Terms of Use

These terms govern your use of the Paranoia app and this website, together the service. By downloading the app, subscribing, or using this site, you agree to them. If you do not agree, do not use the service.

“We” and “us” mean Stack Holdings LLC, which publishes the app and operates this site. “You” means the person using it.

How we handle data is a separate document: the Privacy Policy.

Paranoia is not intended for anyone under 13. By signing in, you confirm you meet this minimum age. See the Privacy Policy's CHILDREN clause for what happens if we learn an account belongs to a child.

Every score is our editorial opinion, not a legal or regulatory finding.

Scores are produced by a published, weighted rubric applied to public, cited sources. The rubric and its weightings are readable inside the app, so you can see how a number was reached and disagree with it on the merits rather than guessing at it.

A score is not an accusation of illegality, a certification, an audit, a regulatory finding or advice. It is our assessment of publicly available evidence, and reasonable people can weigh that evidence differently.

A score reflects what a company’s own disclosures and public record said at the time it was reviewed, and it is never a substitute for reading that company’s actual privacy policy before you decide to use its product. Use Paranoia to ask better questions, not as the last word.

We work from public sources, and public sources go stale. A policy changes, a scan is run on a different day, a company restructures. We do not warrant that every score, claim or citation is current, complete or free of error, and we may update, re-weight or withdraw any score at any time as the evidence changes.

If something is wrong, tell us. Email hello@checkparanoia.com with the company, the specific claim, the source we cited and what is wrong with it.

We read every report. We check the claim against its source, correct or withdraw it if the report is right, and reply either way. Corrections are handled editorially, not automatically: a submission does not guarantee a score changes, but every correction is read. You can also send a correction from the in-app Feedback screen; pick “Data is wrong” and tell us what you found. Corrections are made in the dataset the app syncs, so a fix reaches every reader. Full instructions are on the support page.

When we decide to correct or remove a company page, the web version is updated or taken down within 24 hours of that decision. Link previews that other sites and apps have already fetched, such as the share image, can stay in their caches after that, and we cannot recall them.

Company names, product names, logos and trademarks that appear in the service belong to their respective owners and are used nominatively — to identify the company or product being described, which is the only way to write about them at all.

No affiliation, sponsorship, endorsement or approval by any company we score is claimed or implied. No scored company reviews, approves or pays for its entry.

Every score rests on public and licensed sources. The ones below are the sources whose content we redistribute under a specific licence, with the licence each is published under and the obligation that licence puts on us:

• —ToS;DR ↗ — CC BY-SA. Attribution plus share-alike: any dataset we redistribute that is derived from it carries the same licence. We credit it here, in the app, and beside every claim it supports.
• —PrivacySpy ↗ — CC BY. Attribution. We credit it here, in the app, and beside every claim it supports.
• —Privacy Guides ↗ — CC BY-SA. Attribution plus share-alike, credited as “Privacy Guides (www.privacyguides.org)” — the same discipline as ToS;DR. We credit it here, in the app, and beside every claim it supports.
• —Wikidata ↗ — CC0. None — a public-domain dedication imposes no condition. We credit it anyway, because a claim you cannot trace is a claim you cannot check.
• —GeoNames ↗ — CC BY 4.0. Attribution. We credit it here, in the app, and beside every claim it supports.
• —Atlas of Surveillance ↗ — CC BY 4.0. Attribution — and its OpenStreetMap data, incorporated via DeFlock, carries its own attribution requirement. We credit both here, in the app, and beside every claim they support.
• —Blacklight (self-run scans) ↗ — —. Not a licensed dataset: we run the scans ourselves with The Markup’s published tool and report our own results, crediting the tool and its authors.

Never a purchased or scraped dataset.

The evidence base is wider than what we redistribute under licence above. It also draws on companies’ own policies and disclosures, App Store privacy labels, Have I Been Pwned, SEC and FTC filings, state attorney-general and regulator records, CourtListener (Free Law Project), and congressional records — Congress.gov, House and Senate roll calls, OpenFEC, the Senate Lobbying Disclosure database, and the public-domain unitedstates/congress-legislators registry. None of these carries a redistribution licence of its own; we cite the specific filing, record or report beside the claim it supports.

