GhostPost Privacy Policy

Last updated: 13 May 2026 (privacy-audit revision)

GhostPost is a Chrome extension that lets job-seekers flag suspected fake or ghost job postings on LinkedIn and share that signal with other job-seekers. This page describes exactly what the extension collects, what it does with that data, and how you can delete it.

What we collect

Two distinct kinds of network traffic leave the extension:

Passive — every time you view a LinkedIn job page: the extension asks our server for any existing community signals on that posting so it can render the widget. The request includes:

• A random anonymous ID generated locally in your browser the first time the extension runs. It is not derived from anything about you or your device — it is just a UUID. It is sent so the server can tell you which existing reports you've already voted on and whether you've already marked the posting as ghosted.
• The platform (currently always linkedin) and the posting's numeric ID, taken from the URL or page you are on.

No new database row is created from a passive view. Only your hosting provider's request log records that the call happened.

Active — when you submit a report, vote on a report, or mark that you applied and got no response, the extension also sends:

• The job title and company name as they appear on the LinkedIn page, which we store on the job record so you can identify your own submissions later in the extension popup. Title and company are not included in the public summary that other users see — that summary returns only the aggregated counts described below.
• The reason codes you select (GHOST_REPOST, ROLE_MISMATCH, UNPAID_WORK, SUSPICIOUS_RECRUITER, OTHER), or the wait-time bucket if you mark a posting as "applied and got no response", or the vote value (up / down) if you vote on someone else's report.
• The timestamp of each action.

Like any web service, our hosting provider's logs may record the IP address of incoming requests for short-term operational and abuse-prevention purposes. We do not deliberately store IP addresses in our database alongside reports.

What we don't collect

• Your name, email, LinkedIn profile, resume, or anything else that identifies you. (The codebase contains a dormant magic-link sign-in path reserved for a future moderation/admin surface; it is disabled in the public production server.)
• Your browsing history. The content script only runs on linkedin.com/jobs/ pages and only reads the job posting currently being shown.
• The contents of any application you submit to an employer.
• Cookies. We do not read LinkedIn's cookies or set any of our own.
• Anything from sites other than LinkedIn job pages.

What is shown publicly

The aggregated, anonymized signals about a posting — total report count, breakdown of reason codes, the five most recent reports with their up- and down-vote totals, and the number of people who marked the posting as "applied and got no response" — are shown to anyone who views that same posting via GhostPost. The job's title and company name are stored against the job record but are not in the public summary response; the anonymous ID of a reporter is never shown to other users.

Why we collect what we collect

The reason codes, votes, and wait buckets feed the public aggregate that is the entire point of the extension. The anonymous ID is used solely to let you retract or change your own reports, to prevent you from voting on your own report, to mark which existing reports you have already voted on, and to enforce per-install rate limits (e.g. no more than 5 reports per day from one install).

Where it's stored

Our backend runs on Fly.io in the United States, at https://ghostpost.fly.dev. Data is stored in a SQLite database on a private volume attached to that machine, and is backed up by Fly's automatic volume snapshots. We do not sell, rent, or share this data with advertisers or any third party. We do not use any analytics or tracking SDKs.

The extension popup includes an Advanced setting for changing the backend URL. If you set it to something other than the default, everything described above is sent to whatever URL you configured instead of to us. This setting exists for local development and is blank by default.

Third-party services

• Fly.io — hosting provider. See Fly.io's privacy policy.

That's the entire list.

How to delete your data

• Open any GhostPost report you've made (via the extension popup's "Your reports" list) and click Retract. This deletes the report and any votes attached to it from our database.
• To delete a "I applied and got no response" entry, visit the job posting and click Retract on the in-page widget.
• To disconnect from all of your past reports and votes at once, open the extension popup and click Reset anonymous ID. Your past entries become orphaned (no longer attributable to your install), but the report content itself remains visible to other users. If you may later want to request server-side deletion of the records made under the old ID, copy the ID from the popup's Anonymous ID box before resetting — once reset, neither you nor we have a way to look those entries up.
• To uninstall the extension entirely, remove it from chrome://extensions. Your locally-stored anonymous ID is deleted with the uninstall.

Children's privacy

GhostPost is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect data from children.

Changes to this policy

If we change what we collect or how we use it, we will update the date at the top of this page and note the change. Material changes will be reflected in the extension's listing on the Chrome Web Store.

Contact

Questions or deletion requests: matthewwilliams1919@gmail.com.