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Privacy Policy
Last updated: April 2026
PaperWeight has no servers. All your data stays in your browser. The only outbound requests are the ones you explicitly set up — RSS feeds you follow, an AI provider you choose, or your own Apps Script endpoint.
What PaperWeight stores locally
Everything PaperWeight knows about you is stored in chrome.storage.local — inside your browser, on your device only:
- Article metadata you interact with — URL, title, author, publication, topic tags
- Your taste profile — author and topic weights built from your likes, dislikes, and reading signals
- Authors and sources you follow, with their RSS feed URLs
- Your reading history — articles you read deeply, used for the "Read This Week" digest section (kept for 90 days, then pruned automatically)
- Your digest schedule — cadence, day, time, and timezone
- Optional: an AI API key you provide (stored locally, sent only to your chosen provider)
- Optional: your Google Apps Script URL (stored locally, used only to send your digest)
What PaperWeight never collects
- No account, no sign-up, no email address required
- No data is sent to PaperWeight — there are no PaperWeight servers
- No browsing history beyond articles you explicitly interact with
- No full email content — newsletter sync reads only subject, sender name, date, and a plain-text snippet from your Gmail inbox
- No analytics, no tracking pixels, no crash reporting, no telemetry of any kind
Outbound requests
PaperWeight makes network requests only in these specific cases:
- RSS feeds — fetched directly from author and publication servers when you click "Get Latest." Requests go to the source domain, not to PaperWeight.
- AI API (optional) — if you add an API key in Settings, article titles and short snippets (≤300 characters) are sent to your chosen provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google) to generate topic tags. No personal data, no article body content, no browsing history is included. You can use PaperWeight without this.
- Google Apps Script (optional) — if you set up the email digest, PaperWeight sends a GET request to your personal Apps Script URL to read your recent newsletters, and a POST request containing the pre-built HTML digest for sending. Your Apps Script runs entirely in your own Google account — PaperWeight never receives your email data.
Optional: Gmail newsletter reading
If you choose to set up the email digest, PaperWeight can include newsletters from your Gmail inbox. This works through a Google Apps Script you deploy yourself — a small script that runs inside your own Google account. The script reads recent emails matching newsletter patterns (Substack, Beehiiv, Ghost, emails with unsubscribe links) and returns subject, sender, date, and a plain-text snippet. This data is used only to build your digest and is never sent to PaperWeight.
You control the script. You can delete it, modify it, or revoke its access at any time from script.google.com.
Optional: AI key usage
Adding an AI API key is entirely optional. When provided, it is used for two things:
- Topic tagging — article title and a short snippet are sent to your provider to generate 2–4 topic tags. This improves how articles are scored against your taste profile.
- Digest synthesis — when your digest is generated, the full context (scored articles, newsletter subjects, reading history) is sent to your provider to write a personalised summary. No content from private emails or paywalled articles is included.
Your API key is stored in chrome.storage.local. It is never sent to PaperWeight or any third party other than the provider you chose.
Data export and deletion
You can export your full taste profile and sources at any time using the Export button in Settings. You can delete all stored data using "Clear everything" in Settings. Uninstalling the extension removes all locally stored data automatically.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes materially, the "Last updated" date above will be updated. PaperWeight has no way to notify users directly — check this page if you want to stay current.
Contact
Questions or concerns: mehta.hritik2001@gmail.com