Privacy Policy
Your weather. Your privacy.
Dreadcast works without an account. It has no analytics, advertising, or tracking. To show weather near you, the app requests data from public weather and map services, and from Dreadcast’s own servers, using your ZIP code or an approximate location. Our servers use that information only to answer each request and do not keep it.
Who we are
Dreadcast is published by Kevin Fleming (“we,” “us”), who is responsible for this policy. Contact us about privacy at kevin@dreadcast.app. This policy covers the Dreadcast Mac app (“the app”) and the dreadcast.app website (“the website”). Apple, the weather and map providers named below, and our website host have their own privacy policies for the services they operate.
Summary
- We do not collect your name, email address, contacts, browsing history, or precise location through the app.
- We do not use analytics, advertising identifiers, or third-party tracking, and we do not track you across apps or websites.
- We do not sell or share personal information for targeted advertising.
- Your settings are stored on your Mac and are not uploaded to us.
- Dreadcast’s servers do not create accounts, profiles, or persistent identifiers, and do not store your location.
- Location is optional. When used, it is rounded to about 1 km before it is saved or sent anywhere.
Location
You choose how Dreadcast finds your weather:
- ZIP code. You enter a five-digit US ZIP code. The app does not request access to your Mac’s location.
- Current Location. Only after you choose this option does macOS ask for location permission. Dreadcast rounds the coordinate to two decimal places (roughly 1 km, varying by latitude) before storing it, converting it to a city name, or using it in any request.
Dreadcast never requests or sends a street address. Location is used only to provide weather, radar, alerts, and nearby map layers, and is not linked to your identity. You can switch to ZIP mode at any time, or revoke location access in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services.
Information stored on your Mac
The app stores the following in its sandboxed preferences on your Mac:
- Your location choice, ZIP code, and the most recent rounded coordinate and city/state label
- Display and map preferences, such as temperature unit, radar source and opacity, enabled layers, themes, and palettes
- Notification settings, plus identifiers and dates of recently delivered alerts so you are not notified twice
Weather responses and map images may also be cached temporarily in memory or by macOS. None of this information is sent to us. Our Data Retention Policy explains how long each item is kept and how to remove it.
Dreadcast servers
Some features rely on servers that we operate. They do two things:
- Deliver Dreadcast map data. We process public data, such as NOAA radar, satellite clouds, and wind forecasts, into map tiles. The app requests the tiles for the area you are viewing. These requests contain map-tile coordinates, not your coordinate.
- Relay licensed data. Some providers, such as Xweather for lightning, require an API key. Dreadcast supplies those keys, so you never need your own account. The app sends your rounded coordinate and search radius to our server, which forwards only those values to the provider. The provider does not receive your IP address.
Our servers receive your IP address, the time, and the request, as every internet server does. We use this only to answer the request, keep the service running, prevent abuse such as excessive automated requests, and fix problems. We do not use cookies, accounts, or device identifiers. Coordinates in relayed requests are used to fetch the result and are not written to our logs. Operational logs (IP address, time, request path, and response status) are kept for no more than 30 days. We may cache provider responses for a few minutes to reduce load, but cached data is not linked to you. Our servers are hosted by an infrastructure provider in the United States that processes data only on our behalf.
Other services the app contacts
The app connects directly from your Mac to the services below only when the related feature is in use. Like any internet request, each connection reveals your IP address and the time of the request. We do not send your name, email address, or any identifier that links requests to you.
