Chrome Extension Privacy Policy

This page describes the data the Auto-Ranked Chrome extension reads, where it goes, and what we do with it. The Auto-Ranked web app at auto-ranked.com has its own policy at /privacy-policy.

1. What the extension can access

The extension is granted the following permissions in its manifest:

• storage — to remember your sign-in token, panel open/closed state, and cached watch-page analyses for 30 minutes (in chrome.storage.sync and chrome.storage.session).
• notifications — to alert you when your sign-in session has expired.
• scripting and tabs — to inject our panel into YouTube and YouTube Studio pages and to message the right tab when you press a keyboard shortcut.
• Host access to youtube.com, studio.youtube.com, auto-ranked.com, and auto-ranked.onrender.com.

2. What we read from YouTube

When you visit a YouTube watch page, the extension reads only the video's URL (youtube.com/watch?v=…) so that our backend can fetch the public video metadata via the YouTube Data API.

When you are in YouTube Studio and choose to apply suggestions, the extension reads and writes the title, description, and tags fields of the video you have open. It does not read or store any other personal data from Studio.

3. What we send to our backend

The extension sends requests to https://auto-ranked.onrender.com/api:

• The video URL or your typed video title, when you ask for suggestions.
• Your Auto-Ranked Firebase token in the Authorization header when you are signed in.
• An X-AutoRanked-Client: extension header so we can rate-limit the extension separately from our web app.

We do not send your YouTube account credentials. We do not send screen recordings, click streams, mouse movements, or your watch history.

4. What we store locally

• authToken — your Auto-Ranked session token, in chrome.storage.sync. Cleared automatically if the backend returns 401.
• authExpiredAt — a timestamp of when your session last expired, used to show the "session expired" message. Cleared when you dismiss the message or sign in again.
• autorankWatchPanel — a flag remembering whether you had the Watch panel open or closed.
• ar:watch:<videoId> — cached suggestions for a given video, kept for 30 minutes in chrome.storage.session and cleared automatically when you close Chrome.

5. Telemetry

We currently send no telemetry from the extension. We do not record selector hits, panel-open counts, or any usage events.

If we later add optional telemetry, it will be:

• Off by default.
• Visibly toggleable from the popup with a plain-language explanation of what gets sent.
• Anonymous — no video IDs, no titles, no tokens.

6. Third parties

• YouTube — we read public video metadata via the YouTube Data API on our backend. Your YouTube account is not connected by the extension itself; connecting your channel is an action you take in the Auto-Ranked web app.
• OpenAI and Google Gemini — your video title or URL, plus the public metadata for that video, is sent to OpenAI's GPT models and Google's Gemini models on our backend so we can generate suggestions. We do not send your name, email, or any account identifier in these requests.

7. What you can do

• Clear all extension state by going to chrome://extensions/, finding Auto-Ranked, opening Site Data, and clicking "Remove."
• Sign out from the popup at any time — this clears your token from chrome.storage.sync.
• Email us at support@auto-ranked.com for any data request, including deletion.

8. Changes

If we materially change this policy, we'll update the version date at the top and surface a notice in the extension popup the next time you open it.