What we store, and what we don't

The kit asks for your name, city, and optionally your address, phone and email so it can write the removal letters. Those never leave your browser — not to our server, and not to Google Analytics. The letters are assembled on your device, and when you click “Email request” your own mail program opens with the letter in it — the message goes from you to the broker, and we are not a party to it. The same goes for the letter box on each guide page and the kit on the homepage.

The kit page does load Google Analytics, like every page here (next section), so your browser's network tab will show requests to Google. What they carry is the page address and which buttons were used — for example that a kit was built for California, or that the Spokeo opt-out link was clicked — never a value you typed. Two tests in our repository enforce this: tests/test_kit_is_client_only.py checks the code, and a browser test fills the kit with a sample name, address, phone and email and fails the build if any of them appears in any request the page makes.

One link does carry your name, and only when you click it: “Check if listed” opens the broker's own search page with your name in its address, so the broker can show you your listing. That request goes from your browser to the broker, not to us or to Google.

An account is optional. Everything the kit does works without one. If you make one, this is the complete list of what exists in our database about you:

• Your email address, a hash of your password (we cannot read your password), and the date you signed up.
• Your checklist: which broker sites you are tracking, the status you set for each (not started, request sent, confirmed removed, came back), and the dates you changed them. Site names and dates — nothing about you.
• Whether you asked to be told when the paid tier opens, and which part of the site you asked from.

That is all of it. We do not hold your legal name, date of birth, addresses, phone numbers, relatives, or any of the information a data broker publishes about you — not encrypted, not anywhere. There is no such field in our database, and a test asserts there isn't.

We do not file removal requests for you, and you have not appointed us as your agent. You send each request yourself. That is a deliberate limit on the free service, and it is the reason we need so little from you.

Every page on this site, including the free kit, runs Google Analytics 4, so we can see which guides people read and where the kit loses them. Google receives:

• The address of each page you view, with anything after a “?” removed. On the account screens it gets the screen name (“#login”) and nothing after it.
• The page you came from, also without anything after a “?”.
• Your device and browser: type, operating system, screen size, language.
• Your approximate location — country, region, city — which Google works out from your IP address. Google says it does not log or store the IP address itself for Analytics 4 (read 6 October 2026).
• Which things you used: building the kit (and the jurisdiction you picked), copying or emailing a letter, opening a broker's opt-out page, ticking a step or a site off, searching the directory (how many results, never the words you searched), opening an FAQ answer, signing up, logging in, joining the waitlist, and changing a status in your checklist; the domain of any other site you follow a link to; and the address of a page here that does not exist. Each carries only a broker's name from our registry, a choice from a fixed list, or a count.

Google does not receive anything you type into the kit, a guide's letter box, a search box or a sign-up form; your email address; or any account identifier. We do not link analytics to your account.

Settings we have chosen: Google signals and ad personalisation are off, and the data is not used for advertising. Analytics data is kept for 14 months, then deleted by Google. Outside the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, Google Analytics sets two cookies (_ga and _ga_M1XNCFTB3B) to tell a returning browser from a new one. Inside those regions it sets no cookies, by default and with no banner to change that: Google receives the same page views and events without an identifier.

To opt out, install Google's Analytics opt-out browser add-on, or use any content blocker that blocks Google Analytics — the site, the kit included, works the same without it. How Google uses this data: policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

We do not sell or share your data and we have no advertising. Google sees what the analytics section above lists. Apart from that, the only cookies are the one that keeps you logged in and a token that protects forms from cross-site abuse.

The site and its database run on a server we rent from a hosting provider, who can technically access the machine as any host can. Certificates come from Let's Encrypt. Analytics is Google. That is the whole list of third parties.

When you load a page, our web server writes one line to a log: the time, which page, whether it loaded, the page you came from, and your browser's name and version. It does not record your IP address, and it does not record anything after a “?” in an address. There is no cookie or identifier in it, so it cannot tell whether two lines came from the same person.

We use it to count which pages people read and how they found us, so we know which guides to improve. The free kit never appears in it beyond the page itself loading: what you type into the kit stays in your browser. Log files are deleted after 90 days. This log is ours; Google Analytics, above, is separate.

While your account exists. Delete your account and the checklist goes with it — it is removed from the database, not flagged as hidden. We have no backups older than the server's own, and no archive of deleted accounts.

Depending on where you live you may have the right to see, correct, export or delete what we hold, and to complain to a regulator. Because what we hold is so small, the fastest route is simply to ask: email privacy@optstub.com and a person — currently the only person — will answer. We aim to reply within 30 days.

We are not a data broker. We do not collect or sell information about people who are not our users, and we keep no index of anyone.

The service is not intended for anyone under 16, and we do not knowingly create accounts for them.

If this changes materially we will say so here and date it. Previous versions are in our public git history.

This policy covers the free service only. A paid tier — where we would file requests on your behalf and therefore hold the information needed to match your records — does not exist yet, and will have its own policy, reviewed by a lawyer, before it takes anyone's money. This document was written by the founder, not by counsel.