Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 19, 2026

AnimeVocab is a browser extension that helps you learn Japanese vocabulary from videos you watch. This policy explains exactly what it does with data.

What stays on your device

• Your vocabulary progress, settings, and statistics are stored locally in your browser. The extension never uploads them unless you opt into cloud sync.
• Your OpenAI API key(only if you use bring-your-own-key Listening Mode) is stored locally and sent only to OpenAI's API to transcribe audio.
• Your Pro license key (only if you subscribe) is stored locally and sent only to the AnimeVocab licensing server to verify your subscription and meter listening hours.

What leaves your device (Listening Mode)

• The current tab's audiois streamed to OpenAI's transcription API solely to convert Japanese speech into text for vocabulary detection. Audio goes directly from your browser to OpenAI; it is not recorded or stored by AnimeVocab.
• With a Pro subscription, the extension additionally sends your license key and listening minute counts (numbers only) to the licensing server to enforce the monthly fair-use cap.
• Nothing is captured when Listening Mode is off.

Product counters

The extension sends short allowlisted event names to animevocab.com so we can see whether the product works. There are two kinds, and they differ in whether they are tied to an account.

• Anonymous counters. When the extension shows the in-product Chrome Web Store rating prompt (or you click Rate), it sends an event name such as review_prompt_shownplus the extension id. These are aggregate counters only — no account id, vocabulary, or browsing history. Dismissing the prompt ("No thanks" / Rate) stops further prompts and thus further beacons. That endpoint rate-limits by IP and only accepts requests that present as our Chrome extension (a public id, not a secret).
• Learning-activity counters. The extension also reports when a card was shown, kept, or reviewed, when Listening Mode started, when it was first installed, and when it was linked to an account — as a bare event name such as card_shown, and nothing else. The word, the subtitle line, the show you are watching, and the page URL are never sent with these.They exist so we can tell "nobody is getting cards" apart from "nobody has installed it", which previously could not be distinguished at all.
• If your extension is linked to an account, the learning-activity counters are associated with your account id, in the same way the website analytics below are. An unlinked, local-only install sends them with no identity attached.
• There is no separate opt-out toggle for either kind. Signing out on animevocab.com unlinks the extension, after which its counters are anonymous again.

Website and service analytics

• On animevocab.comwe record which pages are viewed and which AI features are used, together with the approximate location (country and city) that Cloudflare derives from the connection, a coarse device type (mobile/desktop/tablet/bot), and the referring site's domain. If you are signed in, these are associated with your account id so we can support you and spot abuse.
• For every AI request we record the model used, the operation (explain, hooks, chat, and so on), token counts, cost, latency, and whether it succeeded. This is how we keep the service affordable and catch failures. Your prompts, the subtitle lines you look up, and the AI's replies are not stored in analytics.
• We store no analytics cookie and no advertising identifier, we do not store your raw IP address in analytics, and this data is retained for about 90 days. It is visible only to the site owner and is never sold or shared.

What it never does

• No advertising, no selling of data, and no profiles built from your vocab.
• Cloud sync and accounts are opt-in (sign in on animevocab.com); local-only use never creates an account.
• It reads only the video sites it supports, and only to find subtitle text and the video element.

Payments

Pro subscriptions are processed by Dodo Payments, our merchant of record. Your payment details go to them, not to us; their privacy policy applies to checkout. We receive only the license key status needed to unlock Pro features.

Open source

The extension's complete source code is public at github.com/Atharva-Kanherkar/anime-vocab-coach, so every claim on this page can be verified.

Contact

Questions: open an issue on the GitHub repository.