Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 22, 2026

Who we are

TabNorth is made by Tab North Inc. ("we", "us", "our"), a corporation incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act, with its registered office at Unit 203-2150 Winston Park Dr., Oakville, Ontario L6H 5V1, Canada. We are responsible for the personal information described in this policy. TabNorth is a Chrome extension that shows your tabs with full titles, lets you reorder them, and organizes them into groups with AI assistance. This policy covers the extension and this website. Contact: [email protected].

Our Privacy Officer is accountable for how we handle personal information and for our compliance with this policy and with privacy law, and is the person in charge of the protection of personal information under Québec law. You can reach the Privacy Officer at [email protected] (write "Privacy Officer" in the subject), or by mail at the address above, marked "Attention: Privacy Officer".

What stays on your device

Your tabs, by default. The tab pane, drag reordering, the quick switcher, and browser tab groups all run locally using Chrome's extension APIs. TabNorth does not record your browsing history or read page contents. If you never sign in and never click Organize, nothing about your tabs is sent anywhere; the only things we receive are the limited usage data and crash reports described below. Neither contains tab titles, URLs or page content (crash reports do carry the extension and Chrome versions and a few diagnostic counts), and you can turn both off.

What we collect, and when

When you sign in with Google

• Account details: your Google account email address, display name, profile picture, and Google account ID. We use these to create your TabNorth account and show who's signed in.
• Sign-in session: the extension stores your sign-in session in your browser's local extension storage, so you stay signed in between browser restarts. Signing out removes it.

When you save tab groups to the cloud

• Saved group contents: group names, folder structure, and each saved tab's title and URL, with timestamps. This is the product — it's what lets you reopen a group later or on another machine.

When you click Organize (AI grouping)

• Tab snapshot: the titles and URLs of the tabs in your current window are sent to our server, which forwards them to our AI provider to generate group suggestions. The suggestions come back to your browser; nothing is applied without you.
• Saved prompts: if you save a custom instruction for regrouping your tabs, its text is stored with your account so it syncs across your devices. When you save one, its text is sent to our AI provider to suggest a short title for it, and when you organize with it, it is sent along with your tabs.
• Request logs: we log the content of AI requests and responses, including title suggestions for saved prompts, to prevent abuse and debug grouping quality. We keep them for as long as they are useful for those purposes.
• Usage counters: we count your AI requests to enforce plan limits.

When you subscribe to Pro

• Billing: payments are processed by Stripe. Stripe receives your email and payment details, and stores your TabNorth account ID with your customer record so payments are linked to your account. We store your Stripe customer and subscription identifiers, your plan status, and a record of billing events (subscription started, trial converted, subscription canceled, payment failed). Our servers write these records, not the extension; each carries your account ID, the time, and, where they apply, a few details from Stripe: monthly or yearly, the payment attempt number, and Stripe's reference for the event. We never see or store card numbers.

When something goes wrong

If TabNorth hits an unexpected error, we send a diagnostic report to our error-monitoring provider so we can find and fix it. That report contains the error message, the line of our code that failed, the extension version, your Chrome version, your account ID once you have signed in, and a few diagnostic codes and counts (for example, how many tabs were involved). Before it is sent, it is scrubbed of tab titles, tab URLs, page contents, and email addresses, and no reports are sent from incognito windows. Our servers also report their own errors to the same provider; those reports carry your account ID when the error happened while handling your request, and are likewise scrubbed of tab titles, tab URLs, and email addresses.

Product usage

We collect a small amount of usage data about how the extension is set up and used, so we can see what to improve. Each record contains only a short event label, the time, a random identifier for the installation, your account ID once you have signed in, the extension version, and, for some events, a short value from a fixed list (for example, which limit opened the upgrade screen, or whether you picked monthly or yearly). The copy our product-analytics provider receives also says whether the extension is a Chrome Web Store install or a developer build. It does not contain tab titles, tab URLs, page contents, or your email address, and nothing is recorded from incognito windows. Billing events are recorded by our servers, not the extension, and are described under When you subscribe to Pro. This data is stored in our own database, and is also processed by our product-analytics provider, listed below, which gives us the tools to read it. Requests to that provider are sent with IP geolocation disabled, so it does not work out your location from your IP address.

