Privacy notice
Last updated 2 October 2026
The short version. You don't need an account. We don't use tracking cookies, analytics or ads. We use what you search for only to answer your search, and we don't keep a record of who searched for what. Our providers (Cloudflare, our hosting company, and the DNS and registry services that answer lookups) see what they need to do their part. If a registrar link takes you to a registrar's site, that site's own privacy policy applies there.
Who is responsible
TLDscout is run by C.S. Assets LLC, a Florida limited liability company (Alachua County, Florida, USA). We are the "controller" of the personal data described here. Contact us about privacy at [email protected].
What we process, and why
| What | Why | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Your search (the name you type and the options you pick) | To look the name up across extensions and show you the results. | Only while your search runs. We don't log searches. Answers are kept in a short-lived cache (see below), stored under a one-way coded key, so the cache doesn't list the names people searched. |
| Your IP address | To deliver the page to you, and to limit how many searches and lookups one address can make (so the service stays fair and registries aren't overloaded). IPv6 addresses are grouped by network (/64). | Held in the server's memory for the rate limits, at most a day; not written to our logs. |
| A security ticket | After the bot check (below), your browser gets a ticket that lets it search for about ten minutes. It's tied to your address group, so it can't be reused elsewhere. | About ten minutes. It lives in the page, not in a cookie. |
| Error logs | To keep the service working. They hold the kind of error and the page path, not your search or your IP address. | Rotated automatically and kept only briefly. |
We may keep simple totals (for example, how many searches ran in a day) that can't identify anyone.
The cache
To avoid asking DNS and registries the same question again and again, the server keeps recent answers for a short time: "this name is in DNS" for up to 24 hours, "this name isn't in DNS" for up to 15 minutes, and a registry's answer to a Verify for at most an hour (and only where that registry's terms allow keeping it). Porkbun's answers to "Check price at Porkbun" are kept in the server's memory for up to 6 hours. None of these are linked to you.
Who else sees your search
Looking a name up means asking other services about it. They receive the domain name being checked, but not your IP address (the request comes from our server, not your browser), except where noted:
- DNS services. Public DNS resolvers (Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 and Google Public DNS) and each extension's own nameservers, run by its registry. Cloudflare and Google keep queried domain names in aggregated logs under their own policies.
- A registry, when you click Verify. That one registry receives that one name.
- Porkbun, when you click "Check price at Porkbun". Porkbun receives that one name.
- Cloudflare runs the network in front of TLDscout and the bot check. It handles every request to this site, including your IP address and what you search for, on our behalf. For the bot check (Cloudflare Turnstile) it looks at signals from your browser and device to tell people from bots, and it also uses some of that for its own bot-detection purposes, as its privacy policy explains.
- Our hosting provider (DigitalOcean, in the United States) runs the server.
We don't sell or share your data for advertising, we don't publish searches (no "trending names"), and we never register or reserve names people search for.
Cookies and storage
TLDscout sets no cookies of its own and stores nothing in your browser. Cloudflare may set a strictly necessary security cookie
(such as __cf_bm or cf_clearance) while protecting the site; we don't use it for anything else. Because there are
no tracking or advertising cookies, there's no cookie banner.
When you follow a link to a registrar, you leave TLDscout. The registrar's site sets its own cookies under its own policy; for a paid link, that includes the cookie that tells the registrar the visit came from TLDscout. We don't send your search or any information about you along with the click: links carry only the extension (such as "tv") as a tag.
Legal basis (for visitors in the EU, EEA and UK)
We process this data because we have a legitimate interest (GDPR and UK GDPR, Article 6(1)(f)) in providing the search you ask for, keeping the service secure and free of abuse, and keeping to the limits that registries set. We use no data for marketing, and we don't make decisions about you by automated means.
Your rights
Depending on where you live, you can ask us for access to, correction of or deletion of your personal data; ask us to restrict or stop processing it; object to processing based on legitimate interests; and ask for a copy in a portable form. Under the GDPR and UK GDPR these are your rights in Articles 15 to 21. Email [email protected]; we'll answer within one month. Because we don't keep searches linked to people, we will often hold nothing about you, and we'll say so.
You can also complain to a data protection authority: in the EU or EEA, the authority where you live or work; in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk). We'd appreciate the chance to sort it out with you first.
International transfers
TLDscout runs in the United States, and Cloudflare's network is worldwide. If you're outside the US, your data is transferred there. We rely on the safeguards our providers offer for such transfers, such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses (and the UK addendum) or the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework where a provider takes part in it.
Children
TLDscout is a general tool for people choosing a domain name. It isn't aimed at children, and we don't knowingly collect data about anyone under 16.
Changes
If we change how TLDscout handles data, we'll update this notice and the date at the top. If a change matters, we'll say so on the home page for a while.
Contact
C.S. Assets LLC, Alachua County, Florida, USA · [email protected]