Who we are
Scaredy Cat is a free Chrome extension that blurs horror pictures and trailers while you browse. scaredycat.app is its website. In this policy, “we” means the person who makes Scaredy Cat. You can write to us about anything on this page at hello@scaredycat.app.
Detection runs on your device
Scaredy Cat decides what to blur on your computer. It reads the text around a picture, such as titles, captions and alt text, and when that text is unclear it runs a small image model that comes inside the extension. The pixels of the pictures it checks are never uploaded anywhere.
The extension has no accounts and shows no ads. It contains no analytics or tracking code. We never sell data, and we never share it for advertising.
What the extension downloads
Every 6 hours, the extension downloads two files from scaredycat.app: the list of horror titles it watches for, and the spoiler summaries it shows on its blur cards. These requests carry no cookies and no ID. The only extra thing they send is a standard cache tag, which lets the server answer that nothing has changed. Both files are signed, and the extension refuses a copy whose signature doesn’t match.
As with any web request, scaredycat.app sees your IP address when the extension asks for these files.
Pictures being checked
To look at a picture, the extension requests it again from the same address the page used, without your cookies, and analyses that copy on your computer. For an embedded YouTube video, it fetches the video’s thumbnail from YouTube’s image server (i.ytimg.com) instead.
These requests go to the servers that already host the pictures. As with any web request, those servers see your IP address. Nothing about the result is sent anywhere.
Reports you choose to send
Reports are how you tell us Scaredy Cat got something wrong, or send us a note. Report sharing is off when you install the extension. It turns on only when you do one of these:
- Switch on Share reports to improve detection in the extension’s popup or on its welcome page.
- Accept the consent message the extension shows before your first report or note.
You can switch sharing off at any time in the popup. Nothing is sent while it is off. Reporting a missed picture still blurs it on your computer when sharing is off; the report just isn’t sent.
What a report contains
- The kind of report, a random report ID and the time it was made.
- The address of the page you were on, cut off before any ? or #. For a note sent from the popup, this is the address of the tab you have open. Notes sent from the welcome page include no page address.
- For a report about a picture or video: its address (also cut off before any ? or #), what kind of element it was, the title Scaredy Cat matched, its confidence score and band, and the reasons for its decision.
- Your sensitivity setting, and the version numbers of the extension, its image model and its title list.
- Your note (up to 2,000 characters) and the category you picked for it. When you use Report missed horror to pick something on the page, the note is filled in with up to 240 characters of text next to it, such as its alt text, a nearby link or a caption.
- Your email address, only if you type one in.
A report never contains the picture itself or your browsing history.
Where reports go
The extension sends each report to scaredycat.app over an encrypted connection. The site checks it and passes it on to our report database without keeping a copy. If a report can’t be sent, for example because you are offline, the extension keeps it on your computer and tries again up to 5 times before dropping it.
When a report arrives, scaredycat.app uses your IP address to limit how many reports one connection can send in 10 minutes. That count is kept only in the server’s memory, and your IP address is never added to the report. Our hosting provider keeps standard request logs, which include IP addresses, for a short time for security and troubleshooting.
How we use reports
We use reports only to improve Scaredy Cat’s detection and the title list, and to reply to you if you included your email address. We don’t sell them or use them for advertising. Apart from the services that host the site and store the reports, nobody else receives them. Our use of this information follows the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements.
How long we keep them
Reports are deleted from our report database after 6 months. To see or delete a report you sent before then, email hello@scaredycat.app. Reports have no name or account attached, so tell us roughly when you sent it and what it was about, or the email address you included, and we will find it.
What stays on your computer
Scaredy Cat keeps these in Chrome’s storage for the extension:
- Your settings: whether Scaredy Cat is on, your sensitivity, the sites you paused it on, the titles you chose to show and your report-sharing choice. If you use Chrome sync, Chrome may copy these settings to your Google account so they follow you to your other computers.
- The pictures you chose to show and the pictures you reported, so they stay that way.
- A count of how many items Scaredy Cat has hidden.
- The downloaded title list and spoiler summaries, and when they were last fetched.
- Reports waiting to be sent, and the times of recent sends, which are used to space them out.
- Short fingerprints of the reports sent in the last 24 hours, so the same report isn’t sent twice.
- A cache of picture scores, so the same picture isn’t checked twice. Each entry is filed under a one-way hash of the picture’s address, so the addresses themselves aren’t stored there, and the cache holds at most 10,000 entries.
Apart from the settings Chrome may sync and the reports waiting to be sent, none of this leaves your computer. Removing the extension deletes all of it.
This website
scaredycat.app sets no cookies on its public pages and runs no analytics or ads. Its pages load everything they need from scaredycat.app itself, so visiting doesn’t contact other companies’ servers. Our hosting provider keeps standard request logs, which include IP addresses, for a short time for security and troubleshooting.
The install buttons open Scaredy Cat’s page on the Chrome Web Store. Each link carries tags that name the button you pressed and, if you arrived from another website or from a link with tags of its own, the name of that website or link. Google shows us these as totals in the store’s dashboard, with nothing that identifies you. To keep that source while you move between pages, the site stores it in your browser’s session storage, which empties when you close the tab. The Chrome Web Store itself is covered by Google’s privacy policy.
Before launch, the site ran a waitlist for the beta. If you joined it, the form service that held the list still has the email address you entered, and we use it only to email you about Scaredy Cat. To be taken off the list, email hello@scaredycat.app.
Title data
Scaredy Cat’s daily list of new horror titles comes from TMDB. This website uses TMDB and the TMDB APIs but is not endorsed, certified, or otherwise approved by TMDB. The extension downloads that list from scaredycat.app.
Children
Scaredy Cat is not directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from them. If you think a child has sent us a report with their email address or joined the waitlist, email hello@scaredycat.app and we will delete it.
Changes to this policy
When this policy changes, we update the date at the top of this page. Material changes, such as a new kind of data leaving your device, are also listed on What’s new with the extension version they arrived in.
Contact
Questions about this policy, or requests to see or delete your data, go to hello@scaredycat.app.