Privacy Policy

Core Philosophy

ShadowPulse was designed with a "privacy-first" architecture. The name "Shadow" is a deliberate nod to our operational philosophy: to remain completely unseen and unobtrusive, leaving no digital footprint. We believe analytical tools should respect the user's anonymity and the integrity of the platform they operate on.

Our extension operates as an overlay. It does not scrape your private data, it does not read your private messages, and it does not track your browsing history at all.

Data Collection & Usage

User Identity

We do not associate your ShadowPulse usage with your Bitcointalk user profile. It is impossible for us to tie your extension usage to your forum account or real-world identity.

We do not track, log, or store your IP address. While the web server may collect standard connection logs for security (as all websites do), this data is never linked to your unique extension identifier. Your activity remains completely anonymous.

Custom Privacy

By default, your activity is reported under a generic alias (e.g., 'Member 421') derived seamlessly from your internal sequential ID (which is solely used for database indexing and has no relation to your Bitcointalk Forum ID).

You have the option to set a Custom Display Name in the extension settings at any time. This allows you to obfuscate your internal Member ID and personalize your experience while maintaining full anonymity.

Page Interaction

We do not read the DOM (Document Object Model) of the pages you visit for content extraction.

The extension reads the browser URL only to identify the topic ID. It reads the Page Title to provide a human-readable label (e.g., "Bitcoin Discussion") for the statistics database when you visit a page. We do not analyze the text of posts, signatures, or user profiles.

Privacy Exemption: When you visit your own profile page (e.g. action=profile without a user ID), the extension intentionally ignores the page title (which contains your username) and instead reports a generic label ("Profile (Self)"). This prevents your username from being associated with your anonymous ShadowPulse UUID.

Search Privacy

When using the search feature, we do not record your UUID or link the individual search query to your profile. We only aggregate the search term and its timestamp to identify platform trends and statistics. Individual search history is never tracked.

Cookies & Storage

Browser Extension

The ShadowPulse extension uses Local Storage (not tracking cookies) for functional purposes only:

member_uuid: Your anonymous identifier.
sp_vote_*: Caching your own votes for instant UI feedback.
sp_btc_stats: Caching the Bitcoin price to reduce server load.

The extension does not use third-party tracking cookies or external advertising trackers (like Google or Facebook). Extension ads, Bitcoin price data, and all other dynamic content are served directly from our own infrastructure for privacy.

Website (vod.fan)

On our website, we utilize Google AdSense to support hosting costs. Google may use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website or other websites. You can opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google Ad Settings.

Third-Party Integrations

Cloudflare Turnstile

We use Cloudflare Turnstile to protect our contact form from spam and automated abuse. Turnstile is a privacy-focused alternative to CAPTCHA that verifies whether a visitor is real without tracking their browsing history across other websites.

Network Anonymity

TOR Usage

We respect users who choose to browse via TOR to enhance their anonymity. We do not implement IP bans on TOR exit nodes.

However, our infrastructure security providers (such as Cloudflare) may occasionally challenge or block connections from high-risk exit nodes to protect the platform. If the API is blocked, the ShadowPulse extension is designed to degrade gracefully: interactive features like voting may be temporarily disabled, but your core browsing experience will remain intact.

Technical Implementation

DOM Injection: To display the ShadowPulse interface, we inject an isolated overlay element into the webpage. This process is strictly additive and "blind" to the page content—meaning the extension does not inspect, read, or depend on the existing structure of the forum to render its overlay. This ensures that your browsing context remains private and the extension remains lightweight.

Data Retention

To maintain the accuracy and relevancy of our rating system, the system automatically removes all votes associated with any UUID that has not been active for 90 days. This keeps the ecosystem fresh and ensures rankings reflect the current active user base.