# **IPFS Companion Privacy Policy**

<em>First Posted: 2019-02-15<br/>
Last Update: 2023-01-27</em> ([change history](https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/ipfs-companion/commits/main/PRIVACY-POLICY.md))

This Privacy Policy governs the use of the IPFS Companion browser extension
offered by Protocol Labs, Inc. (“**IPFS Companion**” or the “**Service**”).

The Service is offered subject to your acceptance without modification of all
the terms and conditions herein, and all other other operating rules, policies
and procedures that may be updated from time to time.  By accessing or using any
part of the Service, you agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of the
Privacy Policy.  If you do not agree to all of the terms and conditions of this
Privacy Policy, then you may not access the Service.

**Personal Information**

We do not collect personal information from the users of the Service.

**Metrics**

We collect non-user-specific metrics via the Service. For more information on
how to change your preferences with respect to the metrics, please contact us
via methods mentioned below.

**Additional Privacy Considerations**

If you add files to the IPFS Network using the IPFS Companion extension, they
will be stored on your local IPFS Network node. Those files are also then cached
by anyone who retrieves those files from the IPFS network and co-hosted on that
user’s local IPFS Network node. Generally, cached files will eventually expire,
but it’s possible for a user with whom you have shared access to such files (by
sharing the relevant Content Identifier or CID) to pin that data, which means
the cached files then will not expire and will remain stored on such user’s
local IPFS Network node. All content shared with the IPFS Network is public by
default. This means your files and data that you’ve added will be accessible to
everyone who knows the CID or queries the data on the IPFS Network. If you want
to share certain materials or data privately, you must encrypt such data before
adding it to the IPFS Network.


If you are using “Linkify IPFS Addresses” or “Catch Unhandled IPFS Protocols”
experiments, websites will be able to detect you are running IPFS Companion.
This behavior can be changed on the Preferences screen by disabling mentioned experiments.


If you are using DNSLink (its lookup is enabled by default), then the IPFS node
will be executing DNS queries for all domain names visited during browsing, and
those queries will use a DNS resolver configured in your operating system. To
disable this behavior, set "DNSLink lookup" to "Off" in Preferences.


**Contact Us**

Questions about our Privacy Policy?  Please contact us at
<legalrequests@protocol.ai>.  For general information, please reach out via a [new issue on our GitHub repo](https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs-companion/issues/new/choose).

**Changes to our Privacy Policy**

If we decide to change our Privacy Policy, we will post those changes on this
page and also at https://ipfs.tech/companion-privacy.

This document is CC-BY-SA. It was last updated January 24th, 2023.