| Service | Used for | What it receives |
|---|---|---|
| Apple (Core Location, geocoding, MapKit) | Optional Current Location, city/state label, and the Apple base map when selected | Location under your macOS permission; the rounded coordinate for the city label; viewed map area |
| Zippopotam.us | Finding the center of your ZIP code | The ZIP code you enter |
| Open-Meteo | Current conditions, forecasts, air quality, and dust | Your ZIP-center or rounded coordinate; for air-quality and dust layers, a grid of points around it |
| RainViewer | Standard radar | Radar map tiles for the area you view |
| NOAA / National Weather Service | Enhanced radar and active weather alerts | Nearest radar station and map tiles; your coordinate for alerts and alert notifications |
| NASA GIBS and EUMETSAT | Satellite cloud imagery | The map area you view |
| NIFC (National Interagency Fire Center) | Wildfire locations and perimeters | An area around your location sized to the map or notification radius |
| OpenFreeMap | The default Dreadcast map style | Map tiles and fonts for the area you view |
| NOAA SPC, NHC, SWPC, and NESDIS; USGS; NOAA Tsunami Warning Centers | Severe outlooks, hurricanes, space weather, aurora, radio disruption, smoke, earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis | Nationwide or global data files; your location is not included |
| Xweather, through Dreadcast’s server | Nearby lightning, when the lightning layer or lightning notifications are on | Your rounded coordinate and search radius, from our server rather than your Mac |
We send each service only what it needs to return the data you asked for. These services are independent organizations—mostly government agencies and public-data providers—and may keep standard server logs under their own policies. We do not control those logs and do not receive them.
Notifications
Weather notifications are off until you turn them on. While Dreadcast is running, it checks the services above, including Dreadcast’s servers, and asks macOS Notification Center to display matching alerts. There is no Dreadcast push-notification server, and the app’s notification history stays on your Mac.
Purchases
Dreadcast Pro and any other in-app purchases are processed by Apple through the App Store. We do not receive your name, payment details, or Apple Account information. The app checks your purchase status with Apple on your Mac to unlock Pro features. Apple’s handling of purchase data is described in the Apple Privacy Policy.
The website
The website does not use cookies, analytics, advertising, or tracking scripts, and it does not ask for personal information. Like most websites, our hosting provider automatically records server logs—IP address, browser type, page requested, and time—to deliver the site and protect it from abuse. The interactive map loads tiles from OpenFreeMap, which receives your IP address and the map area shown.
When you contact us
If you email us, we receive your email address and whatever you include in your message. We use it only to respond to you and to improve Dreadcast, and we do not add you to a mailing list or share your message with anyone except our email provider, which stores it on our behalf.
How long we keep information
Information stored by the app stays on your Mac until you change it or remove the app’s data. Dreadcast server and website logs are kept for no more than 30 days. Support emails are kept for up to 24 months after your last message, unless you ask us to delete them sooner. Details are in our Data Retention Policy.
Your choices and rights
- Change or remove settings in Dreadcast Settings at any time.
- Withdraw location consent by switching to ZIP mode or turning off Location Services for Dreadcast in macOS.
- Stop notifications in Dreadcast Settings or System Settings → Notifications.
- Delete all app data by following the steps in our Data Retention Policy.
- Ask about information we hold—such as support emails—or ask us to access, correct, or delete it, by emailing kevin@dreadcast.app. We respond within 30 days.
Depending on where you live, including California and the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, and Switzerland, you may have additional rights to access, correct, delete, or port your personal information, to object to or restrict processing, and to complain to your local data-protection authority. We honor these requests for information we control and will not treat you differently for making one. Because Dreadcast has no accounts and our server logs contain no names or identifiers, we generally cannot link app data to you; we cannot delete records kept by Apple or the independent services listed above, but you can contact them directly.
Where EU or UK law applies, we process requests to our servers to provide the features you ask for, server logs based on our legitimate interest in keeping the service secure and reliable, and support emails based on our legitimate interest in answering you.
Children
Dreadcast is a general-audience weather app and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, email us and we will delete it.
Security
All app and website connections use encrypted HTTPS. The app runs in the macOS App Sandbox and rounds location before use. Dreadcast’s servers accept only encrypted connections, keep provider API keys off your Mac, and restrict log access to the publisher. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we limit what we handle so there is very little to protect.
International users
Dreadcast is published from the United States. Dreadcast’s servers, website logs, and support emails are processed in the United States, and some weather services operate in other countries. By using Dreadcast, you understand that information may be processed outside your country.
Changes to this policy
If we change how Dreadcast handles information, we will update this page and its effective date, and update the app’s App Store privacy details before the change takes effect. Material changes will also be noted in the app’s release notes.
Contact
Kevin Fleming, publisher of Dreadcast
kevin@dreadcast.app