Privacy Policy

Tool processing: your text

The Character Counter and the SMS Character Counter run entirely in your web browser. When you type or paste text, a script on the page counts it in your device’s memory and shows the result.

The text you enter is:

• not sent to our server or to anyone else’s;
• not saved, by us or in your browser;
• not written into the page address (URL);
• not included in analytics events or in any advertising request;
• discarded when you close or reload the page.

The Paste and Copy buttons use your browser’s clipboard only when you press them. Clipboard contents are placed in the text box or copied from it and go nowhere else.

Your browser itself may remember what was in a text box so it can restore it if you reload the page or go back. That is a feature of the browser, stays on your device, and is not something the site can read later.

Local storage: your settings

So that the counter looks the same when you return, a few settings are saved in your browser’s local storage under the key wordcounts.settings.v1: the limit preset you selected, a custom limit if you entered one, and whether two display options are switched on. These are settings only. They contain none of your text, they are not sent to us, and you can remove them at any time by clearing this site’s data in your browser.

Server logs

The site’s files are delivered by a web hosting provider. Like almost every web server, the host keeps standard access logs that record technical details of each request: the IP address, the date and time, the page or file requested, the referring page if there was one, and the browser’s user-agent string. These logs are used to keep the service running and secure and to diagnose faults. They do not contain anything you typed into the tools, because that is never sent.

Analytics

This site uses Google Analytics 4, a service provided by Google, to understand in aggregate how the site is used: which pages are visited, roughly where visitors are, and what kind of device and browser they use. Google Analytics uses cookies or similar identifiers and processes information such as your IP address, the page address and technical information about the visit. Google’s own explanation of how it uses information from sites that use its services is at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

In addition to page views, the tools can send the following fixed event names when a feature is used:

• character_counter_used
• custom_limit_selected
• platform_preset_selected
• sms_counter_used
• sms_unicode_detected

An event can carry, at most, the name of a limit preset you chose (for example “x-post”) or the name of an SMS encoding. No event ever contains the text you entered, any word from it, a link or address from it, or anything from your clipboard. The code is written so that there is no field in which such content could be sent.

With the same permission, SitePulse separately records the page path, event time, referring hostname and a random session ID held only in page memory for up to 30 minutes. It receives fixed counter actions, never the text you enter, URLs or clipboard contents. Query strings and fragments are stripped. Raw events are retained for up to 30 days and aggregate counts for up to 365 days.

Advertising

This site does not currently show advertising. No advertising script is loaded and no advertising cookies are set.

The site is built so that Google AdSense can be enabled in future. If it is, this section will be updated before any ad is shown, and it will explain that third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a visitor’s previous visits to this and other websites, and how to opt out of personalised advertising. Ads would be clearly labelled, kept away from the tools’ controls, and would never receive the text you enter.

Cookies and similar storage

The site uses local storage for the settings described above and for your analytics choice underwordcounts.analytics-consent.v2. SitePulse does not set analytics cookies.

The third-party services described on this page (Google Analytics) may set their own cookies or use similar storage in your browser. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings; the tools will continue to work.

Consent

Google Analytics and SitePulse are optional for every visitor. Neither service loads until you choose Allow analytics. You can change or withdraw the choice using Privacy choicesin the footer. Withdrawing stops later events, clears pending SitePulse events and removes accessible Google Analytics cookies. Advertising remains disabled.

Children

The site is a general-purpose writing tool, is not directed at children and does not ask anyone to provide a name, age or account. The visit information handled by the host and analytics is the same for all visitors and is described above; the text entered into the tools is not collected.

Changes to this policy

If the way the site handles information changes, this page will be updated and the date at the top will change. In particular, it will be revised before advertising is switched on or the consent configuration changes.

Contact

Questions about this policy can be sent to charactercounterrs@gmail.com. See also the contact page.