1.Who we are
Gistil is an independent product, not affiliated with YouTube or Google. This policy covers everything we do with your data across the website, the browser extension, and the Android app.
Contact for any privacy question or request, including the rights described in §10: support@gistil.com. We answer within one month.
2.What Gistil does
Gistil rates a YouTube video before you spend your time on it: whether the video is worth watching, how much of it is filler, and the timestamp where the useful part starts. It is available as a free browser extension for Chrome and Firefox (no account required), a website with an optional account, and an Android app.
3.Using Gistil with no account (the extension, signed out)
This is the default and most common way people use Gistil. In this mode:
- When you ask for a verdict, what the extension sends to our server is about the video you are watching, not about you.
- The score is cached by the video’s YouTube ID — a public identifier anyone can read from the video’s URL — not by anything that identifies you.
- No account, email, name, or device identifier is sent or stored. As with any website, our server keeps a short technical log of the request — including your IP address, the time, and your browser’s user agent — for security and abuse prevention (see §9). We do not use those logs to build a viewing profile.
- The extension creates one random identifier for itself the first time you use it, and keeps it in the extension’s own storage in your browser. It is not derived from you, your device, or anything you have signed in to — it only lets us tell one installation apart from another, count your free monthly allowance, and keep your history together if you later create an account. You can clear it at any time by removing the extension.
- We record what you do with a verdict, against that random identifier: your thumbs-up / thumbs-down, that a verdict was shown to you, and whether a suggested starting point was one you stayed at. This is how the scores get more accurate, and it is the only reason we collect it. It is not sold, not shared, and not used to advertise to you.
4.If you create an account
Signing in (via Google, through Firebase Authentication) is optional and unlocks a personal dashboard, feed, goals, and a taste profile that follows you across the extension, the app, and the website. Creating an account means we store:
| Data | Why we collect it |
|---|---|
| Email address, display name, avatar image URL, and a Firebase account ID | To identify your account and let you sign in the same way on all three clients |
| Your enabled feed tabs, novelty %, language, and minimum score filter | To remember how you like your feed configured |
| Your picked interest categories and their weights | To personalize what Gistil recommends |
| Your goals (title, target minutes, progress), plus a numeric representation of the goal’s wording so we can match videos to it | The "watch goals" feature you set up yourself. The goal text is not sent to any third party to do this. |
| How much of your free allowance you have used | To apply the free-tier limit |
| Feedback signals per video — like, dislike, not interested, saved, opened, completed, and calibration signals for whether a "jump to value" timestamp was accurate — and which feed tab they came from | This is how Gistil’s recommendations get better for you specifically |
| A record of which videos you had scored, when, and the result (verdict, score, credits used) | Powers your personal dashboard/history. This is separate from anonymous extension scoring (§3) — it only exists once you are signed in. |
| Last-active timestamp | Basic usage metrics (e.g. active-user counts), not shared outside Gistil |
5.If you connect your YouTube account
Connecting YouTube is a separate, optional step from signing in. It asks Google, through Google’s own consent screen, for read-only access to your Liked videos playlist, so that Gistil can personalize your feed from it. If you grant this:
- We store a Google access token and refresh token, and the token’s expiry, tied to your account.
- We use the token only to read your Liked-videos playlist — never to post, comment, subscribe, or change anything on your YouTube account.
- You can revoke this access at any time from your Google Account’s third-party access settings, or by deleting your Gistil account (§9).
6.If you subscribe to a paid plan
Paid plans are not available yet. Once billing is live, subscribing stores your plan, subscription status, the payment provider’s own reference for your order, the price, currency, and (if the payment processor provides it) your billing country. We do not process or store your card number — that is handled entirely by the payment processor.
When you place an order we also record, as evidence in case of a refund or chargeback dispute, the IP address and browser user agent used at the moment of purchase and the time at which you agreed to immediate delivery of the service.
7.Who we share data with
We do not sell your data. We share it only with the services that make Gistil work:
- Google Gemini — receives information about the video being evaluated, so that a score, verdict, and summary can be produced. It does not receive your name, email, or account identifiers — this is about the video, not about you.
- Firebase Authentication (Google) — handles the sign-in flow and issues the identity tokens that prove who you are; receives your email/name/UID as part of that.