When you uninstall

When you remove TabNorth, Chrome opens a goodbye page on this website. If usage data was on, the page records one event in our own database saying the installation was removed, with the installation's random identifier and the extension version. The page also asks, optionally, why you uninstalled: if you tap one of the six fixed reasons, that reason is recorded the same way. Nothing else is recorded, and if usage data was off, the page records nothing at all.

Incognito windows

TabNorth does not run in Incognito unless you turn it on yourself, with Chrome's Allow in Incognito switch on TabNorth's entry at chrome://extensions. It is off until you set it, and until then the extension cannot see incognito windows at all. If you do turn it on, groups you save from an incognito window sync like any other saved group — their tab titles and URLs are stored under your account, exactly as described above. That is the feature working as intended: TabNorth is in those windows because you put it there, and turning the switch back off keeps it out of them again. Crash reports and product-usage events are never sent from incognito windows, whether the switch is on or off.

What we don't collect

• No background browsing history — tab data is only read when you open TabNorth or invoke one of its features.
• No page contents, keystrokes, or form data.
• No advertising identifiers and no advertising trackers. We don't run ads, and we don't sell or share your data with advertisers. This website sets no cookies and loads no third-party scripts or fonts.

How we use your data

• To provide the service: syncing saved groups, generating AI group suggestions, and keeping your account working across devices.
• To enforce plan limits and prevent abuse of the AI service.
• To find and fix faults (crash reports) and to see which features are used so we can improve them (usage data).
• To respond when you contact us for support.

We do not sell your data, share it for advertising, or use it to train AI models.

Who processes your data

We use the following service providers, each only for what's listed:

• Our hosting provider — hosts our database and authentication. Your account, saved groups, and usage data live here, protected so that each account can only read its own rows.
• Our AI provider — runs the AI model that generates group suggestions. It receives tab titles and URLs only when you click Organize, and the text of a saved prompt when you save it (to suggest its title) or organize with it.
• Our error-monitoring provider — receives crash diagnostics (error message, stack trace, extension and Chrome versions, account ID, and a few diagnostic codes and counts) so we can fix faults. Reports are scrubbed of tab titles, tab URLs, page contents, and email addresses before they are sent.
• Our product-analytics provider — receives the usage events described above so we can understand how TabNorth is used and what to improve. It never receives tab titles, tab URLs, or page contents.
• Stripe — processes Pro subscription payments.
• Google — provides sign-in (OAuth). Google's own privacy policy governs your Google account.
• Our website host — serves tabnorth.com, including the pages Chrome opens after checkout and after you uninstall.
• Our email provider — handles the messages you send to [email protected].

When the extension or your browser connects to us or to these providers, they receive your IP address, as any internet service does. We don't use it to work out where you are.

Google user data

TabNorth's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We use your Google account information solely to authenticate you and operate your TabNorth account.

Retention and deletion

We keep the information we collect for as long as it is needed for the purpose we collected it for — running your account, operating and improving TabNorth, and meeting our legal obligations. Where a category works differently, it is set out below.

• Saved groups and account data are kept until you delete them or delete your account.
• AI request logs, crash reports, and usage data are kept for as long as they remain useful for operating, debugging, and improving the product.
• Deleting your account — available inside the extension — permanently deletes your account, saved groups, folders, usage records, and AI request logs, and cancels any active subscription. You can also email us at [email protected] and we'll delete your data for you. After deletion we may keep limited information where the law requires it, and copies can persist in routine backups until those age out.
• What stays after deletion: crash reports and analytics events held by our error-monitoring and product-analytics providers, and usage events in our own database that were recorded while you were signed out, including the uninstall page's events, which are not tied to an account. These are keyed to random identifiers (your account ID or the installation's ID), never your name or email. Once your account is deleted we can no longer link them to you, with one exception: if you ever started a checkout, the billing records Stripe keeps carry your account ID and email. The providers keep their copies under their own retention settings.
• Billing records are retained by Stripe after your account is deleted, as accounting and tax law require, and carry your account ID and email.