You can use Paranoia without signing in. If you choose to sign in, you use Apple, Google, or an email magic link; we never ask for or store a password.

What you enter stays on this device. Your name and the city you pick for City Watch are stored in this device’s local storage only, and searching and filtering happen entirely on the device — none of it is transmitted when you sign in. The exception is feedback you choose to send from the Feedback screen: we store your message, the type you picked, the company page you sent it from, if any, your app version, platform, and OS version, and a reply-to email only if you ask us to reply, against your account until you delete it. (Rendering the city map fetches map tiles for the chosen area from a third-party tile server, OpenFreeMap, as any map does — see the Privacy Policy.)

Signing in syncs your watchlist. The slugs of the companies and apps you watch, and a timestamp for each, are stored against your account ID so it follows you to any device where you sign in with the same account — visible only to you, and deleted with your account. In the web app, referral codes and grants only exist against an account — see Paranoia Plus below. If you sign out, the local copy is not cleared — it just stops syncing until you sign back in. Everything else, including your preferences and privacy lens, stays on your device either way, with two exceptions: alerts and feedback you choose to send, described below and above.

Uninstalling the app deletes the device’s copy of all of it. Anything synced against your account is removed by deleting your account, not by deleting the app — the Privacy Policy sets out which is which.

Paranoia also ships two optional measurement tools: advertising measurement, which helps us tell whether our own advertising brought you to the app, and product analytics, which helps us understand how the app is used, including session recordings of what you did in the app. Both are on by default and can be switched off at any time in Profile, under MEASUREMENT. The name and city fields above, and the feedback message and reply-to email fields, are masked in those recordings — nothing you type into them appears in a replay. If product analytics is on and a search finds no companies, the text of that search (shortened, and never sent if it looks like an email address, a phone number or a web address) is sent to the analytics provider; a search that finds companies sends nothing you typed. See the Privacy Policy for exactly what each tool records, who receives it, and how to opt out.

Watching and alerts: first-run setup asks you to pick a few companies to watch, and the WATCH button on any company or official’s file adds it to or removes it from your watchlist, which has no limit. The bell next to it turns alerts on or off for that file. Watched entities appear in your list, and when notifications are enabled, turning on an alert stores a push token and the entities you have alerts on on our server, associated with your signed-in account if you are signed in, so we can notify you; nothing is stored server-side before that. Turning an alert off, or removing that entity from your watchlist (which also turns its alert off), removes it from the server-side alert list right away. The push token record itself is not removed the moment you delete the app: deleting the app makes it permanently undeliverable, and the record is disabled after the next delivery attempt to it fails, not at the moment of uninstall. Deleting your account deletes the push token and the alerts you'd subscribed to along with the rest of your account data. Entries a lapsed Paranoia Plus subscription left with alerts off after trimming your alerts back to three stay on your watchlist until you tap the bell on them. The app may also send one weekly digest notification on Sunday evening that summarizes new entries for companies you get alerts for and newly opened settlement notices, only when something is new, and you can turn it off in Profile.

The full detail — every processor, every lawful basis, and how to delete an account — is in the Privacy Policy.

We list open consumer settlements as information, not legal advice. We summarize court, government and official settlement-site notices and link the official claim site. Some summaries are prepared with automated tools and checked against the official notice, and a person reviews a sample of published summaries every week. Settlements that name a company outside our catalog appear as standalone cards. The settlement administrator decides who qualifies, and deadlines can change, so verify eligibility and the deadline on the official settlement site before filing. We never file a claim for you, and we are not a law firm.

Paranoia Plus is an optional auto-renewable subscription. The full catalog of company and app dossiers, every Paranoia Score and letter grade, all five pillar subscores, our written reasoning for every grade, search, the city map, and every claim’s source link on the files of public officials are free without it. Browsing by ranked category (Top Rated) is a Plus feature.

