Privacy Policy

1. What We Store (and Where)

Almost everything ChargeGuardian Pro does happens locally in your browser using Chrome's built-in storage. The following data is stored on your device only and is never transmitted to us except where explicitly noted below:

• Profile information you choose to enter: name, email, phone number, and address. This is optional and used only to pre-fill dispute letters and, if you enable SMS alerts, to send them.
• Transaction and subscription data that the extension detects during checkout (merchant, amount, date). Used for the subscription tracker, budget tools, and dispute manager.
• Scam detection results and your whitelist/preferences.
• Your license key (for Pro activation).
• Language preference (English or Spanish).

You can clear all of this at any time through Chrome's extension settings. We have no copy of it and cannot retrieve it.

2. On-Device Processing

Scam detection, checkout interception, subscription tracking, dispute-letter generation, and the Guardian AI assistant all run entirely on your device. The Guardian AI assistant uses Chrome's built-in on-device AI (Gemini Nano) — your questions and financial data are processed locally and are not sent to any AI server.

3. Optional Message & SMS Scanning

ChargeGuardian Pro includes optional scanning of WhatsApp Web and Google Messages to detect SMS scams and phishing attempts. This feature runs locally on your device; message content is analyzed in your browser and is never transmitted to our servers. To do this, the extension runs a content script on web.whatsapp.com and messages.google.com. These scanners only read message text to check it against known scam patterns — we do not store, log, or transmit your messages. You can disable message scanning at any time in Settings.

4. The Only Times Data Leaves Your Device

ChargeGuardian Pro makes network requests in exactly three cases:

• License validation. To verify your Pro license, your license key is sent to our validation server (cgproapi.vercel.app), which checks it against our payment provider, Whop. This happens periodically (roughly monthly) and on activation. No financial or profile data is included — only the license key.
• Scam rule updates. The extension periodically downloads an updated list of known scam domains and patterns from chargeguardian.io. This is a one-way download; no personal data is sent.
• SMS alerts (only if you enable them). If you turn on SMS payment alerts and provide a phone number, then when a checkout is confirmed, your phone number, license key, and the transaction details (merchant, amount) are sent to our server (cgproapi.vercel.app), which uses Twilio to deliver the text message. SMS alerts are off by default. If you never enable them, no such data is ever transmitted.

We do not transmit your browsing history, the contents of pages you visit, your message content, your profile, or your transaction history to any server.

5. What We Do NOT Do

• We do not sell or rent your data to anyone.
• We do not use analytics, advertising, or tracking cookies.
• We do not transfer your data for purposes unrelated to fraud protection.
• We do not use your data to determine creditworthiness or for lending.

6. Third Parties

We rely on two service providers strictly to operate the paid product:

• Whop — processes your purchase and issues your license key.
• Twilio — delivers SMS alerts, only if you enable them.

Neither receives your browsing data, message content, or transaction history beyond what is described in Section 4.

7. Data Retention

Your profile, transaction history, and preferences are stored locally in your browser and remain until you clear them. License validation requests are not logged with personal data. SMS delivery records are retained by Twilio per their standard policies solely to deliver the message.

8. Changes to This Policy

If this policy changes, we will update the extension version and notify users through the Chrome Web Store. We will never add data collection without clear notice.

9. Contact

Questions? Contact us at support@chargeguardian.io.