Privacy Policy

1. Controller

BrowserWorks Ltd (registered office: 4th Floor Fitzrovia House, 153-157 Cleveland Street, London, W1T 6QW, United Kingdom; hereafter "BrowserWorks", "we", "our") acts according to the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) as well as further valid data protection regulations as a controller. You can reach us at the following correspondence address:

BrowserWorks
Suite 140, 372 Old Street, London, EC1V 9AU
United Kingdom

Email:privacy@browser.works

2. Processing of personal data / purpose of processing

2.1 Visiting the Website

Automatic Website Processing

Application-level Cloudflare Worker invocation logs and traces are disabled for query-bearing requests. Cloudflare and the other service providers we use may still process technical information, including IP addresses and request metadata, as needed to provide hosting, security, authentication, billing, and search functionality.

The hosting of the Website and the services offered by us are carried out by external service providers on our behalf.

Cookies

Our services use cookies in several cases. Cookies are small text files that are automatically generated by your browser and stored on your device when you use our services. Cookies do not harm your computer and do not contain any viruses, Trojans, or other malware.

The use of cookies enables us to make the use of our services more comfortable for you and to keep you signed in securely across pages.

The data processed by cookies is necessary for the purposes mentioned above in order to protect our legitimate interests (Art. 6 para. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR). Our legitimate interest is to make the Website user-friendly and secure.

Most browsers automatically accept cookies. However, you have the option of adjusting your browser so that no cookies are stored on your computer or a notification always appears beforehand. If you deactivate cookies entirely, you may no longer be able to use all functions on our Website.

2.2 Email Requests

If you send us an email, we process your personal data to the extent necessary to answer your request.

Please note that your emails can be stored and archived for a longer period in order to comply with our legal obligations.

The legal basis for processing of your personal data in the context of email support services is either Art. 6 para. 1 sent. 1 lit. b GDPR (performance of a contract) or the processing occurs alternatively on the basis of our legitimate interests in replying to your requests, providing support services, and increasing customer satisfaction (Art. 6 para. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR).

2.3 Search Queries, Suggestions, and Preferences

When you perform a search, your query and search settings, such as the selected result type, country/location setting, pagination, time range, and autocorrect preference, may be sent to search result providers so we can return results. If you use domain blocking, excluded domains may be included as query filters in requests to the search provider.

Autocomplete suggestions may be requested from Google Suggest. Search results are currently requested through Serper, a Google Search API provider. We do not intentionally send your account ID or profile details to either provider as part of a search or suggestion request.

Temporary country, time-range, and autocorrect settings are carried in the search URL and may remain in your browser history. Theme and link-opening preferences are stored only in your browser. Domain blocklist entries are stored against your account in Cloudflare KV. The current service does not read or write these entries in Clerk metadata.

Result thumbnails and favicons may be fetched and cached through a signed first-party image proxy. The proxy does not receive your Clerk account ID or search query as part of the upstream image request.

2.4 Accounts, Subscriptions, and Billing

Waterfox Private Search uses Clerk for authentication, user account management, session handling, and subscription management. When you create an account or subscribe, Clerk processes account, authentication, session, subscription, and related billing information on our behalf.

Payment information is collected and processed through Stripe via our billing flow. We do not store full payment card details on our servers.

We record approximate search counts in Cloudflare KV for service operation and fair-use review. These records contain a count, period, and update time, but not the query or result contents, and are not copied into Clerk metadata by the current service.

3. Data Transfer and Service Providers

Your personal data may be stored on servers operated by technical service providers on our behalf. We use service providers for hosting, security, authentication, account management, subscription management, payment processing, email support, search results, and autocomplete suggestions.

If you make use of services that require passing on data, we will pass on your data accordingly. The legal basis for this is either the performance of the contract entered into with you (Art. 6 para. 1 sent. 1 lit. b GDPR) or our legitimate interest in offering the corresponding service (Art. 6 para. 1 sent. 1 lit. f GDPR).

4. Cross-Border Data Transmission

Your personal data may be transferred to other countries, including countries outside the UK. These countries may apply different privacy standards that differ from those of your place of residence. Please be aware that data processed in another country may be subject to different laws and may be accessible to governmental, judicial, law enforcement, and supervisory authorities of those countries. However, we will take reasonable measures to ensure an adequate level of data protection even if your personal data is transferred to these countries.

5. No Obligation to Provide Personal Data

The disclosure of your personal data is usually voluntary and there is no legal or contractual obligation to disclose your personal data. You may not be able to use our services or parts of our services if you do not provide us with certain personal data, such as account or payment information required for subscription access.

6. Retention Period

We endeavour to keep the processing of your personal data as low as possible. Unless specific retention periods are stipulated in this Privacy Policy, we will only retain your personal data as long as we need it to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected or, if applicable, for as long as required by statutory retention obligations. Storage periods can also result from the contracts entered into with you. In case of a given consent, your personal data will be deleted immediately after withdrawal of consent at the latest.

7. Your Rights Under UK Data Protection Law

Under UK data protection law, you have the following rights:

• Right of access
• Right to rectification
• Right to erasure
• Right to restriction of processing
• Right to object to processing
• Right to data portability
• Right to withdraw consent

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the contact details provided at the beginning of this Privacy Policy.

8. Complaints to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal data, you can make a complaint to us using the contact details at the beginning of this privacy notice.

If you are unhappy with how we have used your data after raising a complaint with us, you can also complain to the ICO.

The ICO's address:

Helpline number:0303 123 1113

Website:https://www.ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint

9. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The latest version will always be available on our Website.

10. Contact

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us at:

Email:privacy@browser.works