LitRank — Privacy Policy
Effective 1 August 2026 · Applies to the Chrome, Edge and Firefox extensions

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THE SHORT VERSION
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LitRank has no server. There is no account, no login, no sync service and no
analytics. Nothing you search for, read, or save is transmitted to us, because
there is nowhere for it to go. We could not see your reading list if we wanted
to.

Everything the extension needs to put a quartile badge on a search result is
already inside the extension when you install it. The lookup happens on your
own machine.

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WHAT LITRANK STORES
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Stored in your browser's local extension storage, on your device, readable by
you and by any extension-inspection tool you run yourself:

• The papers you save, and the projects you file them under
• Your filter and sort preferences
• A pointer to a sync folder, if you choose one

That is the complete list. There is no hidden identifier, no install ID, no
fingerprint and no usage counter.

If you have enabled your browser's own extension-data sync — a browser feature,
not ours — your browser may replicate this storage across your signed-in
devices under ITS privacy policy, not this one.

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WHAT LITRANK SENDS, AND WHEN
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By default, nothing. Two features make a network request, and both require you
to press a button first.

1. FETCH METADATA

When you press "Fetch metadata" on a project, LitRank asks Crossref
(https://www.crossref.org/) to complete the citation details of the papers in
that project — volume, issue, pages, DOI.

• What is sent: the DOI, or the title, authors and venue, of the papers in
that project only.
• What is not sent: your identity, your other projects, your search history,
or anything about your browsing.
• The request carries a fixed contact address that identifies the extension,
as Crossref asks API users to do. It is not your email address, and it is
the same for every LitRank user.
• Crossref handles the request under its own privacy policy:
https://www.crossref.org/operations-and-sustainability/privacy/

1. DOWNLOAD PDFs

When you press "Download PDFs", LitRank fetches the PDF links that Google
Scholar itself showed you, from the publishers hosting them. Those publishers
see an ordinary download, exactly as if you had clicked each link yourself.
Nothing is routed through us.

Because these links point to arbitrary publisher domains, this feature asks for
broad site access at the moment you first use it. Decline it and the rest of
the extension works normally. Grant it and you can revoke it at any time from
your browser's extension settings.

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WHAT LITRANK NEVER DOES
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• No analytics, telemetry, crash reporting or usage statistics
• No advertising, and no advertising identifiers
• No selling, renting or sharing of data — there is no data held to sell
• No tracking across sites; the extension runs only on Google Scholar pages
and on its own dashboard
• No reading, storing or transmitting of anything on non-Scholar pages you
visit
• No use of your data to train anything

LitRank's use of any information is limited to providing and improving the
features you can see. It is never transferred to a third party except as
described above, and never used for advertising, creditworthiness, or lending
purposes.

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PERMISSIONS, AND WHY EACH ONE EXISTS
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Access to Google Scholar pages
To place badges and the filter bar on results, profiles and Labs pages.
This is the extension's entire purpose.

storage, unlimitedStorage
To keep your saved papers and projects on your device. A long reading
list exceeds the small default quota.

downloads
To save exports (BibTeX, CSV, JSON) and PDFs to your computer.

api.crossref.org
Only for "Fetch metadata", above.

Broad site access (optional)
Requested only if you use "Download PDFs", and only then. Not granted at
install.

The extension asks for nothing at install time beyond the Scholar domains it
works on.

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FOLDER SYNC
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If you choose "Choose folder", your browser shows you its own folder picker and
you decide what LitRank may write to. The extension receives access to that one
folder and nothing else. Your browser can revoke that access at any time, and
does so on its own schedule. Files are written by your browser directly to your
disk — they do not pass through any server.

This feature is unavailable in Firefox, which does not implement the File
System Access API. Exports and PDF downloads work normally there.

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YOUR DATA, YOUR CONTROL
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• Export it: BibTeX, CSV or JSON, from any project, at any time.
• Delete some of it: remove a paper or delete a project from the dashboard.
• Delete all of it: uninstalling the extension removes its storage. Nothing
is retained anywhere else, because nothing was sent anywhere else.

There is no "request my data" process, because there is no copy of your data
for us to hold. Requests under GDPR, CCPA or similar laws have nothing to
retrieve — which is the point.

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CHILDREN
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LitRank collects no personal information from anyone, of any age.

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CHANGES TO THIS POLICY
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If this policy ever changes, the revised version will be published with a new
effective date, and material changes will be noted in the extension's release
notes. Continuing to use LitRank after a change means the new policy applies.

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CONTACT
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Questions about this policy, or about anything the extension does:

https://github.com/riponcm/LitRank/issues

LitRank is an independent project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or
sponsored by Google. Google Scholar is a trademark of Google LLC.