Carthios — Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 18, 2026

Carthios is an independent macOS app that gives Spotify Car Thing a new dashboard. This policy explains the data handled by the Mac app, its optional diagnostics, and the separate analytics used by this website.

In one sentence: Carthios diagnostics are optional and off by default, accept only a small set of coarse status events, and never include the content you dictate, play, view, or store.

Who runs Carthios

Carthios is built by Zian Meng as an independent developer.
Contact: workingzian@gmail.com

Optional Mac app diagnostics

Your choice, off by default

The Mac app does not send product diagnostics unless you explicitly turn them on during onboarding or later from the Carthios menu. Declining does not limit any Carthios feature. You can disable diagnostics again at any time; disabling stops new collection and deletes any events still waiting in the local unsent queue.

What an enabled app may send

The diagnostics endpoint accepts only these closed, coarse categories:

• App launch: Carthios version and major macOS version
• Consent: whether diagnostics were enabled from onboarding or the menu, plus the app version
• Setup: broad stage and whether it started, succeeded, or failed
• Connection: USB, Bluetooth, or none; connected or disconnected
• Feature use: music, transit, agenda, dictation, Smart Cleanup, or settings; started, succeeded, or failed
• Failures: broad area and an allowlisted category such as timeout, permission denied, unavailable, or connection lost

Each event has exactly two properties. An event time can remain temporarily in the local retry queue so old events expire; the endpoint validates and discards that time rather than forwarding it as an analytics property. Batches are limited to 25 events and 32 KB.

What is never included

Carthios diagnostics do not accept or send:

• Dictated text, partial transcripts, cleaned text, or microphone audio
• Song, artist, album, podcast, playlist, queue, or listening-history data
• Calendar or reminder titles, notes, times, completion identifiers, or account names
• Transit queries, nearby stops, precise or approximate location
• Names, email addresses, account IDs, advertising IDs, or persistent app/install identifiers
• File names or paths, URLs, Bluetooth addresses, serial numbers, IP addresses as event properties, or other device identifiers
• API keys, authorization codes, credentials, Keychain values, or tokens

The endpoint rejects unknown event names, fields, values, oversized bodies, and free-form strings rather than storing or forwarding them. Request bodies and event contents are not written to application logs.

Processor and security

Accepted aggregate events are processed with Vercel Web Analytics, which acts as the analytics infrastructure provider for zianmeng.com. The Carthios endpoint does not pass the incoming app request’s IP address, user-agent, or cookies into the custom event. Requests use HTTPS. Carthios does not sell diagnostics, use them for advertising, or share them with data brokers.

Vercel currently exposes Custom Events only on supported paid plans. If the zianmeng.com project is on a plan without Custom Events, the endpoint still accepts the app’s best-effort request so Carthios does not retry indefinitely, but the event is not available in the Vercel Analytics dashboard.

Retention, access, and deletion

When Custom Events are available, aggregate event retention and reporting windows are governed by the active Vercel Analytics plan and account configuration. Those windows can change and are not a promise that data is deleted when a dashboard reporting window ends.

Carthios intentionally sends no user, account, or persistent installation identifier. As a result, an accepted event cannot be linked back to an individual user, located as “your” event, exported for one person, or individually deleted after processing.

You can stop future events and delete the local unsent queue by turning diagnostics off in Carthios. For questions about aggregate retention or a privacy request that cannot be handled through the app, email workingzian@gmail.com.

Website analytics are separate

zianmeng.com uses Vercel Web Analytics to understand aggregate page visits and interactions such as Carthios download clicks. Website analytics run independently of the optional Mac app diagnostics: enabling or disabling diagnostics in Carthios does not change website measurement, and visiting this website does not enable diagnostics in the Mac app.

The website does not use Carthios app data to build profiles, serve targeted advertising, or follow visitors across unrelated sites. Your browser and Vercel may process ordinary request information needed to deliver and measure the site under their respective settings and policies.

Local data and permissions

Carthios stores settings locally on your Mac and keeps credentials in macOS Keychain. Features such as Calendar, Reminders, Location, Bluetooth, Speech Recognition, Accessibility, and Automation use the macOS permission or control shown for that feature. Their content is used to provide the requested feature and is not added to product diagnostics.

Children

Carthios is a general-purpose utility and is not directed to children under 13. The optional diagnostics described here do not contain an age, name, account, or persistent identifier.

Changes to this policy

If these practices change, this page’s “Last updated” date will change. A material expansion of Mac app collection will require a new disclosure and consent rather than silently broadening the existing allowlist.

Contact

Questions, security reports, or privacy requests:
workingzian@gmail.com