What Plus unlocks today:

• —Every claim’s source link — the primary-source receipt behind each claim on a company or app file, tappable in-app. Source links on the files of public officials stay free for everyone.
• —Ownership chains and subsidiaries — the ultimate parent behind a company, and the files it owns.
• —Personalized rankings — FOR YOU (Home), ordered by the privacy lens you set on this device.
• —Top Rated categories — every category’s full list, ranked from the highest Paranoia Score down.
• —Recommended alternatives on every company page.
• —Unlimited alerts — free users can have alerts on for 3 companies and officials at a time; Plus removes the cap. Your watchlist itself is unlimited for everyone. See the YOUR DATA clause above for what turning on an alert stores.
• —Settlement alerts — alerts when a new settlement opens for a company you watch and, for each settlement you switch reminders on for, reminders 7 days and 1 day before its claim deadline (only those still ahead when you switch it on), delivered as notifications on this device. Deadline reminders are never turned on automatically for companies you watch. The 10 open settlements closing soonest are free for everyone, and a settlement page opened from a company or official file, an alert or a link stays viewable for everyone.
• —Every open settlement — the full settlements list beyond those 10.

Plus is available as a 1-year subscription at $47.00/year, and as a monthly subscription at $6.99/month. US pricing. The price differs by region — the App Store shows your local price at purchase, and that price governs. The paywall itself always reads the live localized price from the App Store, and if the two ever disagree, the price shown to you at purchase governs.

The monthly subscription has no introductory offer and no free trial. The 1-year subscription may be offered at an introductory price to first-time subscribers. Whether an introductory price applies to you is decided by the App Store, based on whether you have already used an introductory offer or free trial for Paranoia Plus — we cannot grant it, extend it, or check it for you. When it applies, the introductory price, how long it lasts, and the price the subscription renews at afterwards are all shown to you on the purchase screen before you buy. No Paranoia Plus term includes a free trial. Unless an introductory price applies to you, the 1-year subscription is charged in full when you buy and again each year, and the monthly subscription each month, unless you cancel.

Payment is charged to your Apple ID; the subscription renews automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the current period ends, and can be managed in your Apple ID subscription settings.

Your Apple ID is charged for renewal within 24 hours of the period ending.

The subscription is managed and cancelled by you — go to Settings → your Apple Account → Subscriptions, or your Apple ID subscription settings ↗. Cancelling stops the next renewal and leaves your access running to the end of the period you have already paid for.

If you reinstall the app or switch devices, tap RESTORE on the Profile screen, using the same Apple ID that bought the subscription.

Paranoia may offer existing or former Paranoia Plus subscribers a discounted price to renew or resubscribe, through the App Store’s promotional and win-back offers. Whether such an offer is available to you, and its terms, are decided by Apple, not by us. When one applies, Apple shows the exact price and start date before you confirm, and canceling remains available to you at any time. Paranoia Plus on the web has no promotional or win-back offers and no introductory price.

Referrals. In the Paranoia web app, signed-in users get a personal referral code on the REFER A FRIEND screen. When a friend who has never redeemed a code before enters yours, they get 7 days of Paranoia Plus free — and so do you. Referral time is a promotional grant, not a subscription: it never renews, it never charges anyone, and it simply ends when it runs out. If you are already subscribed when a week would be granted, your subscription is unchanged — your friend still gets their week. Each code can currently be redeemed up to 5 times, each account can redeem one code ever, and referrals stop adding time to an account once they have given it 35 days in total. To keep the program fair, we apply these limits per account and per code and may decline redemptions that look automated or abusive.

Creator codes. Independent creators who promote Paranoia may share an access code, such as WATCHERS. Creator codes are available in the Paranoia web app only. There you can enter a code during onboarding, or from Profile → REDEEM A CODE once you are signed in. Codes are credited to an account, so redeeming one requires signing in. WATCHERS currently gives 90 days of Paranoia Plus. Like referral time, creator-code time is a promotional grant, not a subscription: it never renews, it never charges anyone, and it ends when it runs out unless you subscribe. If you already have Paranoia Plus, the days are added to the end of the access you already have. Each account, and each email address, can redeem one creator code in total. A creator code is separate from referral codes and does not count toward the referral limits above. Each code has a limit on how many times it can be redeemed (currently 50 for WATCHERS), and we can end a code, or change what it offers to future redeemers, at any time. Days already granted to you are not taken back. A code has no cash value, cannot be exchanged for money or transferred to another account, and may not be sold. Creators who share a code are independent of Paranoia and are not our employees. We may pay them, or give them Paranoia Plus, to promote the app, and what a creator says is their own opinion. Payment to a creator does not change any score. We count how many times each code is redeemed, and we may tell a creator or a partner platform that number. We do not tell them who redeemed it. See the Privacy Policy for what we store about a redemption.

