Privacy Policy

Your Privacy Matters

PeekStories is built with privacy at its core. We believe you should be able to browse publicly available content without sacrificing your own privacy. This policy explains what data we collect (very little) and how we handle it.

What We Don't Collect

• No account required — We never ask you to create an account, log in, or provide any personal information.
• No Instagram credentials — We never ask for your Instagram username, password, or any login tokens.
• No personal data storage on our servers — Searches you perform are processed in real-time and not stored.
• No selling of your data — We do not sell or trade personal information to outside parties beyond what is described in the Third-Party Services section.

What We Do Collect

• Analytics — We use Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to understand page views, session duration, and general geographic region. GA4 uses cookies. Data is aggregated and not used to identify individual users.
• Advertising cookies — Google AdSense and its partners may set cookies (including the DoubleClick DART cookie) and web beacons to serve advertisements. See the Third-Party Services section below for opt-out instructions.
• Local storage — Your search history is stored locally in your browser using localStorage. This data never leaves your device and can be cleared at any time through your browser settings.
• Server logs — Our hosting provider (Cloudflare) may temporarily log IP addresses, user agent, and request metadata for security and uptime monitoring.

How PeekStories Works

PeekStories accesses publicly available Instagram content through server-side requests. When you search for an Instagram username:

1. Your request is sent to our server.
2. Our server fetches the publicly available content from Instagram.
3. The content is returned to your browser for display.
4. Your identity is never shared with Instagram — they only see a request from our server.

We only access content from public Instagram accounts. Private accounts cannot be viewed through PeekStories or any other third-party tool.

Third-Party Services

PeekStories uses the following third-party services:

• Cloudflare — Website hosting (Cloudflare Workers), content delivery (CDN), DNS, and security/bot protection. Cloudflare may temporarily log request metadata (IP, user agent, timestamps) for security and uptime monitoring. See Cloudflare's Privacy Policy.
• Google Analytics (GA4) — We use Google Analytics to understand website usage patterns such as page views, session duration, and general geographic region. Google Analytics uses cookies to collect this data. The information is aggregated and used solely to improve PeekStories. You can opt out of Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-on.
• Google AdSense — Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies, web beacons, and pixel tags to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to this website or other websites. Google's use of the DoubleClick DART cookie enables it and its partners to serve ads to users based on their visit to PeekStories and/or other sites on the Internet. Users may opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings, or opt out of a third-party vendor's use of cookies for personalized advertising by visiting aboutads.info (AdChoices). For more information about how Google uses data when you use partner sites or apps, see Google's policies for partner sites.

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer your personal information to outside parties beyond what is described above.

EU Users (GDPR Consent)

If you are visiting from the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, we and our advertising partners (including Google) rely on your consent to use cookies and similar technologies for personalized advertising and analytics. The first time you visit PeekStories from these regions, you will be presented with a consent banner where you can:

• Accept all cookies (analytics + personalized advertising)
• Reject non-essential cookies (you will still see ads, but they will be non-personalized)
• Customize your preferences for specific cookie categories

You can withdraw or change your consent at any time by clearing your browser cookies and revisiting the site. Your consent choices are managed under the IAB Transparency & Consent Framework (TCF) where applicable.

Web Beacons & Pixel Tags

In addition to cookies, PeekStories and our third-party advertising partners (such as Google AdSense) may use web beacons (also called pixel tags or clear GIFs) to collect information about your interactions with the site, such as which pages you view and which advertisements you see. Web beacons are typically transparent graphic images that work alongside cookies to measure ad performance and improve the relevance of ads shown to you. You can disable web beacon tracking by configuring your browser to block third-party cookies and images, or by using the opt-out tools listed in the Third-Party Services section above.

Cookies

PeekStories uses the following types of cookies:

• Essential cookies — Required for basic site functionality. These do not collect personal data.
• Analytics cookies — Used by Google Analytics to understand how visitors interact with the site. These cookies collect information anonymously.
• Advertising cookies — Used by Google AdSense to serve relevant advertisements. These cookies may track your browsing activity across websites.

You can control and disable cookies through your browser settings. Note that disabling certain cookies may affect the functionality of the website.

Your Rights (GDPR & CCPA)

Depending on your location, you may have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• Right to access — You can request information about the data we hold about you.
• Right to rectification — You can request correction of inaccurate data.
• Right to erasure — You can request deletion of your data ("right to be forgotten").
• Right to data portability — You can request a copy of your data in a machine-readable format.
• Right to opt out — You can opt out of personalized advertising and analytics tracking as described above.
• Right to object — You can object to the processing of your data for certain purposes.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at rohitvinod.dev@gmail.com. We will respond to your request within 30 days.

Data Retention

Since PeekStories does not require user accounts or collect personal information directly, we retain minimal data. Server logs are automatically deleted within 30 days. Analytics data is retained in aggregated form by Google Analytics as per their data retention settings. Local browser storage (such as search history) remains on your device until you clear it manually.

Children's Privacy (COPPA)

PeekStories complies with the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Our service is not directed to and not intended for use by children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect, use, or disclose personal information from children under 13. If we become aware that we have inadvertently collected personal information from a child under 13, we will delete it promptly. Parents or guardians who believe their child has provided us with personal information may contact us at rohitvinod.dev@gmail.com and we will take immediate steps to remove the data and any associated account.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. Any changes will be posted on this page with an updated date.

Contact

If you have questions about this privacy policy or wish to exercise your data rights, you can reach us at rohitvinod.dev@gmail.com or visit our Contact page.