BlockTheWeb Privacy Policy
The short version.
- The extension makes no network requests. It checks the hostname of each page you open against your rules, on your own Mac.
- Your browsing is never uploaded. Sites you are allowed to visit are not recorded anywhere.
- The extension never reads the content of the pages you visit. It installs no scripts into any page.
- Accountability is your choice. Only if you sign in and pair with a partner does the Mac app send data to our service: your account email address, your Mac's name, protection status and alerts, and the hostnames you ask to unblock, with the minutes you asked for. Your partner sees this information.
- We have no advertising, no analytics, and no tracking. We do not sell, rent, or share your data, except with the partner you choose and the service providers named below.
Who we are
BlockTheWeb is an independent product. In this policy, "we" and "us"
mean the developer of BlockTheWeb. "The extension" means the BlockTheWeb
browser extension in the Chrome Web Store. "The Mac app" means the
BlockTheWeb app for macOS and its background protection agent. "The
service" means the BlockTheWeb accountability service at
api.blocktheweb.com and the partner web app at
app.blocktheweb.com.
What the extension can see
To block a page before it loads, the extension has to know where a tab
is going. It uses the browser's tab and navigation APIs, and the host
permissions http://*/* and https://*/*, to
observe navigations and the addresses of open tabs.
It uses that address in a narrow way: it extracts the hostname and compares it to your rules. The path, the query string, and the fragment of a URL are used only for that in-memory comparison at the moment of navigation. They are never stored, never logged, and never transmitted.
The extension does not:
- read, modify, or inject anything into the pages you visit;
- read page text, forms, cookies, passwords, or HTTP request bodies;
- read your browser's history database, bookmarks, or downloads;
- contain any tracking, analytics, advertising, or fingerprinting code;
- make any network request, to us or to anyone else.
What is stored on your computer
In the browser, by the extension
The extension keeps a copy of your rules in extension-owned browser storage, so that blocking survives a browser restart and keeps working when the Mac app is not running. That storage holds:
- your rules: the hostnames you allow, your schedule, the schedule's time zone, and any approved temporary exceptions with their end times;
- the rules' revision number and digest, used to detect rolled-back or tampered rules;
-
the current protection status and, if protection failed, a short
diagnostic code and timestamp, for example
policy-missing.
The time zone is part of your schedule. It is not a location lookup, and the product uses no geolocation API.
On your Mac, by the Mac app
- Blocked attempts. When a page is blocked, the app records the hostname, a timestamp, a random identifier, and the outcome. It shows you the last 24 hours. No full URL is recorded, and this record is not uploaded.
- Exception requests. When you request time on a blocked site, the request is queued with the hostname, the minutes you chose, the browser, a random identifier, and the time.
- Extension health. Which browser is connected, its extension version, and when it was last seen, so the app can tell whether protection actually covers that browser.
- Account credentials. If you sign in, your sign-in tokens and a device credential are kept in the macOS Keychain.
- Diagnostic logs. Local troubleshooting logs. These exclude full URLs, query strings, fragments, tokens, cookies, and authorization values, and they redact your macOS username and home directory path. They leave your Mac only if you choose to send them to us.
The connection between the extension and the Mac app
The extension talks to the Mac app over Chrome's native messaging, a local channel between two programs on the same computer. This channel does not touch the internet. Its messages carry only:
- a message type and protocol version;
- the browser name and the extension's version number;
- whether a window is regular or Incognito, and a one-time answer that proves the extension in that window is running your current rules;
- the hostname that was blocked, or the hostname and minutes of an exception request;
- the revision and digest of the rules the extension applied.
No credential, cookie, token, or password ever passes over this channel.
What leaves your Mac
If you do not sign in, nothing about you. The Mac app
works without an account. Its only network request is a periodic check
for updates at update.blocktheweb.com, which carries the
app's name and version, like any download. It sends no information
about you, your rules, or your browsing.
If you sign in under Family Accountability, the Mac app sends the following to the service over HTTPS.
Your account
You sign in with Google through Amazon Cognito. We receive your email address, whether Google has verified it, and the given and family name on your Google account. Your Google password never reaches us. We do not request access to your Gmail, contacts, calendar, or files.
Your Mac
- Registration: your Mac's name (as set in macOS Sharing settings), the app version, and the extension's ID.
- Health check, about once a minute: the protection state (Protected or Repair required), the app and extension versions, the revision and digest of your rules, and when Chrome's regular and Incognito windows last proved protection. Your schedule and your allowed hostnames are not sent; only a digest of them is.
When you are paired with a partner
- Partner invitation: your partner's email address.
- Protection events: the type and time of events such as extension removed or turned off, repair required, the Mac stopped checking in, protection weakened (a shorter or deleted schedule, a larger allow-list, deactivation), unpairing, uninstall, sleep, and shutdown. A weakening event carries a digest of the old and new values, not the values themselves.
