LinkLocker

Privacy

We store no personal information beyond an email address, and we delete all logs (which are anonymized to begin with) within five days of their creation.

The biggest privacy feature of LinkLocker is the fact that there is no social component, which I believe to be an automatic win. The Web is completely full of places where one can speak in the open, while there aren't as many places to quietly stash things for one's own personal use. I don't want to be completely in "public" at all times, and I believe there must be plenty of other people who share that feeling. This is one of my primary motivations for building the site.

Crazy, misogynistic zombie-trolls will just have to harangue you elsewhere, because no one can speak to you at all on this site.

Personally Identifiable Information

• Nothing personal about you is stored in our database, aside from your email address. Your account's activity is in no way tracked in the database. Your row in the database's users table contains:
  • a unique identifier (so it can pair your data with your account);
  • a second unique identifier used only in authenticating sessions;
  • your email address;
  • your bcrypt-hashed password;
  • a flag stating whether you've confirmed your email address or not;
  • the expiration date of your current subscription;
  • a few bits of data about whether you referred anyone or were referred by anyone (no data which might in any way connect individual referrals or referrers to you is recorded).
  
  Feel free to make up a throwaway email address and retain near-complete anonymity if you are so inclined.
• Server access logs include only anonymized IP addresses, and are deleted on a rolling basis of five days. In other words, if you visit on Monday your visit's log entry will be deleted on Saturday.
• To the best of our knowledge, no traffic or other user data is logged by the company which hosts our servers. We contacted them for comment on this point, and their response was as follows:

  "We don't maintain logs for traffic connecting to [hosted servers]. All traffic from our network edge is passed directly to your [server]."

• Our payments processor stores your credit card number (plus its expiration date and CVV) so that it can be charged when your subscription is due for renewal. That is all. They know nothing else about you: they do not have your email address, nor your mailing address, nor your name...they have nothing else. Your account's ID is different from the one for your account in our database. There is no connection on their end between you, your data, and your payment method.

Other Privacy Features

• When you delete one of your links, it is truly deleted; the entire record is permanently removed from the database.
• Likewise, if you cancel your subscription, all of your data will automatically be deleted after a grace period of 30 days (we hang onto the data for this long in the event you change your mind).
• You can contact us at any time and request a complete deletion of all data relating to your account. Your link data, your account itself, and any payment information stored on our payment processor's servers will all be completely destroyed. Forever.
• No third-party analytics packages are running anywhere, even on the public-facing pages. Statistics software may be running on the back end, but the data going into it will be visible only to me.
• I would sooner stick my face in a food processor than ever run an ad. Again, you will never, ever see an advertisement on this site.
• Finally, I will never sell your data to a third party. I am in this for the long haul. I do not want outside investment, and I do not hope one day to sell the business to someone else. I am not going anywhere, and neither is your data.

As of today, November 20, 2024, we have never received warrants, gag orders, subpoenas, or other such requests from government or law enforcement agencies.

Still have questions?

Please feel welcome to contact me if you have any further questions, or if you believe you have found a privacy vulnerability. I will take any steps necessary to maintain the highest degree of privacy which is practicable.