Privacy Policy

Everything has one of these nowadays, so here’s one for Osmo (the easiest way to learn Japanese kana while you’re busy doing other things). I advise you to read it, but if you just click past it, I won’t be offended.

Privacy policies are quite often written to deliberately:

• Convince you at a glance not to bother trying to read them.
• Confuse you.
• Shout at you in ALL CAPS because it’s harder to read and makes you mentally switch off, thinking it’s “just a slab of legal gumpf” you don’t need to bother with.
• Leave you uncertain of just what you’re about to “consent” to.

Not so here. Here’s the beef:

Osmo is a Mac application that runs quietly from your menu bar and exposes you to regularly changing Japanese kana characters and their romaji. Over time (the speed varies according to the settings and your personal rate of absorption), through casual observation you begin to recognise the characters when you see them.

That’s what the app does. The preferences are there for you to configure Osmo’s operation as you like. Those settings are stored to your computer and are never transferred anywhere. There is nothing personally identifiable, and nowhere in the app for you to type any data anyway.

There is no tracking. No analytics. No third‐parties. No partners. No data sharing. Nothing. Osmo doesn’t need the internet to operate. If you want, block it with Little Snitch or Radio Silence or any other tool you prefer. Check your log files if you want. There’s nothing to hide. Nothing buried in the copy.

I value and respect your privacy.

We’re done here.