Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 21, 2026

This policy covers the TL;DW browser extension, published by Steezen, LLC.

What TL;DW does

TL;DW summarizes YouTube videos that you choose to summarize. It acts only when you click its button on a video. It does not monitor your browsing, and it does not run on any website other than youtube.com.

What is sent off your device

When — and only when — you click the summarize button on a video, the following is sent, in two requests (one for the summary and one for the comment review), to our summarization service at yt-summarizer.steezen.com:

  • The video's transcript. Read from YouTube in your own browser. This is the text the summary is generated from.
  • The video's title and ID. Used to label the summary, and to work out what the title promises so the summary can answer it.
  • The video's public comments. Up to about 100 of the video's top comments, read from YouTube in your own browser after the summary is generated. Each is sent with its author's public display name and like count so the comment review can weigh them. Only comments that YouTube shows publicly are read; nothing you have written or liked is identified.
  • Your custom instructions. Only if you have set any in Settings. If you have not, nothing is sent for this.
  • Your prompt for the video's channel. Only if you have written a channel-specific prompt in Settings for the channel that made this video, and only that one prompt, with both the summary request and the comment review request so it can be answered from the video and from its comments. Which channels you have prompts for is worked out in your own browser and never sent; for any other channel, nothing is sent for this.
  • Your own AI provider API key, and the company and model you chose. Only if you have chosen "Use my own API key" in Settings. Your summaries are then generated by the company you picked (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or xAI), using your key instead of ours; the key is stored in your browser, sent only to our service, and used for nothing but the request it accompanies.
  • A random installation identifier. Generated when you install the extension. It is not derived from your identity and is not linked to any account, name, or email address. It exists so that misuse of the service can be traced to a single installation instead of affecting everyone.

By default our service passes this to Anthropic, which generates the summary; if Anthropic cannot handle the request at that moment, it is passed to OpenAI instead. If you have chosen to use your own API key, it is passed instead to the company you selected in Settings. Each processes it under their own terms and privacy policy:

The installation identifier is passed to the provider as an end-user identifier, which is used for abuse prevention.

Nothing else is transmitted. We never receive your Google account, your email address, your watch history, or any video you did not explicitly ask us to summarize.

What stays on your device

Your summaries and comment reviews, including the handful of top comments shown with them, are stored locally in your browser and are never uploaded to us. The same is true of your panel width preference, your custom instructions, your channel-specific prompts and the channels they belong to, and any API key you enter — though the custom instructions and the key are sent with each summarization request, and a channel's prompt with both requests for one of that channel's videos, as described above.

You can delete individual summaries, or several at once, from the TL;DW panel at any time. Uninstalling the extension deletes all of it.

Retention

We do not store transcripts or comments. They are held in memory only for as long as it takes to generate your summary and comment review, and are written to no database.

Each request leaves one entry in our server's log, recording:

  • which service was called, when, whether it succeeded, and how long it took
  • the installation identifier and the video ID
  • the length of the transcript, of your custom instructions and of any channel-specific prompt, or the number of comments
  • whether our model or your own key was used, and which company and model
  • a scrambled form of your IP address that cannot be turned back into it and changes every time the service restarts

It never records the transcript, the comments, the title, your custom instructions, your channel-specific prompts or your API key. This log is used to fix faults and spot misuse, and it is cleared whenever the service restarts or is updated.

Rate limiting

Generating a summary costs us money each time. If a browser asks us to re-summarize the same video, or re-review its comments, again within a few seconds of the previous request, we treat that as abuse. When that happens we record:

  • the IP address the request came from
  • the installation identifier
  • the request's HTTP headers
  • the video ID and the time of the request

This record is kept so that we can recognise the same browser again. From then on, requests from that installation or IP address are only served if they include the user's own API key, which is then used in place of ours. We keep this record until we review and remove it.

Separately, a browser that sends many requests within a few seconds is asked to wait before sending more, with the wait growing if it keeps trying.

Security monitoring

Some activity suggests that someone is misusing the service or trying to get around the limits above. When we see it, we record a security event in our own monitoring system:

  • Sending many requests within a few seconds, or continuing to send them while asked to wait: the IP address, the installation identifier, the time, and how many times it happened.
  • Re-running the same video within a few seconds (described above): the same record as above.
  • Many different installation identifiers arriving from one IP address: the IP address and those installation identifiers.
  • A request that forges the address it appears to come from: the real IP address, the installation identifier, and the address it claimed.
  • Custom instructions or a channel-specific prompt that look like an attempt to take over the summarizer: the IP address, the installation identifier, which of the two it was, and which kind of attempt it looked like (not the text itself).
  • Custom instructions or a channel-specific prompt that succeeded in making the summarizer produce something other than a summary on our key: the IP address, the installation identifier, the video ID, and the first 500 characters of that text.
  • A wrong operator password: the IP address and the installation identifier.

Ordinary use does not produce these events. They are kept as a permanent security record, are seen only by us, and are not shared with anyone else.

What we do not do

  • We do not sell or rent your data to anyone.
  • We do not use your data for advertising, and we do not build advertising profiles.
  • We do not require an account, and we never ask for your email address.
  • We do not use your data to train AI models.

Children

TL;DW is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes materially, we will update the date at the top of this page and note the change in the extension's store listing.

Contact

Questions about this policy can be sent to admin@steezen.com, or find us at https://steezen.com.