Last updated: 15 August 2026
This policy explains what counterwords.net collects, what it does not collect, and what you can ask us to do with anything we hold. It covers this website and the Counter Words browser extension.
The short version: the text you paste into the word counter never reaches us. Everything below is about the small amount of data a website unavoidably handles.
Who we are
counterwords.net is operated by Niche Bloggers LLC. For any question about this policy, or to exercise the rights described below, email contact@counterwords.net.
The text you analyze
Text you type or paste into the word counter is analyzed by Java Script running inside your own browser.
It is never transmitted to our server, never written to our database, never logged, and never passed to any third party, advertising network or AI service.
This is a property of how the tool is built rather than a promise about how we behave: there is no upload step for us to misuse.
Two consequences follow. The tool keeps working with no internet connection, and we genuinely cannot produce your text if anybody asks us for it, because we never had it.
If you turn on autosave, your draft is stored in your own browser using local Storage.
It stays on your device, we cannot read it, and you can remove it at any time from the tool settings or by clearing your browser data.
Accounts
Accounts are optional. The word counter works fully without one.
If you create one, we store your username, your email address, and a cryptographic hash of your password. We never store the password itself and cannot recover it.
We use your email address to confirm the account, to let you reset your password, and to contact you about the service if something important changes. We do not sell it, rent it, or use it for marketing.
To limit abuse of the sign-up form we briefly keep a one-way hash of your IP address, never the address itself, and it is discarded within an hour.
Saved analyses
When you save an analysis to your history we store the resulting statistics: word count, character count, sentence and paragraph counts, reading time and similar figures, along with any title you give it and the date.
We do not store the analysed text unless you explicitly tick the box offering to keep it.
That box is unticked every time. If you do tick it, the text is visible only to you when signed in, and is deleted with the analysis or with your account.
If you create a share link, only the statistics are published at that address. Your text is never included in a shared result, even when you have chosen to store it.
Making the analysis private again immediately stops the old link working.
The browser extension
The Counter Words extension analyses selected text entirely on your device.
Nothing you select or copy is transmitted to us or to anyone else. The extension stores only your own preferences, using your browser profile.
The clipboard is read only at the moment you press “Count copied text”, so that documents drawn on a canvas, such as Google Docs, can be counted at all. The contents are used for that count and then discarded.
When you choose “Full analysis”, your text is passed to this website in the URL fragment.
Browsers never transmit the fragment to a server, so the text reaches the page without touching our infrastructure, and the page clears it from the address bar immediately.
Contact form
Messages sent through the contact form are emailed to contact@counterwords.net and are not stored on the website.
We keep the email for as long as needed to deal with your enquiry and any sensible follow-up.
Cookies and local storage
If you sign in, WordPress sets authentication cookies so it can keep you signed in and protect forms against cross-site request forgery.
These are strictly necessary and cannot be turned off while you are signed in. If you leave a comment, WordPress may offer to remember your name and email in a cookie.
Your light or dark mode choice, your counting rules and your autosaved draft are held in browser local storage rather than cookies. They never leave your device.
Server logs
Like effectively every website, our hosting keeps standard access logs: IP address, browser user agent, the page requested and the time.
These exist for security and diagnosing faults, and are kept for 30 days. They never contain anything you typed into the tool.
Analytics and advertising
We use Google Analytics to understand which pages are visited and how the site performs.
It sets cookies and collects a truncated IP address, device and browser information, and the pages you view. It never receives the contents of the editor. See Google’s privacy policy.
We show advertising supplied by Google AdSense. Google and its partners may use cookies or similar technology to serve ads based on your prior visits to this and other websites.
You can opt out of personalised advertising in Google’s Ads Settings. Advertising scripts are never given access to the editor and cannot read what you type.
Legal basis for processing (UK, EU and EEA visitors)
If you are in the UK or the European Economic Area, we rely on the following bases:
- Contract – to run your account and store the analyses you ask us to keep
- Legitimate interests – to keep the site secure, prevent abuse and fix faults
- Consent – for analytics and personalised advertising, which you may withdraw at any time
Your rights (UK, EU and EEA visitors)
You can ask for a copy of the data attached to your account, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it, object to processing based on legitimate interests, or ask for your data in a portable form.
Deleting your account also deletes every analysis saved to it. Email contact@counterwords.net and we will respond within one 72 hours.
If you are unhappy with our response you may complain to your data protection regulator. In the UK that is the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Your rights in the United States
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising as those terms are defined under California law.
We have not sold or shared personal information in the preceding twelve months.
If you are a resident of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Utah, Texas or another state with a comprehensive privacy law, you have the right to:
- Know what personal information we hold about you and how we use it
- Request a copy of it in a portable form
- Ask us to correct inaccurate information
- Ask us to delete it
- Opt out of any sale or sharing, and of targeted advertising
- Not be discriminated against for exercising any of these rights
To exercise any of them, email contact@counterwords.net. We will verify your request against the email address on your account before acting on it. You may use an authorised agent, in which case we will ask for proof of their authority.
Californian residents may also request details of any personal information disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes under the “Shine the Light” law. We do not make such disclosures.
Your rights in Canada and Australia
If you are in Canada, you have rights of access and correction under PIPEDA.
If you are in Australia, you have equivalent rights under the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles.
Email contact@counterwords.net and we will handle your request under the same process described above.
How long we keep things
Account details are kept until you delete your account. Saved analyses are kept until you delete them or delete your account, unless a retention limit has been set, in which case older entries are removed automatically. Rate-limiting hashes last one hour. Server logs are kept for 30 days.
Sharing with others
We do not sell your personal data. We share it only with the suppliers needed to run the service, such as our hosting provider, our email delivery service, and where applicable our analytics and advertising providers, and only to the extent they need it. We may disclose information if the law requires it.
Children
This site is not aimed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly create accounts for them or knowingly collect their personal information.
If you believe a child has given us personal data, email contact@counterwords.net and we will remove it promptly.
International transfers
Our hosting and email suppliers are located in the United States.
If you access the site from the UK, the EEA, Canada or Australia, your data may be transferred to and processed in that country.
Where the law requires a safeguard for such a transfer, we rely on the appropriate mechanism, such as Standard Contractual Clauses or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy. The date at the top shows when it last changed. If a change materially affects how we handle your data, we will make that clear rather than quietly editing the page.
Contact
Questions about this policy or your data: contact@counterwords.net