Chrome Web Store Limited Use Disclosure
Please review our Ghostery Plans and Products Privacy Policy, CCPA Addendum, and the information below for how we handle your data.
The Ghostery Browser Extension and the Ghostery Insights Extension is in compliance with the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy’s Limited Use requirements.
Ghostery only collects personal or sensitive user data in order to provide and improve our single-purpose of empowering users to protect their digital privacy by giving them full control of their browsing experience, especially by facilitating the service of Ghostery accounts, as well as improving user-facing features. Data collected is used for syncing Ghostery settings across browsers and devices; serving as your login credentials; unlocking gated features; communicating directly to you via email in order to deliver information about our products, services, updates, and upgrades; communicating through our Consumer Messaging Platform (CMP) in order to share product information or updates and company news; internal analytical purposes such as accurately counting the number of browser extension downloads and use of features; and surveying our users from time to time for product improvements.
- For “personally identifiable information,” if an individual chooses to create a Ghostery account, Ghostery collects an email address as a requirement, as well as a name (which is optional to provide). If an individual does not choose to create a Ghostery account, no such data is collected.
- For “financial and payment information,” Ghostery does not collect any financial or commercial data from users, even from those who subscribe to our products. We use the payment services provider (PSP) Stripe. If you pay our subscription fees through this service, it is necessary that you enter some personal data (name, address, contact data, Ghostery login data, financial information). Stripe acts as a data controller and not on our behalf as a processor. We pull some of this information into our product so you can more easily review your subscription, but we do this using the Stripe API and we do not store any of this information ourselves. For further information see Stripes privacy policy: https://stripe.com/de/privacy.
- For “authenticator information,” if you choose to create a Ghostery account, Ghostery stores the password for the Ghostery account. These passwords are encrypted and cannot be seen by us. Ghostery does not interact with passwords or credentials for any sites you visit.
- For “location,” , Ghostery only uses an IP address for limited geo-data functions, but we do not store the IP address. Ghostery uses a user’s IP address only to determine the user’s country code (and nothing further) for our internal metrics. Ghostery uses a user’s IP address only to determine the user’s zip code for our CMP notifications, and this behavior can be opted out of. The Human Web feature also uses a user’s IP address only to determine the user’s country code (and nothing further), and this behavior can be opted out of, as well.
- For “web history,” Ghostery does not collect any personal or sensitive user data within web history that can be personally identifiable or linked to a particular user. The Human Web feature takes a subset of pages engaged with from Search Engine Results Page, and sends them in a way that they where they are edited and cannot be linked to an individual. Time of visit is at the granularity of one day. Pages titles are sent.
- For “user activity” Ghostery does not collect any personal or sensitive user data within user activity that can be personally identifiable or linked to a particular user. Clicks pertaining to functions of our own Ghostery extension are collected. The Anti-Tracking feature collects network requests to determine the presence of trackers. The Human Web feature collects engagement statistics including clicks, mouse position, and scrolling on a Search Engine Results Page. None of this is can be used to identify a user.
- For “website content” Ghostery does not collect any personal or sensitive user data within website content that can be personally identifiable or linked to a particular user. The Human Web feature collects hyperlinks from a Google search result page and URL, as well as content of pages linked to from the search result page. None of this is can be used to identify a user.
Ghostery only transmits data in order to provide and improve our single-purpose of empowering users to protect their digital privacy by giving them full control of their browsing experience. The data transmitted to our Human Web feature creates anonymous group models that power the anti-tracking technology featured in our extension, as well as to power our anti-phishing technologies.
Ghostery never uses or transfers user data to serve users personalized, re-targeted, or interest-based advertisements.
Ghostery never allows humans to read user data. Ghostery employees can only read specific messages or logs that a user has affirmatively sent to us for tech support or product inquiry purposes.