@Ryan Grange
You can disable the statistics in the app settings if you want to, but statistics won't use much data.
My guess is that you might be facing the infamous Google Play Services data drain issue. Since a couple of weeks, the last version of the Google Play Services seems to use a lot of cpu and data on some devices to display the banner ads. As a workaround you can switch to the interstitials display mode in the app settings. Hopefully this will soon be fixed.

Even with every Wi-Fi option checked under network I find podcast addict at the top of my cell data usage chart. At this point I'm going to disable cell data while driving while I evaluate other podcast options. I don't care that you want data, but I'd like to see it cached until I connect back to Wi-Fi for transmission.

Those information are available in the Privacy policy available on the Play Store page, on this website and from within the app Settings menu.
On the server side there's a lot of post processing to remove non pertinent information so they cannot be shared.

Everytime an episode is downloaded or streamed it increments a counter on the server, which will allow me soon to display new episodes, trending episode, ... and to share those numbers with the podcast owner. This is just incrementing a counter
without sending any personal information

There's absolutely no data sending and there never will be as explained in the Privacy policy. Those data are just there to add more features in the app in order to improve podcast discovery which isn't so great for now.

If I wanted more money like you suggest the first thing I would do would be to require more permission like access to localization, contact information which would immediately boost the ad revenue by A LOT !
But I will never do that.

Why are you saying the data isn't anonymous ?
I can assure you I don't access any personal information (check the permission), so I have nothing personal to share ;)

I didn't reject and close your feature request so I'm not saying it won't be done, but for now I'm working on more 'important feature', so I won't consider it before being done with those features which to be honestly will take some time.

If you want to I can build a specific APK with those upload disabled (no new settings, no tuning of any screen), but you will then have to disable Play store update to avoid getting future update of the app for now.
Is so please let me know by email (podcatsaddict@gmail.com)

Thanks

Xavier

I understand that however this could be a serious privacy concern for users. I, for example, mirror many casts locally or on my own servers. Not only is this information not useful to you and would polute your data, but I don't want to share it.

It appears that Podcast Addict even submits data to your server every time I download a new episode of any cast I'm subscribed to.

As stated, I realise WHY you want the data, data == money, however not allowing your users to optionally turn this off if they wish is just silly. I have no interest in using all these features you list and as stated, my uploaded data is not anonymous nor useful to you and would only serve to polute.

I hope you reconsider this draconian position as if it were not for this data collection, Podcast Addict would be the best Media Aggregator I have found thus far and I would recommend it on my podcasts and to the communities I am involved with, however as it stands now, I cannot do so in good conscience.

Sorry but those information allows to create the Top podcasts list and recommendation. I will soon be able to add new features like new episodes, trending podcasts/episodes, ... and so on thanks to those anonymous informations.
I can also send statistics like : subscription #, download #, streaming # to podcast owner who ask for these information