Security and data

What Paperboy stores, and how to delete it

Short answers first. The full legal text is in the privacy policy. This page says what the product actually does today, including what it does not do yet.

  • Connecting Google is optional
  • Revoke access any time
  • We list what is not built yet

At a glance

  • One Google permissionRead-only Search Console access, and nothing else.
  • Your data is not soldIt is never used to train AI models.
  • Secrets stay on our serversThe browser cannot read them at all.
  • Delete a site, delete its dataRight away, from Site settings.

What do we store?

  • Your accountYour email address. Your password is stored only as a one-way hash by our sign-in provider.
  • Your websiteThe address you give us, and the text, titles, links, colors and logo we read from its public pages.
  • What you tell usYour voice answers, banned claims, words to avoid and site settings.
  • Your articlesEach article, the text of every source it was checked against, and its fact check result.
  • Publishing credentialsIf you connect WordPress, Ghost or a webhook, the application password, Admin API key or signing secret you give us. They are used only to publish your articles.
  • Search Console dataOnly if you connect it. See below.
  • BillingHandled by Stripe. We keep your plan, subscription status and Stripe identifiers. We never see or store your full card number.
  • Usage recordsTokens and cost of the AI work done for your account, and the reason you give if you cancel.
  • Free article limitsA salted one-way hash of your network address, a random cookie identifier and a normalized form of your email, used only to keep the free article to one per person.

Secrets and Google tokens sit in a database table that the browser cannot read at all. Only our servers can. Each customer's other data is separated by row-level security at the database. We do not sell your data and we do not use your content or Google data to train AI models.

Which Google permissions do we ask for?

One, and it is read-only:

Read-onlyhttps://www.googleapis.com/auth/webmasters.readonly

Google's Search Console API documentation lists this scope as "Read-only access" (read October 29, 2026). We cannot change anything in your Google account or in Search Console. We use it to list the properties you can see, and to read search performance for the property that matches your site: queries, pages, clicks, impressions and average position, by day. We ask for no other Google scope, and we do not ask for your Google profile or email.

Our use of what we read from Google follows the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use rules. Connecting is optional. New sites can skip it and still get articles.

How do I revoke Google access?

  1. 1
    In Google

    Open myaccount.google.com/permissions, choose Paperboy and remove access. This works at any time and does not need us. Google's help page on third-party access walks through it.

  2. 2
    In Paperboy

    Open Site settings for the site and press Disconnect. We delete the stored Google refresh token for that site right away.

Two details. Disconnecting in Paperboy deletes our copy of the token, but it does not tell Google to revoke it, so also use the Google page above if you want the grant itself gone. And Search Console rows we already pulled are not deleted by Disconnect. They are deleted when you delete the site (below).

What happens to my data when I cancel?

Cancel

Stops billing at the end of the period you paid for. Articles keep publishing until then. Cancelling does not delete anything by itself: your site, articles, fact checks and Search Console data stay in your account until you delete the site, so you can come back.

Delete a site

The delete button. In Site settings, type the site's address to confirm. If the site has an active paid plan, cancel it on the Billing page first. Deleting the site removes, right away, the site and everything attached to it in our database: its articles, sources, fact checks, Search Console data, Google token and publishing credentials. A hosted blog on that site stops being served. Articles already published to your own WordPress, Ghost or other site stay on that site, because they live there.

Delete your account

There is no button for it yet. Email hello@paperboyseo.com and we delete it by hand. Records we must keep for tax and accounting law, such as Stripe billing records, are kept.

What is not built yet?

These are not done yet. We list them so you do not have to guess.

  • Not yet
    Automatic deletion after cancelNothing is purged when a plan ends. Today deletion happens when you delete the site or ask us. A scheduled purge for lapsed accounts is not built.
  • Not yet
    Delete my account buttonAccount deletion is a manual request by email.
  • Not yet
    Revoke at Google when you press DisconnectDisconnect deletes our copy of the token. It does not yet call Google to revoke the grant.
  • Not yet
    Delete Search Console data on DisconnectRows already pulled stay until the site is deleted.
  • Not yet
    Download my dataCopies are provided on request by email, not from a button.

Found a security problem?

Email hello@paperboyseo.com with what you found and how to reproduce it. Please do not test against other customers' data. See also the privacy policy and the contact page.

Report a problem

Ready to read your first article?

Paste your address. Connecting Search Console is optional, and the first article is free with no card.

You pick a plan only after you have read it.

Prefer to run it yourself? Self-host it (repo coming soon). Using an agent? Add the MCP server.