Promotional codes on iPhone and iPad. On iPhone and iPad, promotional codes are App Store offer codes, which you redeem through Apple; Apple sets and fulfills their terms, and the referral and creator-code terms above do not apply to them. The Android app has no promotional codes.

Web purchases. If you buy Paranoia Plus on the web, the seller of record is Stack Holdings LLC, 1110 W Elliot Rd #1167, Tempe AZ 85284, hello@checkparanoia.com, and payment is processed by Stripe through RevenueCat. Web purchases are available to US customers only. Your subscription renews automatically at the same price each year or month until you cancel. Cancel anytime online from Profile → Manage subscription at app.checkparanoia.com; Paranoia Plus stays active until the end of the period you already paid for. All web sales are final: we do not offer refunds, including for partial periods.

If you bought Paranoia Plus through the Apple App Store, Apple is the merchant of record, so refunds are requested from Apple, not from us. Apple’s instructions are here: Request a refund for apps or content you bought from Apple ↗; the request itself is made at reportaproblem.apple.com.

To be plain about the limits of what we can do: for an App Store purchase, we cannot cancel your subscription or issue you a refund ourselves. Both live entirely in your Apple account, and we have no access to it. For a web purchase, cancellation is available anytime from your account, but the purchase itself is final and not refundable.

Where required by the App Store, Apple’s Licensed Application End User License Agreement — the standard EULA — also applies to your use of this app, in addition to the terms above. Apple publishes it here: apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ ↗.

Use the service to look things up. Do not scrape, crawl, bulk-download, mirror or redistribute the scored dataset, the rubric or the citations, whether by hand or by tool, and do not use them to build or train a competing dataset or model.

Do not attempt to interfere with the service, circumvent a paywall or usage limit, reverse-engineer the app except where that right cannot lawfully be excluded, or use the service to harass a company or a person. Quoting a score with attribution and a link is fine and always has been — that is what publishing it is for.

The scores, the rubric and its weightings, the written assessments, the app, this site, and the Paranoia name and visual identity are ours and are protected by copyright and trademark law. Nothing in these terms transfers any of it to you.

You get a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the service for your own purposes, and nothing more. The underlying source material stays under its own licence, listed above, and nothing in these terms restricts the rights anyone has under those licences (ToS;DR, Privacy Guides CC BY-SA and the other sources we credit).

The service is provided as is and as available, without warranty of any kind. To the fullest extent permitted by law we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy or uninterrupted availability.

We do not warrant that any score is accurate, current or complete, that the service will be available or error-free, or that it will meet your requirements. Decisions you make on the basis of a score are yours.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so parts of this clause may not apply to you.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or exemplary damages, or for any loss of profits, data, goodwill or business opportunity, arising out of or in connection with the service, whether or not we were advised of the possibility.

Our total liability for all claims arising out of or relating to the service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim arose, or twenty-five United States dollars.

You agree to indemnify and hold us harmless against any claim, loss or expense, including reasonable legal fees, arising from your use of the service or your breach of these terms.

Some jurisdictions do not allow these limitations, so parts of this clause may not apply to you. Nothing here limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited.

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Arizona, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules, and the courts of that jurisdiction have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising from them.

Your rights under the mandatory consumer law of your own country or region are unaffected by that choice of law.

We may change these terms as the app changes or the law does. When we do, the revised terms are published on this page and the “Last updated” date at the top of the page moves to the date of the change.

Continuing to use the service after that date means you accept the revised terms. If you do not, stop using the service and cancel any subscription through your Apple ID. Publication on this page is the notice, so check here for the current version and its date.

