Privacy and data handling
Revised on
Server-side storage
Nothing tied to you. No user accounts exist, so no user records exist. All pages ship as prebuilt static HTML. Submitted handles go into no database on this site. One exception, below: handles that travel in the URL. Analytics: only the visitor-origin counter described below. Ads: delivered by a third party with its own cookies, detailed under Ads.
Origin counter. Once a page has been up for a couple of seconds, a tiny script reports the website that sent you (host only, no path), the AnonSight page you opened, and any short campaign tag found in the link, along with your country. Only a per-day counter changes. No cookie, no ID, no address of yours. Browsers announcing DNT or GPC send nothing. Counters are erased once they are older than about three months. Coming back. One date, your previous visit, rests in browser storage so the script can say whether you are a newcomer or a repeat visitor; the answer is one of five time classes and the date never travels. It names nobody. Erase it by clearing AnonSight data in your settings.
Handles in the URL
The handle lands in the URL on every search: a form submit navigates to /?u=<name>, the same shape a shared link has. Host and CDN access logs record request lines, so the handle can be recorded there. No separate lookup log is kept on top.
Browser-side storage
One key in local storage holds your recent lookups. It is not sent to us. Its content: handles opened on this device, nothing more. To remove it, press Clear or wipe site data. In incognito mode the browser discards it when the session ends.
Service worker: caches a few site pages for offline use. Its scope is site pages only; handles and profile data are never cached.
Request path
- You submit a handle; the page opens
/?u=<name>. - Our CDN loads Cloudflare Turnstile, which runs an invisible challenge client-side and issues a single-use token.
- Your browser sends the lookup to this site’s edge; once the token checks out, the edge forwards the handle; the query to an upstream data provider then leaves from our server.
- That service pulls that profile’s public data off Instagram; our server relays the response to the page.
- Photos then load directly off the Instagram CDN, referrer stripped. Everything else runs through our proxy: videos and their poster frames, avatar JPEGs, set covers and anything you download.
At step 3 the provider learns the submitted handle and the IP our server uses; your IP, every browser header and the origin of this site are not passed on. Retention on its side is the provider’s decision. At step 5 the Instagram CDN logs your IP address for each photo; this site’s name is not sent to it. At step 2 the challenge scores browser and network signals, IP address included; an interactive prompt is rare. Per-IP rate limits apply at the edge. What any server can collect, ours included, shrinks behind a VPN or a browser that strips identifying headers.
Ads
Funding model: ads. Selection, delivery and the data rules behind them belong to a third-party ad network. Consent dialog before ads: none, anywhere.
- Background tabs (pop-unders): one click on any spot of a page, ad or not, may spawn an advertiser tab or window, usually tucked under ours.
- Overlay messages: compact ad cards drift onto the page; × removes one.
- Interstitials: result pages and notes may get a screen-filling ad, gone once its close control is pressed.
- Push opt-in: right after a lookup, your browser can show a permission request: may anonsight.com notify you? Allow it and ads arrive even with every AnonSight tab shut; revoke it any time under the browser’s per-site controls.
- Partner placements: a “See more” link closing a bio line, “Picked for today” cards and grid tiles beside results and notes, a strip pinned to the lower edge, plus “Hot now” chips in three spots: the recent-lookups row, the media viewer, the page footer. All of them are paid placements pointing to advertiser offers, unrelated to whichever profile is open.
- Saving files: a download button press may also launch one sponsor tab, but no more than once a minute; your file arrives untouched.
- Network-side data: connection IP, browser make, UI language, viewport dimensions, site name. Cookies, or IDs that work like them, may be written by the network or its buyers for targeting, frequency caps, impression and click tallies, and fraud screening.
- Blocker probe: each lookup starts with a request toward the ad network. If an extension kills it, the lookup is skipped and an on-screen note asks for ads to be permitted. Only the number of such skips is logged; neither handle nor IP goes with it.
We do not hand the network any handle you search. Caveat: every search loads a /?u=name address, and there the handle is part of the URL, readable by every script running on it, third-party ones included.
Sub-processors
- Static host: delivers the HTML files.
- CDN: caches pages at the edge, serves the Turnstile challenge for each lookup and filters abusive traffic, which requires reading IP addresses for a short time.
- Data provider: handles each profile fetch for our server (see Request path); your IP is not passed to it.
- Instagram CDN: delivers photos to your browser.
- Ad network: serves the placements described under Ads, all of them.
No other recipient exists; selling data is not part of the business.
Data subject rights
Access, correction and erasure requests are welcome. In practice no record linked to you exists, which the written answer will state. Controller: AnonSight, reachable at hello@anonsight.com. A complaint to the national supervisory body for data protection remains open to you at any time.