosting logs. The site is served by Netlify, which keeps standard, short-lived server logs (IP address, pages requested) to run and secure the service. We run no analytics, no ad trackers, and set no tracking cookies.

How long we keep it

Mailing-list data: until you unsubscribe (every email has a one-click unsubscribe link) or ask us to delete it. Activation records: for as long as needed to honor and enforce licenses, then deleted. Hosting logs: per Netlify's standard retention.

Your rights

Email us and we will tell you what we hold about you, correct it, or delete it (deleting an activation record ends the associated trial or license). If you are in a region with statutory privacy rights (GDPR, CCPA, and similar), those rights apply to everything above and we honor them by the same route — email us.

Third parties we rely on

Kit (mailing list), Netlify (hosting and licensing API), Google Fonts (typefaces, loaded from Google's servers). Each processes only what is described above, under their own privacy policies.

Changes

If this policy changes materially, the change is announced to the mailing list and the effective date above is updated.