Readingfeed — Privacy Policy
Last updated: 15 September 2026
Readingfeed is a browser extension that reshapes YouTube's feed into a calm, text-first reading view, and can summarise videos using the language model built into Chrome.
This policy describes every piece of data the extension touches. It is written against the code, not from a template — if something is not listed here, the extension does not do it.
There is no Readingfeed account, and no Readingfeed server. We do not operate any backend that receives your data.
1. What Readingfeed reads
To build the reading view, the extension reads the following from the YouTube pages you visit, in your browser:
- video titles, channel names, durations, view counts and upload dates
- video descriptions and chapter lists
- video IDs and thumbnail URLs
When you open a video and its details are not already present on the page, the extension requests that video's own YouTube page from youtube.com using your existing YouTube session, to read the title, description and chapter list from it.
When you press Summarize on a video, the extension also opens YouTube's own transcript panel for that video and reads the transcript text it shows. The panel is part of YouTube's page and is loaded by YouTube itself; Readingfeed only reads what it displays. If the video has no transcript, the description and chapter list are used instead.
These requests go only to youtube.com, are for content your account is already
able to see, and carry no information about you beyond the session your browser
already holds.
The extension runs only on youtube.com. It cannot read any other site.
2. What is sent to a language model
When you press Summarize, the video's transcript — or, when it has none, its description and chapter titles — is passed to Chrome's built-in Summarizer (Gemini Nano), which runs on your own device. Two summaries are written from it there: a short one, and a longer one you can open.
This text is not transmitted to us, and not transmitted to any third party. No API key, cloud model or external inference service is involved. If your device cannot run the built-in model, no summary is produced and nothing is sent anywhere.
Summaries are only generated after you have given explicit permission in the extension's popup. You can withdraw that permission at any time from the same place, which stops summarisation immediately.
3. What is stored, and where
All of it stays on your device.
| What | Where | Kept for |
|---|---|---|
| Your settings (toggles, theme and text size) | chrome.storage.local |
Until you change or uninstall |
| Whether your device can run the model | chrome.storage.local |
Re-checked every 6 hours |
| Trial start date | chrome.storage.local |
Until you uninstall |
| Your licence key and a random install ID | chrome.storage.local |
Until you remove it |
| Your consent, and its version | chrome.storage.local |
Until you withdraw it |
| Generated summaries, short and long, with the length of the transcript they came from | localStorage on youtube.com |
30 days |
| The words you last highlighted in a video's summary (one highlight per video), where they sit in it, and the video they belong to | localStorage on youtube.com |
30 days |
| When the model was last used, to estimate how long the next summary will take | localStorage on youtube.com |
Until you clear site data |
| A copy of your theme, whether the reader is switched on, when you last switched it off, and how soon it comes back on by itself if you turned that on, so the page opens without a flash | localStorage on youtube.com |
Until you clear site data |
Uninstalling the extension removes everything in chrome.storage.local.
Clearing YouTube's site data removes the cached summaries and your highlights.
4. The only data that leaves your device
There is exactly one outbound request that is not to YouTube.
Licence validation. If you buy Readingfeed and enter a licence key, the key and a randomly generated install identifier are sent to our payment provider to confirm the purchase and to bind the licence to this installation. This happens when you activate a key, and at most once a week afterwards to re-confirm it. If a key turns out to belong to a different product, one more request releases it again, so it does not use up a seat on someone else's licence.
- Recipient: our payment provider (currently Lemon Squeezy,
api.lemonsqueezy.com) - Sent: the licence key you entered, and a random UUID generated on your device
- Not sent: your name, email, IP-derived profile, browsing history, watch history, video IDs, summaries, or anything about how you use the extension
The install identifier is a random value created locally. It is not derived from your device, your browser, or any account, and it is not used to track you across sites.
If you never enter a licence key, the extension makes no requests to anyone except YouTube.
5. What Readingfeed never does
- No analytics, telemetry, crash reporting or usage tracking of any kind in the extension. (The readingfeed.app website counts visits, see section 9.)
- No advertising, and no advertising identifiers.
- We never read, store or transmit your browsing history or your YouTube watch history.
- We never collect your name, email address or any other personal identifier. (Your email is held by our payment provider if you buy a licence; we do not receive it through the extension.)
- We do not sell, rent or share data with anyone, because we do not receive any.
- No remotely executed code. All logic ships inside the extension package.
6. Chrome Web Store limited use
Readingfeed's use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Specifically:
- Data is used only to provide the reading view and the summaries you have enabled, as described in the store listing.
- Data is not transferred to third parties except as described in §4, which is required to provide the licensing feature you asked for.
- Data is not used or transferred for advertising, ad personalisation, or creditworthiness.
- No human reads your data. We have no mechanism to.
7. Children
Readingfeed is not directed at children under 13 and collects no personal information from anyone.
8. Your controls
- Turn everything off. The master switch in the popup disables the extension without uninstalling it.
- Withdraw summary consent. In the popup footer. Summarisation stops immediately, on open tabs as well.
- Delete cached summaries and highlights. Clear YouTube's site data in your browser. A highlight also goes when you click elsewhere on the page.
- Remove your licence. "Remove" in the popup deletes the key from your device.
- Delete everything. Uninstall the extension.
Because we hold no data about you, there is nothing for us to delete on request. If you bought a licence, requests about your purchase record should go to our payment provider, who is the merchant of record for that transaction.
9. The readingfeed.app website
Everything above is about the extension, which sends nothing. The website is separate: it counts visits, so we can see which pages are read and which sites send people to us.
- Tool: PostHog (US cloud), reached through readingfeed.app itself
- Recorded for each page you open: the page address, the site whose link you followed (for example reddit.com), campaign tags in that link, your browser, operating system and screen size, and how long you stayed
- Nothing is stored in your browser: no cookies, no local storage, no identifier. PostHog groups a day's page views into one visit using a hash of your IP address and browser, made with a secret that changes every day, then drops the IP address. A visit cannot be linked to you or to another day.
- Not recorded: clicks, anything you type, screen recordings, or anything from the extension
- We do not sell or share this data.
10. Changes
If what the extension reads, stores or sends changes, the consent version inside the extension is incremented, and you will be shown the updated disclosure and asked again before summaries continue. This date will also change.