Privacy Policy

Last Updated: September 1, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how personal data is handled when you use NovelCult's website, applications, publishing tools, community, paid subscriptions, and author monetization program (the “Services”).

1. The NovelCult service and its operators

NovelPedia Private Limited, an Indian private limited company, owns and operates the NovelCult platform. It determines how personal data is used for accounts, publishing, content access, community, moderation, security, support, and author-program administration.

Truck Kun, Inc., a Delaware corporation and subsidiary of NovelPedia Private Limited, is the seller and paid-transaction merchant for reader subscriptions and other paid digital access. It handles data needed for payment collection, transaction accounting, tax, refunds, disputes, and author transfers.

NovelPedia Private Limited and Truck Kun, Inc. act as joint controllers for reader-payment and author-onboarding data because they jointly determine the purposes and means of that processing. They may act as separate controllers for other activities that each company determines independently. The companies must maintain an applicable joint-controller arrangement allocating their responsibilities. You may exercise applicable privacy rights against either company; [email protected] is the designated coordination contact.

In this Policy, “NovelCult,” “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to either or both entities according to the processing described.

2. Data we collect

We may collect:

Account data: email address, username, display name, profile, account identifiers, authentication records, preferences, and account status.
Age and eligibility data: date of birth or age confirmation, country or region, and information needed to determine access or monetization eligibility.
Author and content data: stories, chapters, drafts, cover images, metadata, rights information, publication history, reports, appeals, and moderation records.
Community data: comments, reviews, reactions, follows, messages, reports, and other interactions.
Usage and device data: IP address, browser and device information, pages and content viewed, referring URLs, session activity, timestamps, crash data, and security logs.
Reader transaction data: checkout, customer, subscription, invoice, charge, payment method type, currency, amount, tax, discount, refund, cancellation, dispute, and content-access records.
Author payment data: Stripe connected-account identifier, country, default currency, onboarding and verification status, payout eligibility, transfer, reversal, balance-setting, fee, tax, and earnings information.
Support and legal data: communications, identity verification supplied for a request, copyright notices, withdrawal or cancellation notices, refund evidence, fraud reports, and dispute evidence.
Cookie and advertising data: cookie identifiers, consent choices, advertising identifiers, analytics events, and ad interactions.

NovelCult does not receive or store complete card numbers or complete bank account credentials from Stripe-hosted payment and onboarding forms.

3. How we obtain data

We obtain data:

directly from you when you register, publish, buy, monetize, contact support, or exercise a right;
automatically from use of the Services;
from Stripe about payments, subscriptions, connected accounts, verification, transfers, refunds, and disputes;
from authentication, hosting, analytics, advertising, security, and support providers; and
from other users, rights holders, regulators, or public sources when they submit a report or claim.

4. Why we use data

We use personal data to:

create, authenticate, secure, and administer accounts;
host, publish, recommend, and deliver content;
preserve reading progress, purchases, subscriptions, and author settings;
process payments, taxes, refunds, cancellations, disputes, transfers, and account reconciliation;
perform Stripe Connect onboarding, identity, sanctions, tax, fraud, and payout checks;
calculate the platform fee, processor fee, and author transfer;
moderate content and conduct, investigate reports, and enforce policies;
provide support and communicate about accounts, purchases, security, and material service changes;
prevent fraud, abuse, scraping, account compromise, and payment manipulation;
measure and improve reliability, features, performance, and user experience;
serve and measure advertising where permitted; and
comply with tax, accounting, consumer, privacy, sanctions, court, and other legal obligations.

We never sell your personal information to third parties.

Under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we process personal data on these bases:

Consent (when you opt in, e.g., marketing emails).
Contract necessity (when processing is needed to provide Services you signed up for).
Legitimate interests (fraud prevention, improving security).
Legal obligations (tax, accounting, or regulatory compliance).

You may withdraw consent at any time. Withdrawal does not affect processing already lawfully completed and does not prevent processing based on another valid legal basis.

6. Children's Privacy

NovelCult is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13 (or under 16 in the EU) without verifiable parental consent. If we discover that a child has provided personal data without consent, we will delete it immediately.

6a. Mature Content & Age Verification

Some content on NovelCult may be marked as Mature (18+) by authors. Access to such content requires confirmation that you are 18 or older. For certain regions (such as the United Kingdom), access to NSFW content may be restricted entirely.

To comply with these requirements, NovelPedia Private Limited may process limited data such as your age confirmation or region (based on account details, email address, or IP address). This information is used to enforce age and regional restrictions. Processors that help operate the Services, including Stripe and advertising providers where ads are shown, may receive related technical data such as IP address as described in this Policy.

7. User Rights

Depending on your location, you have the following rights:

Access: request a copy of the data we hold about you.
Correction: update or fix inaccurate information.
Deletion ("Right to be Forgotten"): request permanent deletion of your data, subject to legal/tax requirements.
Restriction/objection: limit or object to certain processing activities.
Portability: receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format.
Opt-out (CCPA): California residents may opt out of any "sale" of personal data (though we don't sell it).

7a. Email Communications

By creating an account, you agree that NovelPedia Private Limited may send you essential emails related to your account and use of the Services. These include confirmations, receipts, password resets, security alerts, and other important service updates. These communications are required and cannot be unsubscribed from.

