Privacy.

This notice explains how Ekarth Ventures Private Limited handles personal information in connection with OTHERWISE, including the website, first-release order flow, reader-copy status pages, companion interactive experience and any paid access later enabled.

What we collect

When you place a first-release order, we may collect your name, mobile number, optional email address, delivery address, order acknowledgement, optional discovery/referral information, and limited technical information such as referral source, timezone and viewport size. We use this information to record and support the order, manage first-allocation and fulfilment states, prevent duplicate fulfilment to the same household, communicate about delivery, and keep an operational record.

The companion experience may store progress, choices and interaction events locally in your browser so the experience can remember state and function properly. Unless a feature expressly tells you otherwise, local experience state is not treated as a remote psychological profile and should not be understood as a diagnosis or assessment.

If a paid feature or payment step is enabled, transaction and payment-status information may be received from our payment service provider. Full card, UPI or bank credentials are handled by the payment provider and are not intended to be stored by OTHERWISE itself.

How we use information

We use personal information for operational purposes connected with OTHERWISE: recording orders, managing allocation and fulfilment, providing requested services or copies, processing access, customer support, fraud/abuse prevention, record-keeping, legal compliance, security, and improving reliability of the experience. We do not sell personal information as a data-broker product.

Saved order progress and recovery

If you begin an OTHERWISE ARC request, we may temporarily save the information you enter — such as your name, email address, mobile number and delivery details — together with a random recovery credential and available source/campaign identifiers so that you can continue an unfinished request and so we can understand where the order flow failed. An unfinished draft is retained for up to 14 days unless completed sooner. Completing an order links the draft to the reservation and clears duplicate draft contact and address data. We do not permit a recovery reminder before you have accepted the ARC confidentiality and limited-use terms and supplied an email address or mobile number, and the recovery system permits at most one such reminder for an eligible unfinished draft.

Sharing

We may share information only where reasonably necessary with service providers involved in hosting, payments, communications, fulfilment, delivery, security, professional advice or legal compliance. They should receive only the information reasonably required for their role. We may also disclose information where required by law, court order, regulator or lawful government process.

Retention

We retain information for as long as reasonably necessary for fulfilment, support, fraud prevention, accounting, dispute resolution, legal obligations and enforcement of our terms. Retention periods can differ by category. Where information is no longer required, we may delete or de-identify it, subject to legal and backup constraints.

Your choices and rights

Depending on the law that applies to you, you may have rights to request access, correction, deletion, withdrawal of consent, restriction or other remedies. Some information may need to be retained where required by law or necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

You may also clear browser storage to reset locally stored experience state. Doing so may remove progress, preferences, or the convenient “My copy” shortcut stored only on that device; the server-side order record is not deleted merely by clearing browser storage.

Children

OTHERWISE is not intended to collect personal information from children in a manner prohibited by applicable law. If you believe a child has provided personal information without appropriate authorization, contact us using the details on the Contact page.

Security and international processing

We use reasonable technical and organisational safeguards appropriate to the nature of the information. No online system can be guaranteed to be completely secure. Service providers may process information in locations outside your state or country, subject to applicable legal requirements and contractual protections where required.

Cookies and similar storage

The site may use essential browser storage, cookies or equivalent technologies for security, continuity, preferences, experience progress and service operation. We aim to avoid unnecessary tracking. If non-essential analytics or advertising technologies are introduced, they should be disclosed and handled in accordance with applicable consent requirements.

Changes

We may update this notice as the service changes or law requires. The effective date above will be revised when a material update is published.

Contact

For privacy questions or requests, use the contact details and instructions on the Contact page.