On 2026-08-24, every claim’s source link (on company and app files) and ownership chains and subsidiaries moved from the free tier into Paranoia Plus. Source links on the files of public officials remain free for everyone. All other free-tier items are unchanged.

On 2026-08-24, a monthly Paranoia Plus subscription term was added, billed at $6.99/month with no free trial. The 1-year subscription is unchanged: $47.00/year, and new annual subscribers still get the first three days free.

On 2026-08-24, saving and alerting merged into a single watch action: tapping the eye on a file both adds it to your list and turns on alerts for it, in one tap. Entries saved before this change, and entries a lapsed Paranoia Plus subscription left listed after trimming watches back to three, remain listed and become full watches the next time you tap the eye.

On 2026-10-05, watching and alerts became two separate controls again: the WATCH button adds a company or official to your watchlist, which is free and unlimited for everyone, and the bell next to it turns alerts on. Free users can have alerts on for 3 companies and officials at a time; Paranoia Plus makes alerts unlimited. Anything you were already watching with alerts on keeps its alerts.

On 2026-08-27, browsing a category’s full list (Top Rated) moved into Paranoia Plus. This walks back the earlier statement that alphabetical category lists stay free, with no grandfathering: the change applies to every install once it ships. Free without Plus: the full catalog of company and app dossiers, every Paranoia Score and letter grade, all five pillar subscores, our written reasoning for every grade, search, the city map, and every claim’s source link on the files of public officials.

On 2026-08-27, the Discover screen’s personalized ranking was retired. FOR YOU on Home is now the app’s one personalized ranking, ordered by the privacy lens you set on this device.

On 2026-09-02, the 3-day free trial on the 1-year subscription ended. New annual subscribers now pay an introductory price of $29.99 for the first year, charged at purchase, and $47.00/year after that. No Paranoia Plus term offers a free trial any more. Anyone who started a free trial before this date keeps the terms they agreed to at the time. The monthly subscription is unchanged at $6.99/month with no introductory offer.

Also on 2026-09-02, later the same day, the introductory price on the 1-year subscription was withdrawn. The 1-year subscription is now $47.00/year, charged when you buy and each year after, with no introductory price and no free trial. The paragraph above records the introductory price as it stood earlier that day; anyone who bought at that price keeps the terms they agreed to at the time. The monthly subscription is unchanged at $6.99/month with no introductory offer.

On 2026-09-14, the Your Data section was updated to describe two optional measurement tools Paranoia ships: advertising measurement, which helps us tell whether our own advertising brought you to the app, and product analytics, including session recordings of what you did in the app. Both are on by default and both can be switched off at any time in Profile, under MEASUREMENT. See the Privacy Policy for the full detail. No price, trial length, renewal window, or referral term changed.

On 2026-09-18, these terms were updated to cover introductory pricing. Paranoia may offer an introductory price on the 1-year subscription to first-time subscribers on the App Store. Whether it applies to you is decided by the App Store, not by us, based on whether you have already used an introductory offer or free trial for Paranoia Plus. When it applies, the introductory price, how long it lasts, and the renewal price afterwards are shown on the purchase screen before you buy. The regular prices above are unchanged, no term has a free trial, and nothing changes for anyone who is already subscribed.

On 2026-09-22, these terms were updated to cover discounted renewal offers. Paranoia may offer existing or former Paranoia Plus subscribers a discounted price to renew or resubscribe, through the App Store’s promotional and win-back offers. Whether such an offer is available to you, and its terms, are decided by Apple, not by us. When one applies, Apple shows the exact price and start date before you confirm, and canceling remains available to you at any time. The regular prices above are unchanged and nothing changes for anyone who does not receive such an offer.

Also on 2026-09-22, the YOUR DATA clause was updated to cover the new in-app Feedback screen. Feedback you choose to send, including your message, the type you picked, the company page you sent it from if any, your app version, platform, and OS version, and a reply-to email if you ask us to reply, is stored against your account until you delete it. The feedback message and reply-to email fields are masked in session recordings, same as the name and city fields already were. See the Privacy Policy for the full detail. No price, trial length, renewal window, or referral term changed.