- Exception requests: the hostname, the minutes you asked for, and the time.
- Decisions: your partner's approval or denial, its duration, and a digital signature that your Mac checks before it applies the decision.
Your partner signs in to the partner web app with their own Google account. They see your Mac's name, your email address, the protection events, and your exception requests and their decisions. They do not see your browsing, your blocked attempts, your schedule, or your allow-list.
The service sends your partner an invitation email and alerts that need attention. An alert contains the event type and your Mac's name. An exception request email also contains the requested hostname. Each email links to the web app; an email cannot approve anything.
Our websites
Like most websites, blocktheweb.com and its subdomains keep
standard access logs: IP address, time, requested page, and browser
type. We use them only for security and troubleshooting, and delete
them after 90 days. The websites set no tracking cookies.
Service providers
We use two service providers, and no others:
- Amazon Web Services hosts the service, the websites, sign-in (Amazon Cognito), the database, email delivery (Amazon SES), and the decision-signing key, in the US East (N. Virginia) region.
- Google provides sign-in. Google's own privacy policy covers your Google account.
How long we keep data
- Partner invitations expire after 24 hours and are then deleted automatically.
- Exception requests that nobody answers expire after 24 hours.
- Repair signals used to time alerts are deleted after 90 days.
- Your account, devices, pairings, events, requests, and decisions are kept while your account exists, so that you and your partner can see the history.
- Service logs are deleted after 30 days. Database backups for recovery are kept for up to 35 days.
- On your computer, the browser removes extension storage when you remove the extension, and uninstalling the Mac app removes its files.
Deleting your data
To delete your account and all of its data from the service, write to dev@blocktheweb.com from the email address of your account. We delete it within 30 days, and it leaves our backups within a further 35 days. If you are paired, your partner loses access to your history.
Chrome Web Store data disclosure
Google asks extension developers to declare which categories of user data the extension handles, including data that is only processed or stored locally. This is our declaration for the categories Google defines, and it matches what we select in the Chrome Web Store Developer Dashboard.
| Category | Handled | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Personally identifiable information | No | The extension requests, reads, and stores no name, address, email address, age, or identification number. |
| Health information | No | No health or medical data is handled. |
| Financial and payment information | No | No payment, card, banking, transaction, or credit data is handled. |
| Authentication information | No | The extension has no sign-in and handles no password, credential, security question, or PIN. Google sign-in happens in the Mac app, through the system browser. |
| Personal communications | No | The extension reads no email, chat, or other messages. An exception request contains no free text. |
| Location | No | No geolocation, IP-based location, or physical address is collected. The schedule time zone is a setting you choose. |
| Web history | Yes | The extension observes the pages you navigate to in order to block them, and gives the Mac app the hostnames of blocked attempts, which stay on your Mac. When you request an exception, its hostname goes to the Mac app, which sends it to your partner if you are paired. Only hostnames are used, never full URLs, and allowed browsing is not recorded. |
| User activity | Yes | Navigation and tab events, and the moments you request an exception, are processed to enforce and report on your rules. No clicks, keystrokes, scrolling, or mouse movement on any page is observed. |
| Website content | No | No page text, images, DOM, audio, video, or other resource is read. The extension runs no content scripts. |
Limited use of data
Our use of data obtained through the extension complies with the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Specifically:
- we do not sell user data, and we transfer it only to the partner you choose and to the service providers named above, to provide the extension's single purpose;
- we do not use or transfer user data for purposes unrelated to that single purpose, which is enforcing the website blocking you configure and reporting on it to your partner;
- we do not use or transfer user data to determine creditworthiness or for lending purposes;
- we do not use user data for advertising, retargeting, or personalization, or to build user profiles. We do not read your data, except when you ask us for support or when the law requires it.
Who we share data with
- Your partner, if you pair, as described above.
- Our service providers, Amazon Web Services and Google, only to run the service.
- Authorities, only if the law compels us. We cannot disclose what we do not hold, and we never hold your browsing.
Children
BlockTheWeb accounts are not for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from them. Google sign-in has its own minimum age. The extension and the Mac app work without an account, and then collect no personal data off the device.
Security
- All connections to the service and the websites use HTTPS with TLS 1.2 or later.
- The database and email system encrypt data at rest.
- Each Mac gets its own device credential, kept in the Keychain. The service stores only a hash of it.
- Partner decisions are signed with a key that never leaves Amazon's key management service. Your Mac rejects a decision that is not correctly signed, has expired, or belongs to another device.
- The extension keeps your rules in extension-owned storage that web pages cannot reach, and checks their revision and digest to detect rollback or tampering.
Changes to this policy
If how BlockTheWeb handles data changes, we will update this page and the "last updated" date above before the change reaches users, and we will update the disclosures in the Chrome Web Store to match.
Contact
Questions about privacy, or a request about your data, can go to dev@blocktheweb.com.