Privacy Policy

This is a plain-language, good-faith description of what jst.pw stores and what it does with it, written by jst.pw and not by a lawyer. If you rely on it for anything commercial, have a lawyer review it first.

The short version

jst.pw stores what it needs to run a link shortener: your links and what you build around them, counts of how they're used (with no IP address stored on a click), and reports of abuse. We don't sell data, and we don't run advertising or analytics trackers of our own.

If you sign in

Signing in is Google only, so there's no jst.pw password for you to set. When you sign in, we store your name, email address, Google account ID, avatar URL (a link to an image hosted by Google), and the time Google told us your email was verified. We also store your plan and, for a Business plan, the date it ends.

Every link, whether or not you are signed in

For each link you shorten, we store: the short slug, the destination URL, an optional name, a title, description, and image we fetch from the destination page ourselves to build the preview on the waiting page, who created it if anyone was signed in, the IP address of whoever created it, a running click count and the time of the last click, whether it uses an instant redirect, whether it is active, an optional password (stored hashed, never in plain text), and whether a QR code was generated for it.

Links are permanent by design. Nothing expires automatically: a link stops working only if its owner deletes or disables it, or we disable it under the Terms. Deleting a link takes it out of service immediately. On our side it's a soft delete: the record is kept, and its short address is never given to anyone else.

We also keep a history of changes to each link's destination, name, owner and status. Only our admins can see it.

Routing rules, managed QR codes and link-in-bio pages

If you use these, we store what you enter: each rule's conditions and destination, each code's name, destination and style, and each page's address, content and design. A managed QR code keeps a count of its scans and the time of the last one. A link-in-bio page keeps a count of its visits, and each block on it keeps a count of its clicks. These are plain totals. Nothing about the person who scanned, visited or clicked is stored with them.

Clicks

Each time someone opens a short link, we log a click event: country and city, but only when a network header in front of our server supplies them. Often it doesn't, and then we record them as unknown rather than guess. We also log the referring site's hostname (never its full URL, which can carry someone else's tracking parameters), the device type, OS and browser, the routing rule that sent the visitor (if one did), and a visitor_hash. That hash is a salted digest of our app key, the date, the visitor's IP address and their user agent. It changes every day, and no raw IP address is stored on a click event.

For a link with an instant redirect, the details of each visit, IP address included, wait in a short queue on our server until a background worker turns them into the click event, normally within a second. They're removed from the queue as soon as that's done.

Reports

If someone reports a link as abusive, we store the reason, an optional note, and the reporter's IP address. We use the IP only to stop the same person reporting the same link over and over.

API keys

If you create an API key, we store its name, access level and expiry date, a fingerprint of the key (never the key itself), its first few characters so you can recognise it, how many requests it has made, and when and from which IP address it was last used. A revoked key stays on record, marked as revoked.

Business requests

If you ask for the Business plan, we store what you enter in the request form: your name and email address, your company, website and phone number if you give them, your main use, the number of links and clicks you expect, whether you need the API, and your message. The request is emailed to us, and a confirmation is emailed to you.

Third parties

• Google. If you sign in, that's through Google OAuth. Separately, jst.pw's own pages, including this one and the waiting page, load their typeface from Google Fonts, so Google's servers see that request and your IP address on those page views, not only when you sign in.
• The destination site. Our server fetches the destination page once to build the title, description and image preview. When you open a short link that shows the waiting page, that page loads the image live: your browser requests it directly from the destination's server before you continue, so the destination can see your IP address at that point, even though we ask your browser not to send a referrer for that image request. When you continue, or when a link forwards instantly, we set Referrer-Policy: unsafe-url on the redirect. That means the destination receives the full address of the page you came from, including its query string, as your referrer. This is not a private handoff.
• Link-in-bio pages. A video block loads its player from YouTube (youtube-nocookie.com) or Vimeo, and images on a page load from wherever the page's owner hosts them, so those services see your IP address when you view the page.
• We don't use Google Analytics, a Facebook pixel, or any advertising or analytics tracker of our own.

Cookies

jst.pw sets three cookies: a session cookie, a CSRF-protection token, and, if you sign in, a "remember me" cookie so you don't have to sign in again on your next visit. None of these are advertising or analytics cookies, and we don't share them with anyone.

The session itself is kept on our server, together with your IP address and browser user agent, and is removed after it expires. If you unlock a password-protected link, the session remembers that, so you aren't asked again while it lasts. If you close a site notice, your browser remembers that in its own storage; nothing about it is sent to us.

One exception: the waiting page can carry ad slots that we fill in. A filled slot can set its own cookies. That's the ad network's doing, not ours, and outside our control.

Retention

Links don't expire, and a deleted link stays on record as described above. Click events, reports, and account data are kept for as long as the related link or account exists, so moderation history and dashboards stay accurate.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or a request about your data, including deleting your account: see Contact.