On 2026-09-28, the Paranoia Plus clause was updated for the launch of web purchases. Web purchases are sold by Stack Holdings LLC and processed by Stripe through RevenueCat, US customers only, and are final: we do not offer refunds, including for partial periods. You can cancel anytime online; Paranoia Plus stays active through the period you already paid for. App Store purchases are unchanged: Apple handles those refunds under Apple’s own policy. No price, trial length, or referral term changed.

Also on 2026-09-28, we added Settlement alerts to what Paranoia Plus unlocks, and a Settlement Information clause explaining that settlement listings are information, not legal advice. At that time, settlements themselves showed on Home and the full settlements list free for everyone, and only the two alert toggles (new-settlement alerts and claim-deadline reminders for companies you watch) were part of Paranoia Plus (changed 2026-10-07 and 2026-10-08, below), delivered as notifications on this device. No price, trial length, renewal window, or referral term changed.

On 2026-09-29, the YOUR DATA clause was corrected: Paranoia has never required signing in as of this update, and the earlier wording here saying otherwise is retired. The Web purchases paragraph under Paranoia Plus now names Stack Holdings LLC’s full seller address (1110 W Elliot Rd #1167, Tempe AZ 85284, hello@checkparanoia.com) and states plainly that web purchases have no promotional, win-back or introductory offers. No price, trial length, renewal window, or referral term changed.

On 2026-10-01, the INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY clause gained a closing sentence stating that third-party content (ToS;DR, Privacy Guides CC BY-SA and the other sources we credit) keeps its own licence and nothing here restricts rights under it, and ACCURACY AND CORRECTIONS gained a closing paragraph publishing our 24-hour takedown SLA and noting that link previews already fetched by other sites, such as the share image, can outlive a takedown in their own caches. No price, trial length, renewal window, or referral term changed.

On 2026-10-04, the Settlement Information section was widened from open privacy and data settlements to open consumer settlements, and now says that we summarize court, government and official settlement-site notices, that some summaries are prepared with automated tools and checked against the official notice, and that settlements naming a company outside our catalog appear as standalone cards. At that time, settlement listings were free for everyone (changed 2026-10-07, below); they remain information, not legal advice. No price, trial length, renewal window, or referral term changed.

On 2026-10-05, the Your Data section was updated to say that, when product analytics is on, the text of a search that finds no companies is sent to the analytics provider, shortened and never sent if it looks like an email address, a phone number or a web address. A search that finds companies sends nothing you typed.

On 2026-10-05, the Paranoia Plus section gained a Creator codes paragraph. It says that creator codes such as WATCHERS grant time-limited Plus access that does not renew or charge, that each account and email address can redeem one creator code, that a code has a redemption limit and can be ended or changed for future redeemers, that days already granted are kept, that a code has no cash value and is not transferable, and that creators are independent and may be paid. No price, trial length, renewal window, or referral term changed.

On 2026-10-07, viewing every open settlement became part of Paranoia Plus: the 10 open settlements closing soonest stay free for everyone, on Home and in the full settlements list, and Paranoia Plus shows every open settlement beyond those 10. A settlement page opened from a company or official file, an alert or a link stays viewable for everyone. No price, trial length, renewal window, or referral term changed.

On 2026-10-08, settlement deadline reminders became a switch on each settlement: Paranoia Plus reminds you 7 days and 1 day before the claim deadline only for the settlements you switch reminders on for, instead of through one Deadline reminders setting covering every company you watch. If that setting was on, reminders were switched on for the open settlements of the companies you watched at that time. New-settlement alerts for companies you watch did not change. No price, trial length, renewal window, or referral term changed.

On 2026-10-09, the Referrals paragraph was limited to the Paranoia web app, and a paragraph was added saying that on iPhone and iPad promotional codes are App Store offer codes redeemed through Apple, whose terms Apple sets and fulfills. The iPhone and Android apps no longer offer referral codes or creator codes, and the sentence saying that signing in makes the referral program available was removed. No price, trial length, or renewal window changed, and the referral limits above are unchanged for the web app.

Questions about these terms, a correction, or a licensing or press enquiry: hello@checkparanoia.com.

Last updated October 9, 2026.