- Google OAuth / YouTube Data API — used with your authorization only if you connect YouTube (§5). We also use YouTube API Services, without your account and independently of you, to obtain public information about a video such as its title, channel, length, and language (see §11).
- Anthropic (Claude) — also used to evaluate videos for the Gistil library. Like the Gemini call above, it receives information about the video only: not your name, email, or account identifiers.
- Our payment processor — once billing is live, to process your subscription payment. Payments made inside the Android app are handled by Google Play Billing.
- Our hosting provider — runs the servers that store this data. They are located in the European Union.
We may also disclose data if required by law, to prevent fraud or abuse, or as part of a merger, acquisition, or asset sale.
8.What we never do
- We never sell your data or use it to serve you personalized/retargeted advertising.
- We never access your camera, microphone, contacts, files, or location — Gistil doesn’t ask for any of these.
- We never read your general browsing history — the extension only runs on YouTube watch pages.
9.Data retention and deletion
We keep your personal data only for as long as your account exists. You can delete your account and all personal data linked to it at any time from our delete-account page, which works in any browser and does not require the extension or the app. Deletion is immediate and removes your account, preferences, categories, goals, feedback history, and analysis history. If you can no longer sign in, email support@gistil.com from the address on the account and we will complete the deletion within 7 days.
How long the individual pieces are kept:
- Your account and everything in it — preferences, categories, goals, feedback, analysis history: for as long as your account exists, deleted immediately when you delete it.
- Your Google/YouTube access and refresh tokens (only if you connected YouTube): until you disconnect YouTube, revoke access in your Google Account, or delete your Gistil account.
- Server logs (IP address, request path, time, user agent): kept short-term for security and abuse prevention, then rotated out.
- Video scores and the information we hold about videos and channels: kept as part of the shared library. This is not personal data about you and is not deleted when you delete your account, because it was never linked to you (see §3).
Two narrow exceptions survive deletion of your account:
- Financial records. Paid plans are not live yet, so there are currently no payment records to keep. Once paid plans launch, invoices and order records will be kept for the period required by applicable accounting and tax law even after your account is deleted, with the record no longer linked to your profile.
- Abuse prevention. The free allowance is one-time: a set number of new videos you can have judged, once, not a monthly refill. To make that hold, we keep a keyed one-way digest of your sign-in identity — not your email address itself, and it cannot be turned back into one — together with how much of that one-time allowance had been used and the dates involved. It lets us answer "has this person been here before?", so that deleting and recreating an account cannot be used to start the allowance over. We hold the key, so this is not the same as anonymous data, but it is not linked to any other record about you and is not used for anything else.
10.Your rights
If you are in the EU/EEA/UK, GDPR gives you the right to access, correct, delete, restrict, or port your data, and to object to or withdraw consent for certain processing. To exercise any of these, email support@gistil.com or use the deletion tools in §9. We answer within one month. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the data protection authority in your own country of residence or work.
11.YouTube API Services
Gistil uses YouTube API Services. By using Gistil, you are also agreeing to be bound by the YouTube Terms of Service. Google’s use of information received from Gistil’s use of the YouTube API is governed by the Google Privacy Policy.
We use YouTube API Services to obtain public information about a video — its title, channel, length, and language — so that Gistil can catalogue it and present it correctly. This is information about the video, not about you, and it does not use your account’s authorization.
What we hold about a video is held against that video’s public YouTube ID and is never linked to your account.
You can review or revoke any access Gistil has to your Google Account at any time at Google Security Settings.
12.Children
Gistil is not intended for children under 16. You must be at least 16 to create an account (see our Terms of Service §3), and we do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone younger. If you believe a child has created an account, write to support@gistil.com and we will delete it.
13.International data transfers
Our servers are located in the European Union. Some of the providers listed in §7 may process data outside the EU/EEA, including in the United States. Those transfers take place under the safeguards those providers make available to their customers, namely the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses. We do not transfer your data to anyone else outside the EU/EEA.
14.Security
We use industry-standard measures to protect your data, including encrypted connections (HTTPS) between your device and our servers, and we never store your password (sign-in is handled entirely by Firebase/Google). No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
15.Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as Gistil changes. Material changes will be reflected by updating the "Last updated" date above; if a change is significant we will make reasonable efforts to bring it to your attention.
16.Contact
Questions, requests, or complaints about this policy: support@gistil.com.