Privacy Policy

1 Information We Collect

PriceDropCatch is a browser extension designed to track product prices. By default the extension operates entirely locally within your browser.

We collect no personally identifiable information. Specifically, we do not collect:

• Your name, email address, or any account credentials
• Browsing history beyond the product pages you explicitly choose to track
• IP addresses or device identifiers for tracking purposes
• Payment information of any kind

The data stored by the extension — the product information you deliberately save (title, price, URL, image), your price history, and your alert preferences — is kept in Chrome's local storage on your device.

If you enable the optional Public Price History feature, the extension additionally sends anonymous price data points to our server. See that section for details.

Aside from the optional feature above, the only server interactions are (a) anonymous usage events such as add_product and remove_product with the product URL, used for understanding which retailers are in demand, and (b) if you opt in to email alerts, the email address you provide. Neither is linked to an account or persistent identifier.

2 How We Use Your Data

The product data you save is used solely to:

• Display your tracked products in the extension popup
• Check for price changes by fetching the product page periodically
• Send you a browser notification (or, optionally, an email) when a price drops below your alert threshold
• Show price history charts within the extension

Unless you opt in to Public Price History, this data does not leave your device in any form that identifies the product you are tracking.

3 Data Storage

All local data is stored using the Chrome Extension Storage API (chrome.storage.local), which keeps data on your local device only. This data is:

• Not synced across devices (we use local, not sync storage)
• Automatically deleted if you uninstall the extension
• Fully under your control — you can clear it at any time from within the extension

For anonymous price data collected under the opt-in feature (Section 4), see the retention policy described there.

4 Public Price History (Opt-out)

PriceDropCatch includes a feature called Share anonymous price history. This feature is on by default. You can turn it off at any time from the extension's settings panel; the toggle takes effect immediately.

When enabled, each time the extension successfully observes a new price for a product you have added to tracking, it sends a small payload to our server containing:

• The canonicalized product URL (query parameters such as affiliate tags and session IDs are stripped by the server before storage)
• The price and currency
• The timestamp of the observation
• The product title and image URL, if available, so the public page can display the product
• A randomly generated anonymous client identifier (UUID v4) used solely to detect abuse and rate-limit uploads. It is not tied to any personal information, is never displayed publicly, and is reset if you uninstall the extension or clear its storage.

What we do not send or store:

• Your name, email, or account credentials
• Your IP address — our server logs have IP redaction enabled for this endpoint
• Any browsing history other than the specific products you have manually chosen to track
• Any data from products you have not added to your tracking list

The aggregated, anonymous data is displayed on public product pages (e.g. /p/<store>/<product>) so that any visitor can see the price history for a product. Data from multiple users tracking the same product is merged into a single history. We reserve the right to remove or anonymize individual data points that appear to be inaccurate, duplicated, or abusive.

Retention. Anonymous price data is retained for up to 24 months, after which it is automatically deleted.

Erase your data at any time. Open the extension settings and click the erase my data link next to the Share price history toggle. This sends your randomly generated client identifier to /api/forget-client.php, which permanently deletes every price point uploaded from your installation and recomputes affected products' aggregates. You can also trigger the request manually by visiting https://www.pricedropcatch.com/api/forget-client.php?clientId=<your-id>; your identifier is stored under pdcClientId in the extension's local storage.

Turning it off. Disabling the toggle stops any further uploads immediately. Use the erase my data action above if you also want to remove previously uploaded points.

5 Third-Party Services

When checking prices, the extension makes direct HTTP requests to the retailer websites you have chosen to track (e.g., Amazon, Walmart, eBay). These requests are identical to a normal browser visit to that page.

We do not use any analytics services, advertising networks, or data brokers. The only server we transmit data to is pricedropcatch.com, for the limited purposes described in Sections 1 and 4.

The retailer websites themselves may set cookies or log requests according to their own privacy policies, which are outside our control.

6 Permissions Explained

The extension requests the following browser permissions:

• storage — to save your tracked products and settings locally
• alarms — to schedule periodic price checks (every 60 minutes by default)
• notifications — to alert you when a price drops
• tabs — to detect when you navigate to a supported product page so the "Track Price" button can appear
• host permissions (retailer domains) — to read product page content and fetch updated prices in the background
• offscreen — to parse HTML in the background without opening a visible tab

None of these permissions are used to collect or transmit personal data.

7 Children's Privacy

PriceDropCatch is not directed at children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect any information from children. If you believe a child has used this extension, please contact us and we will remove any associated anonymous data.

8 Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. We encourage you to review this policy periodically. Continued use of the extension after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy. Material changes that expand the data we collect will, where practical, be surfaced in the extension itself before taking effect.

9 Contact

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, want to request deletion of anonymous data associated with your client identifier, or have any other concerns, please contact us at:

[email protected]