Social Media Deterrent — Privacy Policy
Social Media Deterrent is a browser extension, an iPhone app and a small server. This policy covers all three. Short version: we track how much time per day you spend on the sites, apps and websites you chose to track — not what you look at — and we handle the minimum needed to charge the fees you signed up for.
What we collect
| Data | Where it lives | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Seconds of use per day on your tracked sites (a single daily total, plus a per-device total) | Your browser + our server | Computing your daily tier and fee |
| On an iPhone: your combined time per day in the apps and websites you selected, as the last Screen Time checkpoint reached (for example "12 minutes") and when it was reported. If the app detects a Screen Time error it may take back the step it just reported, and it reports checkpoints it ignored as likely errors (the checkpoint, the reason and the time); we keep a record of each of these | Your iPhone + our server | Computing your daily tier and fee; checking a disputed phone charge |
| A per-device split of each day's time: for every browser or iPhone that reported time, its device label, whether it is a phone or a browser, and its seconds for the day | Our server; shown in your history and in charge emails | Showing you where a day's time came from, so you can check a charge |
| A random device identifier, and a device label for each browser or iPhone where you sign in (e.g. "Chrome on Mac", or on an iPhone the device name iOS gives the app plus the first 6 characters of the identifier, such as "iPhone · 3f9a1c") | Your browser or iPhone + our server | Combining usage across your devices into one daily total; letting you or us sign out a single device |
| When each signed-in device last contacted our server (updated at most once a minute) | Our server, with that device's sign-in record | Noticing a device that has stopped reporting (for example, after Screen Time access was turned off or the app was deleted) |
| On an iPhone: a push-notification token from Apple, which Apple environment it belongs to (test or production), which of your devices registered it, and when | Our server, until you sign out on that iPhone, the device is signed out, or Apple reports the token is no longer valid | Sending charge notifications to your phone |
| Corrections we make to a day: if we remove one device's time for a day (for example, after you dispute a phone charge), or a day is re-settled after the phone took back a step, a record of which device, when, and how many seconds | Our server, with that day's usage and settlement records | Settling the day on the corrected total and working out any refund owed |
| Your Stripe customer ID and consent record (terms version, timestamp and, when you accept a changed version, the local date you accepted it), your chosen recipient organizations, which tracked sites you have turned off, your pause status, and the date your setup was completed | Our Stripe account records | Charging the fees you authorized; proving what you agreed to; keeping your settings the same on every device |
| Your email address | Our Stripe account records + our server | Signing in (we email you a one-time code), real-time charge alerts, and the pause link |
| One-time sign-in codes (stored only in hashed form, for at most 10 minutes) and sign-in tokens for your devices (stored only in hashed form) | Our server | Signing you in and keeping each device signed in |
| Payment card details | Stripe only — never our server | Processing charges |
| Your browser's or phone's time-zone offset (for example, UTC−5), included with each usage report | Our server, alongside the daily usage totals (kept with them until you ask us to delete them) | Knowing when your day ends, so each day is settled on your local calendar |
| Your IP address | Our server's memory only, for up to an hour — never written to disk | Rate-limiting sign-in attempts and other requests to block abuse |
What we do NOT collect
No browsing history, page URLs, page content, searches, messages, or anything about sites that are not on your tracked list. The extension inspects the address of the tab you're on locally, inside your browser to decide whether the clock should run (e.g. to tell YouTube Shorts from a video page); only aggregate seconds-per-day ever leave your browser. On an iPhone, which apps and websites you selected never leaves the phone: Apple's Screen Time gives the app only opaque tokens for your selection, not app names, and the app sends us only the checkpoint totals described above, never per-app time. No analytics, no ads, no trackers.
Retention
Server-side usage and settlement records are kept until you ask us to delete them by emailing us (see "Your choices" below). They are not deleted automatically. Keeping a record does not keep a day open: a day is only charged or settled within about 7 days of that day, and after that nothing more is ever charged for it.
When you ask us to delete your data, we delete your usage and settlement records from our server, sign out all of your devices (which removes their sign-in records and push-notification tokens), remove the link between your email address and your account on our server, and delete your customer record at Stripe. One thing stays for a short time: for each day in the last 7 days that had already been settled or charged, a marker filed under your Stripe customer ID, holding the date, the fact that the day is closed, and the time your records were deleted (no usage, amounts or device details). It is removed once that day is more than about 7 days old, and exists so that a late report from one of your devices cannot charge the day a second time. Server logs and any backup copies of the server's storage held by our hosting provider are not edited; they expire on their own schedule.
Charge records persist in Stripe (that's your payment history), and donation-routing records persist with our donation platform. Charge-alert emails, which include that day's per-device split, exist in the email accounts involved. Device sign-in records (with the last-contact time) and push-notification tokens are kept until that device is signed out.
Who we share with
Only service providers needed to operate: Stripe (payments), Change (getchange.io) (routing our downstream payments to the organizations you selected), Google/Gmail (sending charge-alert emails), Apple (delivering push notifications to your iPhone), and Fly.io (server hosting). We never sell or share your data for advertising or any other purpose.
Your choices
You can turn off tracked sites or remove apps and websites from your iPhone selection (from the next day), pause charging, remove your card, sign out, turn off the app's Screen Time access, or uninstall at any time. Email us to have your server-side and Stripe-side records deleted (charge records may be retained where required for financial record-keeping).