We may also send newsletters, recommendations, promotions, platform updates, or community activity emails. In regions where the law requires it (for example, the EU/EEA and UK), we'll only send these if you've opted in. Elsewhere, they may be included by default, but you can unsubscribe anytime using the link in any email or through your account settings. Unsubscribing won't affect essential account or security messages.

8. Data Retention

We retain personal data only as long as necessary:

Account data: kept until you delete your account.
Transaction data: kept for at least 7 years for tax and legal purposes.
Security logs: retained for up to 12 months.
Backups: securely cycled and deleted within industry-standard timelines.

9. Cookies & Tracking

We use cookies and similar technologies to:

Remember your login session.
Improve performance and personalization.
Analyze site traffic through tools like Google Analytics and PostHog when you leave Usage analytics on in Settings.
You can manage or disable cookies in your browser settings. Some features may not work without cookies.

Turning Usage analytics off in Settings does not block the in-app support ticket widget. That widget can still load so you can contact us. Session replay and pageviews stay off until you turn Usage analytics back on.

NovelCult may use Google AdSense and related Google advertising services on public content pages. Google and its advertising partners may use cookies, web beacons, device identifiers, IP address, browser information, and interactions with ads or content to provide ad serving, measurement, fraud prevention, frequency capping, personalized ads, and non-personalized ads.

Third-party advertising cookies or ad identifiers may be used to show ads based on your visits to NovelCult and other sites or apps, subject to your consent choices and local law. In regions where consent is required, advertising cookies and personalized ads should only be used after the required consent has been collected through our consent management controls or Google's Privacy & messaging tools.

You can opt out of personalized ads through Google's ad settings and learn how Google uses data from partner sites at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites. You can also manage browser cookies, use device-level ad identifier controls where available, and use any privacy choices presented on NovelCult for your region.

10. Third-Party Services

We may share limited data with third parties to run our platform:

Payment processors: Stripe.
Authentication providers: Google, Apple ID.
Analytics and advertising providers: for internal performance monitoring, ad serving, ad measurement, fraud prevention, and consent-respecting personalization.
These providers operate under their own privacy policies. We only share data necessary for their service.

11. Data Transfers

If you are in the EU/EEA, your data may be transferred to countries outside your region (such as the United States) where privacy laws may differ. In such cases, we use approved safeguards (e.g., Standard Contractual Clauses) to protect your data.

12. Data Security

We protect your data with:

Encryption (in transit and at rest).
Firewalls and access restrictions.
Regular monitoring and security audits.
Industry-standard security practices to minimize risks.
No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure, but we work continuously to protect your information.

13. Account Deletion & Data Removal

You may request permanent account deletion. Once processed:

All personal data will be deleted except where retention is required by law.
Purchased content will remain accessible to other buyers.
Deletion is irreversible.
Some data may be retained for legal, tax, and compliance reasons, such as transaction records.
Requests are handled within 30 days.

14. Payment and Stripe Connect processing

Truck Kun, Inc. and NovelPedia Private Limited send Stripe the information needed to create and manage reader payments and author connected accounts. Stripe may collect identity, contact, business, tax, bank, payment-method, device, and transaction data directly through its hosted interfaces.

We receive Stripe identifiers and status information needed to:

confirm payment and content entitlement;
administer automatic renewal and cancellation;
calculate and record taxes and fees;
hold and send author transfers;
process refunds, transfer reversals, and future offsets;
investigate fraud, unauthorized payments, and chargebacks; and
meet accounting, sanctions, tax, and legal requirements.

Stripe processes data under its own legal obligations and privacy terms as well as when providing services to the operators identified above. Review Stripe's privacy policy before using a Stripe-hosted form.

15. When we disclose data

We may disclose relevant data to:

Stripe and financial institutions for payment, Connect, tax, fraud, refund, dispute, transfer, and payout functions;
cloud, hosting, database, authentication, email, support, security, analytics, and advertising providers that operate the Services;
other users and the public when you publish content or use a public profile or community feature;
authors and readers where limited transaction or account information is necessary to administer a paid offering, without disclosing complete payment credentials;
professional advisers, insurers, auditors, and corporate affiliates for legal, tax, accounting, security, and business administration;
courts, regulators, tax authorities, law enforcement, card networks, and rights holders where disclosure is required or reasonably necessary to establish, exercise, or defend rights; and
a buyer or successor in a merger, financing, reorganization, or sale, subject to applicable confidentiality and notice requirements.

We do not sell personal data for money. Some advertising or analytics disclosures may be treated as a “sale,” “sharing,” or targeted advertising under certain US state laws. Where applicable, we provide the required choice.

16. International transfers

NovelCult operates through companies in India and the United States and uses service providers, including Stripe, that process data internationally. Your data may therefore be transferred to and processed in countries with different privacy laws.

Where required, we use an approved transfer mechanism such as an adequacy decision, standard contractual clauses, the UK addendum or international data transfer agreement, or another lawful safeguard. We also apply contractual, organizational, and technical protections appropriate to the processing.

17. Changes to this Policy

We may update this Policy and will revise the Last Updated date. We will provide additional notice or obtain consent where required for a material change.

18. Contact

Privacy questions and rights requests: [email protected]

Account, safety, and billing support: [email protected]

Website: https://novelcult.com

NovelPedia Private Limited

Bansi Sect. 2 Shrinagar, Gudhiyari
Raipur 492008, Chhattisgarh, India
CIN: U62099CT2026PTC020607

Truck Kun, Inc.

131 Continental Dr, Suite 305, Newark, Delaware 19713, United States