Your choices

• Crash reports and usage data: turn either off in the extension's Settings, under Privacy (Send crash reports; Share usage data). The change takes effect straight away, and with usage data off the uninstall page records nothing. These settings control what the extension sends: our servers also report their own errors (with your account ID) and record billing events (subscription started, trial converted, canceled, payment failed) regardless of the setting.
• Download my data: in Settings, under Privacy, while signed in. You get a JSON file of your folders and saved groups, plus your local preferences.
• Delete account: in TabNorth's account menu. It deletes your account and cloud data as described above.
• AI organizing and cloud sync only happen when you use them. If you never click Organize or save a group, no tab titles or URLs leave your browser.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access the personal data we hold about you, to correct it, to have it deleted, to receive it in a portable format, to withdraw your consent, and to object to how we use it. Download my data and Delete account cover the most common requests directly. For anything else, email [email protected] from the address on your account, so we can confirm the request is yours. We respond within 30 days. If you're not satisfied with our answer, you can also complain to a privacy regulator: in Canada, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, or, if you live in Québec, the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec; elsewhere, your local data-protection authority.

Consent and legal bases

In Canada, we rely on your consent, given when you install TabNorth and use the features described in this policy. You can withdraw it at any time: turn off crash reports or usage data in Settings, stop using a feature, or delete your account. Withdrawing consent can mean a feature that needs the data stops working; we'll tell you if so.

Where data-protection law elsewhere, such as in the European Union or the United Kingdom, asks us to name a legal basis for using your data, we rely on:

• Contract — to provide what you ask for: your account, syncing saved groups, AI organizing, and Pro billing.
• Legitimate interests — to keep TabNorth secure and working (plan limits, abuse prevention, AI request logs, and error reports from the extension and our servers) and to understand and fix the product (usage data and crash reports). Usage data and crash reports rely on this basis: they're on by default, and you can turn off what the extension sends at any time in its Settings. You can also object to any of this use by emailing us.
• Legal obligation — to keep billing and tax records.

International transfers

We are based in Canada, and our service providers are based in the United States, so your data is transferred to, and processed in, the United States and other countries where they operate: outside Canada and, if you live in Québec, outside Québec. While it is there, it is subject to the laws of those countries, and their courts, law-enforcement agencies, and national-security authorities may be able to access it. Where data-protection law requires it, these transfers rely on the safeguards in each provider's data processing terms, such as standard contractual clauses.

California notice

If you live in California, the California Consumer Privacy Act gives you the following information and rights.

• Categories we collect: identifiers (email address, display name, Google account ID, TabNorth account ID, and the random installation ID); commercial information (your plan, subscription status, and billing events); and internet or other electronic network activity (the tab titles and URLs you save or send for organizing, product-usage events, and crash diagnostics). We don't ask for sensitive personal information, though the tab titles and URLs you choose to save or organize could reveal some, for example a health website you have open.
• Sources and purposes: we collect this from you and your browser, through the extension and this website, and from Google when you sign in, for the purposes described in "How we use your data". We disclose it only to the service providers listed above, to run TabNorth.
• No sale or sharing: we do not sell your personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we have not done so in the past 12 months.
• Your rights: you can ask to know what we hold, and to correct or delete it, as described in "Your rights". We won't treat you differently for using these rights.

Security

All data travels over encrypted connections (TLS). Database access is enforced per-account with row-level security, so other users can't read your data; Tab North Inc. and our hosting provider can access it to run, support, and secure TabNorth. AI logs and usage records are isolated from normal account access and are not readable through the client at all.

We keep a record of every breach of security safeguards (confidentiality incident) involving personal information. If one creates a real risk of significant harm to you, we'll tell you, and we'll notify privacy regulators whenever the law requires.

How we manage personal information

Our Privacy Officer is responsible for the practices on this page and for applying them:

• Access: within Tab North Inc., only the people who need personal information to run, support, or secure TabNorth can access it, and only for that work.
• Keeping and destroying it: each kind is kept and deleted as described under Retention and deletion.
• Requests and complaints: email [email protected] with "Privacy Officer" in the subject, or write to the address under Who we are. The Privacy Officer looks into every complaint and replies in writing within 30 days. If you're not satisfied with the answer, you can take it to a privacy regulator, as described under Your rights.

Children

TabNorth isn't directed at children, and we don't knowingly collect information from children under 13 (under 14 in Québec).

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes materially, we'll update this page and the date at the top. If we want to use your information for a new purpose, we'll ask for your consent first.

Contact

Questions, requests, or complaints: [email protected], or by mail to Tab North Inc., Attention: Privacy Officer, Unit 203-2150 Winston Park Dr., Oakville, Ontario L6H 5V1, Canada.