Privacy Policy — Hourmark

1. Introduction

Hourmark is a Chrome extension that records how long you study, organises that time by course and task, and shows which websites the time went to.

This policy covers three things: what information Hourmark handles, when it handles it, and what control you have over it.

It is built by Aryan Baki, an independent developer. There is no company, no user account, no sign-in and no subscription.

2. Information Hourmark processes

Study information you create

Course names, descriptions, colours and icons
Task names, notes, colours, icons and study goals
Session dates, start and end times, and duration
Paused time within a session
Manually recorded study time
Notes you write, including rich text and any images you insert
Completion status for courses and tasks
Your settings — theme, idle threshold, retention period and view preferences

Browsing information processed during an active study session

Website hostname, for example wikipedia.org
Page URL and path, after the redaction described below
Page title
Search terms taken from a URL's query string, such as the q= value on a search results page
Time spent on each website, and the timestamps needed to build your reports
Whether you were idle, or had Chrome in the background

Redaction applied before anything is stored

Before a web address is written to storage, Hourmark removes:

any username or password embedded in the address;
the fragment — everything after #;
any query parameter whose name looks credential-bearing, including token, access, auth, authorization, bearer, code, credential, jwt, key, oauth, password, refresh, secret, session, signature and signed.

Only http and https pages are recorded. Chrome's own internal pages and other address schemes are never recorded.

Page content is not collected. Hourmark does not read, extract, analyse or store the text or contents of the pages you visit. It records the address and title of the page, not what is on it.

3. When information is processed

Browsing information is recorded only while a tracked study session is in the running state. Specifically:

While a session is running — website activity is recorded.
While a session is paused — no website activity is recorded. Paused time is also excluded from your study totals.
After a session is stopped — no website activity is recorded.
When no session exists — no website activity is recorded. Installing Hourmark and never pressing start records nothing about your browsing.
Manual time entry — records only the course, task, date, duration and any note you type. No browsing information is attached, and none is invented.

4. How information is used

Information is used only to operate the features of the extension:

To run the study timer and keep its elapsed time accurate
To connect recorded time to your courses and tasks
To build your session history
To show which websites your study time went to
To calculate the totals and charts on your dashboard
To recover a session that was interrupted by a browser restart
To save your settings and preferences
To support the export, import and deletion features

Your information is not used for advertising, profiling, credit decisions, or sale to data brokers.

5. Local storage and data transmission

Hourmark stores your information locally, using Chrome's extension storage on your own device.
Hourmark does not operate a cloud account, a server, or a synchronisation service.
Hourmark does not transmit your study records or browsing history to the developer or to anyone else.
The extension makes no network requests during normal use. Images, icons and animations are bundled inside it — including the small icons beside website names, which are drawn locally rather than fetched from a favicon service, because requesting one would itself reveal to a third party which sites you had visited.
You may deliberately export a backup file. Once exported, that file is an ordinary file on your computer and you control where it is stored or shared.

Hourmark uses chrome.storage.local, not Chrome's synchronised storage. Your Hourmark data therefore remains in this Chrome profile on this device unless you deliberately export a backup.

6. Chrome permissions

Chrome shows a list of permissions when you install any extension. Here is what each one lets Hourmark do, and why it is needed.

Permission	What it allows, and why
Access to all websites	Hourmark's purpose is to tell you which sites your study time went to. It cannot know in advance which sites you will study on — course portals, documentation, lecture videos and search engines differ for every student — so it needs access to whichever site you choose to study on. This access is used only to read the address and title of the page, and only while a session is running.
Tabs	To see which tab is currently active and read its address and title, so time is attributed to the right website.
Scripting	To show the floating study timer on pages that were already open before you pressed start.
Idle	To notice when you have stepped away from the computer, so idle time can be separated from real study time.
Alarms	To checkpoint a running session periodically, so its elapsed time survives the browser closing or restarting.
Storage	To save your courses, tasks, sessions, notes and settings on your device.

8. Stripe and optional support

Supporting Hourmark financially is entirely voluntary, and no payment flow is live yet. When one is added it will work as described below, and this section will be updated with the date it went live.

Choosing "Support Hourmark" opens a payment page hosted by Stripe in a new browser tab.
Stripe processes your payment and billing information under Stripe's own privacy policy.
Hourmark does not receive or store your full card details.
Supporting Hourmark does not unlock any features. The extension is fully functional without it.
Your study records are never sent to Stripe. The payment page has no connection to the extension's data.

9. Data retention, export and deletion

Your information stays on your device until you change or remove it.

Automatic retention — detailed website-activity records are kept for a period you control in Settings. The default is 90 days, adjustable from 1 day to 10 years. Older detail is removed automatically.
Delete individual records — any session, course, task or note can be deleted from the dashboard.
Delete website detail only — Settings can erase all retained page and domain information while keeping your session durations and totals.
Delete everything — Settings includes a "clear all local data" action.
Export — you can save your sessions or website activity as CSV, or take a complete JSON backup that can be restored later.
Uninstall — removing the extension from Chrome removes its locally stored data with it.

Because your information never leaves your device, there is no copy anywhere else — so there is nothing for the developer to delete on your behalf, and no request to make.

10. Data security

Your information stays on your own device. That removes an entire category of risk: there is no server holding your study records, so there is nothing to breach, intercept or leak.

Beyond that, Hourmark limits data handling to what its features actually require, and it redacts web addresses before storing them, as described in section 2. It relies on the isolation and storage protections Chrome gives extensions.

No software can promise perfect security, and this policy does not. Your device, your Chrome profile and any backup file you export are ultimately in your hands.

11. Children's privacy

Hourmark is intended for students in higher, professional and continuing education. It is not designed for or directed at young children, and it collects no name, email address, or other personal identifying information from anyone.

12. Changes to this policy

This policy may be updated when Hourmark's features or data practices change. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page identifies the current version, and material changes will also be noted in the extension's release notes.

13. Contact

Questions about this policy, or about how Hourmark handles information:

Developer: Aryan Baki
Email: aryanbaki [dot]dev [at] gmail.com

Please do not include browsing history, screenshots of private pages, or other sensitive information when asking for support. It is never needed to answer a question about Hourmark.

Hourmark Privacy Policy