About this notice
Computing Stories is an app for exploring excerpts from computing oral histories and connecting them to your questions with AI. This notice explains how the app handles information when you ask a question, browse quotes, watch interviews, or leave a vote.
Computer Stories operates Computing Stories. This notice covers the app itself. Websites and services linked to or embedded in the app have their own privacy policies.
Questions and AI responses
When you submit a question, the app attempts to save the question, request timestamps and status, the selected quote, candidate quote identifiers, and the AI-generated explanation. Requests that fail or find no match may also be recorded. These records help the people maintaining the app understand common questions, evaluate matches, and improve the experience. Saved questions and results may be reviewed by those maintainers and with AI tools, including Gemini.
During the current testing period, question records may also include browser and operating-system names and versions, user agent, device type, screen and window dimensions, language, timezone, and app version. These details help maintainers diagnose problems and distinguish labeled internal tests from other requests. Available details vary by browser and do not prove who submitted a question. They stay in private request history and are not included in the question sent to AI. This diagnostic collection is intended to be removed before public onboarding.
Your question is sent to OpenAI’s services to find relevant excerpts and generate an explanation. If that request cannot be completed, the app may send the question to Google’s Gemini services as an automatic fallback. Selected excerpts are also sent for selection and explanation. The app does not require an account, name, or email address to ask a question. Please do not put passwords, contact details, confidential material, or sensitive personal information in your questions.
Selecting an example question submits it immediately. Questions you type are sent when you press the send button. Browsing quotes does not create a submitted-question history record.
Quote and leader visits, votes, and browser storage
When you open a quote, the app creates or reuses a random browser identifier stored locally on your device. It uses this identifier to retrieve your earlier vote and prevent repeat votes from being counted twice. Opening a quote sends the quote and browser identifiers to the server, which saves the most recent counted visit time for that quote and its leader. We count at most one visit per browser per quote and one per leader within 24 hours. Opening several quotes from the same leader in that period counts once for the leader. The aggregate visit totals are stored but are not currently displayed. Visits measure quote opens, not video plays. When you vote, the quote identifier, browser identifier, and your like or dislike are sent to the server and saved.
This identifier is not an account or proof of your identity. You can remove it by clearing this site’s browser storage. Clearing local storage does not delete votes or view records already saved on the server. If local storage is unavailable, the app uses an identifier for the current session.
Feedback and issue reports
When you send feedback, we save the topic, message, current page path, any link you include, and submission time. You can submit without an account or email. If you provide an email, the maintainers may use it to follow up about your report. Feedback is stored in a private inbox accessible to authorized administrators. Please avoid including sensitive information.
Feedback is retained until the maintainers remove it; there is no automatic expiration. Hosting services may also receive technical information when you submit a report.
Hosting, fonts, and video services
The app uses Firebase and Google Cloud for hosting and database storage, Google and OpenAI services for question matching and explanations, Google Fonts for typography, and YouTube for embedded interviews. These services may receive technical information such as your IP address, browser details, request timing, or playback activity according to their own policies. Hosting and error logs may also contain submitted questions and request information.
The current app code does not include advertising or third-party analytics scripts. Embedded players and external sites may use cookies or similar technologies of their own. Opening a Computer History Museum source link takes you to that site.
Read the Google Privacy Policy for information about Google services.
Retention and access
The current app does not automatically expire saved question history, server-side votes, or view records. Records remain until the maintainers remove them or configure a retention policy. Service providers may retain their own logs and records under their policies.
Question history is intended for access by the app’s maintainers, rather than public browsing. Access restrictions and service-provider security controls need to be maintained; no online service can guarantee absolute security.
Your choices and questions
You can explore random quotes without submitting a question, choose what to include in a question, and clear the local browser identifier. There is currently no account dashboard or automatic tool for deleting submitted questions. Because questions are not tied to an account, identifying a particular record for a privacy request may require details such as the question and approximate submission time.
Computer Stories is responsible for the information handling described in this notice. For privacy questions or requests, contact info@computerhistory.app.
Changes to this notice
This notice may be updated as the app develops. The date above identifies the latest version. Material changes to information handling should be explained before they take effect.
See also our Terms.