Privacy policy — Merit Launcher
Last updated 1 October 2026
Merit Launcher is a home screen for Android, made by Richard Lombos (LMBS Apps, Düsseldorf, Germany; details in the imprint), who is responsible for the processing described here. Merit has no account, no analytics and no crash reporting of its own. It shows ads from Google AdMob, which one purchase removes.
This policy says what stays on your phone, what leaves it, and why.
What stays on your phone
Everything Merit keeps is in its own private storage on your device, and none of it is sent to me or to anyone else:
- Your tile layout, sections, shelves, shapes, colours and every setting.
- The apps you chose for Needs you, and per-app icon choices.
- Which notifications you have marked as handled, as Android's own identifiers for them, so they do not come back.
- Today's step count, for a steps tile.
- For each Contact tile, only the key Android uses to find that contact again. The name, photo and number are read from your phone's contacts each time the tile is shown.
- The pictures you picked for a Photos tile, as references Android gave Merit permission to read. Merit does not copy them.
- A note of whether you bought the ad-free version, so ads stay off when you are offline.
If Android's backup is on, your settings and layout are part of your device's backup with Google and are handled under Google's backup terms, not this policy.
What Merit reads, and keeps on the phone
With the permissions you grant, Merit reads the following to draw your screen. It is read on the device, held only as long as it is shown, and never sent anywhere:
| Permission | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Notification access | Missed calls and messages on the Now page, and counts on tiles. Granted separately in Android settings. |
| Usage access | Sorting the Index by how often you open apps. Granted separately in Android settings. |
| Calendar | Later today, and the events on the day's timeline. |
| Contacts | Contact tiles read the chosen contact's name, photo and number from your phone's contacts, to show them on the tile and to call or message them. This stays on your phone and is never sent anywhere. Merit reads only the contacts you pick for a tile, chosen in Android's own contact picker. |
| Physical activity | Today's steps on a steps tile. |
| Approximate location | The weather (see below). |
| Query all packages | Listing your installed apps so you can open and search them. This is what a launcher is. |
| Alarms and reminders | Letting the timer ring on the second. |
| Notifications | The timer and stopwatch, while they run. |
| Vibrate, expand status bar, request delete packages | Touch feedback, pulling down the notification shade, and handing an uninstall to Android when you ask. |
Every permission is optional. Without one, only the part it names goes quiet.
What leaves your phone
Weather
For the weather on the home screen, the Now page and a weather tile:
- Open-Meteo (
api.open-meteo.com,geocoding-api.open-meteo.com) receives a pair of coordinates, or the place name you search for, and returns a forecast. No identifier is sent with it. - ipapi.co receives your IP address, and only when Merit has no location permission or position and you have not pinned a place. It returns an approximate city so the weather can show something. Grant location or pin a place in the weather settings and this request is not made.
Both are separate companies with their own privacy policies.
Ads, from Google AdMob
Unless you have bought the ad-free version, Merit shows banner ads from Google AdMob, provided in the EEA and the UK by Google Ireland Limited. To choose, show and measure an ad, and to prevent fraud, Google's ad software in the app collects:
- your device's advertising ID,
- your IP address, and an approximate location derived from it,
- information about your device and the app, and how you interact with the ads.
In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, Merit shows Google's consent form before any ad is requested. You decide there whether ads may be personalised and whether information may be stored on or read from your device for advertising. The legal basis is your consent, Art. 6 (1) (a) GDPR and § 25 (1) TDDDG. If you decline, Google may still show ads that are not personalised, using the minimum it needs to deliver them and to prevent fraud. You can change your choice at any time in Merit under Customize › Ads › Ad privacy choices.
On phones that support it, Google's ad software may also use Android's Privacy Sandbox (ad topics and attribution), which you control in Android's settings under Privacy.
You can reset or delete your advertising ID in Android's settings. How Google uses information from apps that show its ads is explained at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
Once you have bought the ad-free version, Merit stops requesting ads altogether and the ad software is no longer started.
The ad-free purchase
The purchase is made through Google Play. Google handles the payment; Merit never sees your payment details. It receives only a confirmation that this Google account owns the ad-free version, which it checks with Google Play to turn ads off, including on a new phone.
How long
What is on your phone stays until you change it or uninstall Merit, which removes all of it. Merit keeps nothing anywhere else. What Google and the weather services keep is set by their own policies.
Your rights
Under the GDPR you have the right to access, correct and erase data about you, to restrict or object to its processing, to data portability, and to withdraw consent at any time without affecting what happened before. Because Merit keeps everything on your phone, uninstalling it or clearing its storage erases what it holds. For data held by Google, use your Google account and Android settings.
You can also complain to a data protection authority. Mine is the Landesbeauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit Nordrhein-Westfalen (LDI NRW).
Children
Merit is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect anything from them.
Changes
Any change to this policy will be published here with a new date.