Privacy Policy

1. What we collect

• Your account. An email address and a password. Sign-in runs on Google's Firebase service, which keeps your password in scrambled form that we can't read. You'll also be given a made-up comic-hero username (something like "darkfalcon") when you sign up. It is never taken from your email, you can change it any time in Account, and other people see it only if you turn on credit (see the Cover Library below).
• Your library. The cards you create, the photos you attach to them, your grades, notes, wishlist entries and saved market listings. They're stored under your account so they sync across your devices.
• Your plan and usage. Which plan you're on and how many scans and other metered features you've used, so that your plan's limits work. Paid plans are billed by the app store you use (such as Apple's App Store or Google Play); we never see your card details. Our server receives your account email with your requests so it can count your usage.
• Your settings. For example whether you contribute covers, whether you want credit, and whether you've turned on 18+ covers.
• A notification token. Only if you turn on push notifications. It's a code that tells Apple's or Google's notification service which device to send to.
• Your eBay connection. Only if you choose to connect an eBay account. We store the access tokens eBay gives us so the features you asked for can read the eBay information you approved. We never see your eBay password.
• Messages you send us. If you email us, we keep the email so we can reply and keep a record of the conversation.

2. How your photos are used

When you scan a comic, the photo is sent to our server and analyzed by Google's Gemini AI service to identify the book and estimate its condition. The photo then lives on your card, in your library.

We don't use your photos to train AI models, and we don't allow our AI providers to. We don't share your photos with anyone beyond the processing described on this page.

If you scan without being signed in, that photo stays with you: it is never added to the Cover Library.

3. The Cover Library

If you are signed in and contributing, we also keep a copy of the cover in the Comic Dispatch Cover Library, filed under the comic it shows. We use it to recognize that cover the next time anyone scans it, to help covers appear faster, and to show a picture of a comic to people who don't have a photo of their own. Here is how it works:

• It's on by default, and you control it. For signed-in accounts, contributing starts switched on. Turn it off in Account at any time; it applies to scans from then on. Anything you already contributed stays in the library (you can ask us to take a cover out, see below).
• The library is ours to run. A cover you contribute becomes part of the Comic Dispatch library. Under the licence in our Terms of Service, we may keep it, adjust it, show it, or take it out of the library, at our discretion.
• What we keep. A copy of the cover, trimmed to the comic where we can find its edges and shrunk to a modest size. Nothing from your library, grades or notes. We do our best to crop each photo to the edges of the comic, but we can't promise every crop is perfect, and a photo can sometimes show something private, on the book itself or in the space around it (a name, an address, a document, a person). We aren't responsible for private information that appears in a photo you contribute. So please photograph comics against a plain background with nothing private in view, and if you ever notice something like that in a cover you contributed, ask us to remove it right away.
• Who sees it. A cover may be shown as the picture of that comic to other Comic Dispatch users in the app, and to anyone who visits comicdispatch.com, whether or not they have an account. Our own copy may be adjusted (cropped, straightened, or evened out for contrast and lighting) so covers look consistent. We don't edit your own photo on your card.
• Anonymous unless you say otherwise. Library copies carry no name and no email address, only an internal code for the account that contributed them. If you turn on credit, we show your username in small type at the bottom of the notes of any comic where we're using a cover you contributed. Switch credit off, or change your username, and the old credit disappears right away. Your Account page shows how many covers you've contributed and how many are in use.
• We keep the best few. We may keep only the best few covers of each comic, and delete the rest. Which ones is up to us.
• Checked before it's shown. We check contributed covers with automated tools before other people can see them, and we remove anything that breaks our rules. Covers that may be mature (18+) are marked and blurred unless you turn on 18+ covers in Settings, which is only for people 18 or older.
• Asking us to remove a cover. When you remove a photo, you can tick a box asking us to remove it from the Cover Library too (the box starts unticked). We'll do our best to honor each request promptly, but it can take a little while to disappear everywhere, and what stays in the library is up to us. Removing a photo from your own library doesn't remove its cover from the Cover Library unless you tick that box.
• If you delete your account. The covers you contributed stay in the library, with the link to you and any credit removed. They can no longer be traced back to your account.
• Not for AI training. The no-training promise in section 2 covers library covers too.

4. Market data, eBay and affiliate links

Values and the matching listings you see come from eBay's public data. Comic Dispatch estimates values from the prices sellers are currently asking, not from final sale prices.

The BUY links in the app are eBay Partner Network affiliate links. If you buy something after tapping one, eBay may pay us a commission, at no extra cost to you. Comic Dispatch isn't affiliated with or endorsed by eBay.

If you connect your eBay account, we use the access tokens eBay gives us only for the features you asked for. You can disconnect at any time (see "Your choices").

5. Catalog data and credits

Details like titles, issue numbers, dates and creators come in part from the Grand Comics Database and Metron, which share their data under a CC BY-SA license. We may have cleaned up, corrected or combined their data with other sources; it stays under that license. Thank you to the volunteers who built them.

6. Who else handles your data

We use a small number of companies to run Comic Dispatch. Each gets only what it needs to do its job:

• Google Cloud stores your account, library and photos, and runs our servers.
• Firebase (part of Google) handles sign-in.
• Google Gemini reads the photos you scan, as described in section 2.
• eBay supplies listings and market data, and (if you connect) the eBay information you approved.
• Apple and Google, through whichever app store you use, handle payments and deliver push notifications to your device.

We may also share information if the law requires it, to respond to a valid legal request, to protect someone's safety (including reporting child exploitation material to the authorities), or if Comic Dispatch is ever sold or merged, in which case this policy would continue to apply to your information unless you're told otherwise.

7. Where your data lives

Your account and library are stored on Google Cloud in the United States. If you use Comic Dispatch from somewhere else, your information is sent to and stored in the United States.

8. What we don't do, and ads

We don't sell your personal data, and we don't share your library, your grades or your notes with anyone. Cover photos are the one exception, and only as described in section 3.

Ads. We don't show ads at the moment, but we may in the future, and we may label some listings or sellers as sponsored. If we do, we'll say so clearly, we'll update this policy first, and we won't give advertisers your name, email, library or photos.

9. Your choices

• Edit or delete your cards any time in the app.
• Cover Library. Switch contributing and credit on or off in Account, and tick the box when you remove a photo to ask us to remove it from the Cover Library too.
• Delete your account. You can do it from inside the app, or email owner@comicdispatch.com, and we'll delete your account and its cloud data. Covers you contributed stay in the library with the link to you removed, as described in section 3.
• Disconnect eBay. Email us and we'll remove the connection and the stored tokens. You can also revoke Comic Dispatch's access from your eBay account settings.
• Ask us anything. You can ask what we hold about you, or ask us to correct it. Depending on where you live, the law may give you extra rights. We'll honor reasonable requests wherever you are.

10. Children

Comic Dispatch isn't meant for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child under 13 has signed up, email us and we'll delete the account.

11. Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, we'll post the new version here with a new date, and tell you in the app or by email if the change matters. If we ever change what we do with photos, the change applies to photos you add after it, not to ones we already hold.

12. Contact

Questions, requests, or something that doesn't look right: owner@comicdispatch.com.

Comic Dispatch is a trade name of Base Dispatch LLC, 221 North 1st Street, Suite 100, Minneapolis, MN 55401.