Privacy

Short version

I run INSTADOWN as a stateless tool. You paste a URL, the server fetches a public file from Instagram, the file goes to your browser. Nothing about you is saved beyond a 14-day server log used for spotting spam. No account, no profile of your habits, no email list.

If you stop using the site tomorrow there is nothing left of you here a month later.

Server logs

Every web server keeps a log. Mine writes one line per request: IP, timestamp, the path you hit, the status code. That line lives on the server for 14 days, then a cron job overwrites it. The reason is dumb but real — when somebody scripts a thousand requests a minute against a single endpoint, I need to see the IP to block it. Without that I can not run the site.

The logs are not joined to anything. They do not flow into Google Analytics, they do not get sold, they do not turn into shadow profiles. I look at them when something is on fire and ignore them otherwise.

Analytics

Vercel Analytics is on, in cookie-less mode. It counts page views and gives me rough country-level geography so I can tell whether the German pages are doing anything yet. No cross-site tracking, no fingerprinting, no third-party ad SDK.

If I ever turn on Google AdSense to keep the lights on, this page is where the change shows up first. I am not going to slip ad cookies in by patch note.

What Instagram sees

The fetch goes from my server to Instagram with no Instagram session attached. From their side it is a logged-out reader hitting a public endpoint, the same endpoint anyone gets when they open instagram.com in a private window. The owner of the account you looked up gets nothing — no notification, no name on a viewer list, nothing.

For the long answer on how anonymous viewing actually works, see the Story page. It explains the mechanism in more detail than fits here.

Children

Instagram is thirteen-and-up. So is INSTADOWN. I do not knowingly collect data from anyone younger. If you are a parent and you find out your kid was using the site, send me an email and I will help with whatever cleanup is possible — usually that means nothing, because I do not have a profile to delete, but I will look.

How to reach me

Removal requests, DMCA, privacy questions, anything that needs a human reply — write to unsieger00kk@gmail.com. It is not a ticketing system. I read it.