Privacy notice

Last updated: September 10, 2026.

Hudson Heavy Industries Ltd operates Kickstart Exchange and is responsible for its developer account data. Contact hello@kickstart.tools about privacy or your data.

Kickstart Exchange matches apps, not people. It does not track users or devices or build behavioral profiles.

Information Kickstart Exchange uses

Kickstart Exchange keeps the email address developers used to sign in, submitted apps, public App Store listing details, app settings, points, and app-level activity such as impressions and clicks. It uses this information to provide and protect the service. Public App Store listing materials and app participation information may also be used for public promotion as described below.

The SDK opens a short-lived application session using the API key, bundle identifier, platform, app version, build version, and SDK version. In shipping builds it also sends an Apple-signed App Transaction when StoreKit provides one that is locally verified. Kickstart Exchange processes this signed JWS only long enough to determine whether it is a Production App Transaction for the registered app. Shipping mode alone does not enable counting. The JWS can contain stable Apple transaction and device-verification values, but Kickstart Exchange immediately discards the JWS and does not retain, hash, log, correlate, target with, or analyze those values.

After that transient verification, the application session contains no user or device identity. Advert requests may include the App Store storefront country of the device’s store account, such as United Kingdom. Platform and storefront are app-level compatibility and accounting data. They help ensure that adverts appear only where they can be installed and let developers see the countries their adverts reach; they are not a location or an identifier for a specific person or device.

The advert’s report action allows someone to report the advert to Kickstart Exchange. Exchange also records app-level impressions and clicks. When someone taps an advert, the SDK asks Exchange to record the click, then opens the advertised app’s App Store page directly. These interactions are not associated with a specific person or device.

An advertiser can optionally add its App Store Connect provider token. In that case, the App Store destination also contains Apple’s provider token and the KickstartExchange campaign token. Apple may show the advertiser privacy-protected campaign results such as product-page views, downloads, usage, sales, and subscriptions. Kickstart Exchange does not receive those App Store conversion details.

Kickstart Exchange does not sell this information or create profiles of app users.

Public promotion

While your app participates, Hudson Heavy Industries Ltd may use its name, icon, and public App Store listing materials to promote your app and the Kickstart services it uses on our websites, social media, and marketing materials. We may publicly identify your app as using those services and publish aggregate counts of participating apps, as explained in the terms of service. This public promotion does not include your account email address, private app settings, or individual app performance statistics.

Service providers

Kickstart Exchange is delivered through Cloudflare, which provides its network, security, and content delivery. Every request to Kickstart’s hostnames – exchange.kickstart.tools, dashboard.kickstart.tools, and api.kickstart.tools – passes through Cloudflare, including the advert requests and artwork that apps using the SDK load, so Cloudflare processes the connecting IP address as an ordinary part of delivering that traffic. Kickstart Exchange does not store those addresses or use them to identify anyone.

Sign-in codes and notification emails are sent through Resend, which receives the recipient's email address. App Store listing details are read from Apple's public App Store pages, using ScraperAPI to fetch them; that involves no information about the people using participating apps.

Retention and choices

Kickstart Exchange keeps account information while you participate. For each registered app, it keeps the latest development integration details and latest shipping integration details used for the dashboard’s Integration status. These include when the SDK was last seen, its platform and SDK version and, for shipping requests, the app and build versions and whether counting was enabled or why it was not. Each new request replaces the corresponding previous details. This app-level integration record is cleared when the API key is reissued, the app is deleted from Kickstart Exchange, or its account is deleted.

Kickstart Exchange keeps app-level advert delivery and interaction records for approximately 30 days. These records do not identify individual users or devices. Daily app-to-app statistics retain app IDs, date, platform, storefront, accounting outcome, and impression and click totals for historical analytics without a fixed deletion date. Deleting an app removes its Exchange record, credentials, settings, ownership, individual advert records, and its side of the analytics. Totals belonging to other apps remain, but identify the deleted side only as “Deleted apps.” A later claim starts with fresh analytics.

Developers can delete their account from the account page. They can also contact hello@kickstart.tools to ask for access, correction, deletion, or another applicable data-protection right. They may complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office.