Who operates Shelved
Shelved is operated by Zektek LLC (“Zektek,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). This policy applies to the Shelved browser extension and the supporting usage-analytics gateway at extension-event-gateway.zektek.com.
Information stored in your browser
Shelved stores the following extension data:
- a record for each bookmark: its title, URL, hostname, when it was saved, when it was last visited (once you allow history access), and whether it’s snoozed, dismissed, or manually included or excluded from tracking;
- your settings: whether Shelved is enabled and the staleness threshold you’ve chosen;
- a rate-limited weekly queue of which bookmarks are currently up for a reminder;
- if backups are turned on (on by default), periodic snapshots of your bookmark tree, kept for 7 days, used only to restore something that went missing;
- the results of any duplicate, empty-folder, or dead-link scan you’ve run, and anything you’ve told Shelved to ignore, so a later scan doesn’t keep re-surfacing items you’ve already dealt with;
- whether anonymous usage analytics is turned on (on by default); and
- a randomly generated analytics client identifier, plus a short-lived session identifier that expires after 30 minutes of inactivity.
All of this is stored only in Chrome’s local extension storage on each device. The analytics session identifier is stored only in Chrome’s session storage, which clears when the browser closes.
Information processed when you use Shelved
Tracking bookmarks and visits
Shelved reads your bookmarks, their titles, URLs, and folder structure, through Chrome’s bookmarks API to build its list. Only if you grant the optional history permission does it also look up when a URL you’ve already bookmarked was last visited; this lookup is targeted to your existing bookmarks, never your general browsing history. All of this processing happens entirely inside your browser.
Tidying duplicates, empty folders, and dead links
When you run a tidy scan, Shelved compares your bookmarks’ URLs to find duplicates and walks your bookmark folders to find empty ones, both entirely locally. Checking for dead links makes a direct, read-only request from your browser to each bookmarked site to see whether it’s still reachable. Shelved does not read or store the content of the pages it checks, and only flags a link as dead when the request fails outright; a page that loads but returns an error is left alone rather than guessed at.
Limited usage analytics
When enabled, Shelved sends anonymous usage events to our own event gateway at extension-event-gateway.zektek.com, along with your analytics client identifier, session identifier, and the extension version. The gateway then forwards these events to Google Analytics on our behalf. Because this forwarding happens server-side, Google receives the event data from our gateway rather than directly from your browser, and does not receive your IP address or browser details through this process.
These events can indicate:
- that the extension was installed;
- that the popup was opened; and
- that you turned usage analytics off.
Shelved never sends bookmark titles, URLs, domains, folder names, or your settings’ values through these events. You can turn usage analytics off at any time from Shelved’s settings page; doing so stops future events and deletes your locally stored analytics client identifier.
Why we process this information
We use this information only to:
- show reminders for bookmarks you’ve gone without visiting;
- remember your settings, snoozes, and dismissals;
- back up and, if needed, restore your bookmarks, if you’ve kept that feature on;
- run the duplicate, empty-folder, and dead-link scans you ask for;
- understand whether core extension features work; and
- diagnose failures and improve Shelved.
We do not sell personal information, use Shelved data for targeted advertising, or build profiles of the sites you visit.
Service providers
Zektek operates the usage-analytics gateway, hosted on Cloudflare, which forwards usage events to Google Analytics on our behalf, as described above. Bookmark tracking, history lookups, and dead-link checks do not go through this gateway or any other Zektek server; they run directly between your browser, Chrome’s own APIs, and the sites you’ve bookmarked.
Retention and your choices
Analytics events are retained according to Zektek’s Google Analytics configuration. Extension settings, bookmark records, tidy-scan results, the local analytics client identifier, and the analytics on/off setting remain in browser storage until they are cleared, turned off, or the extension is removed. Backup snapshots are automatically dropped after 7 days, and the analytics session identifier expires automatically after 30 minutes of inactivity.
You can change Shelved’s staleness threshold, turn backups or anonymous usage analytics on or off, and revoke the optional history permission, all from Shelved’s settings page. Turning analytics off also deletes your locally stored analytics client identifier. You can remove all locally stored extension data by uninstalling Shelved or clearing the extension’s data in Chrome. You can also use Shelved without a Zektek account because no account is required.
Security and children
We use reasonable technical measures to protect information processed by Shelved. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.
Shelved is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as Shelved changes. We will post the revised policy here and update the effective date above. Material changes will be communicated through the extension or this page when appropriate.
Contact us
For questions, privacy requests, or concerns about Shelved, please contact Zektek.