Summarize It — Privacy Policy

Last updated: February 9, 2025

Overview

Summarize It is a Chrome extension that extracts content from webpages and YouTube videos and copies a summarization prompt to your clipboard. This policy explains what data the extension accesses and how it is handled.

Data We Access

When you click the extension button or use the keyboard shortcut, Summarize It accesses the following data from the currently active tab:

• Webpage text content — the visible text of the page you are viewing, extracted from the DOM.
• YouTube video transcripts — if you are on a YouTube video page, the extension retrieves the video's transcript using YouTube's own internal transcript API.
• Page metadata — the page title, URL, and (for YouTube videos) the channel name, duration, and publish date.

Data We Store

• User preferences — your chosen default settings (summary length, format, language, and custom prompts) are stored locally using Chrome's built-in chrome.storage.sync API. This data syncs across your Chrome browsers if you are signed into Chrome, and is never sent to us or any third party.

Data We Do NOT Collect or Transmit

• We do not send any webpage content, transcript data, or personal information to any external server.
• We do not use analytics, tracking, or telemetry of any kind.
• We do not collect browsing history, IP addresses, or device information.
• We do not store or cache any extracted page content. Once copied to your clipboard, the data exists only in your clipboard.

Clipboard Usage

The extension copies a summarization prompt to your clipboard only when you explicitly click the button or use the keyboard shortcut. It never accesses or modifies your clipboard without your direct action.

YouTube Transcript Access

When you use the extension on a YouTube video page, it communicates directly with YouTube's servers to retrieve the video transcript. This is a YouTube-to-YouTube request made from your browser — the transcript data is never sent to any other server.

Permissions Explained

• activeTab — allows the extension to read the content of the tab you are currently viewing, only when you activate the extension.
• storage — allows the extension to save your preferences locally.
• clipboardWrite — allows the extension to copy the summarization prompt to your clipboard.
• scripting — allows the extension to inject the content extraction script into the active tab.
• Host permissions for youtube.com — required to fetch YouTube video transcripts.

Third-Party Services

Summarize It does not integrate with or send data to any third-party services. The prompt it copies to your clipboard is intended for you to paste into an AI chatbot of your choosing — but that action is entirely under your control and outside the scope of this extension.

Changes to This Policy

If we update this privacy policy, we will revise the "Last updated" date at the top of this page.

Contact

If you have questions about this privacy policy, you can reach us by opening an issue on our GitHub repository.