Privacy policy
Short version: you do not need an account, we set no cookies, and we do not keep the comments you look at. They pass through a short-lived cache and are then discarded.
We use YouTube API Services
Have a Comment (haveacomment.com) reads public video details and public comments through the YouTube Data API, part of YouTube API Services. By using our tools you also agree to the YouTube Terms of Service. Google’s handling of data is described in the Google Privacy Policy.
We only request public data with our own API key. We never ask you to sign in with Google or YouTube and never access your YouTube account.
What we process and why
The video link you enter
We send the video ID to the YouTube Data API to fetch the video’s title, channel, public statistics and top-level comments. The link also appears in your address bar so you can bookmark or share the result.
Public comment data from YouTube
Comments include the commenter’s public display name, channel link, text, like and reply counts and timestamps. We show them to you, filter them, draw giveaway winners from them, and, if you ask for it, turn them into a CSV or JSON file in your browser download.
To save YouTube API quota we keep this data in Cloudflare’s cache: comments for up to 30 minutes and video details for up to 6 hours. Our configuration caps any cache entry at 24 hours, well within the 30 days allowed by the YouTube API Services Developer Policies. We do not keep comment data in any database and we do not build profiles of commenters.
Your IP address
To stop any one visitor from using up the shared free quota, we count requests per network. We never store your IP address: it is combined with a secret value and the date, hashed with SHA-256, and only a short prefix of the hash is kept in the cache for up to one hour. Cloudflare, our hosting provider, processes IP addresses to deliver and protect the site.
Analytics
We may use Cloudflare Web Analytics, which measures page views without cookies and without tracking you across sites. We use no advertising trackers, social media pixels or third-party fonts.
Cookies and local storage
None. The site works without cookies and does not store anything in your browser.
Who we share data with
- Google / YouTube: receives the video IDs we request, sent from our servers, not from your browser.
- Cloudflare: hosts the site, runs our functions and cache.
We do not sell data, and we do not share it with anyone else unless the law requires it. Links to YouTube open YouTube, which then applies its own policies.
Legal basis and your rights
We process this data on the basis of our legitimate interest in providing a free tool that works with public comments (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR). You have the right to ask what we hold about you, to object, and to ask for deletion. Because we do not store comments or IP addresses beyond the short cache times above, in practice there is usually nothing left to delete. If you wrote a comment and want it gone, delete it on YouTube; it disappears from our tools when the cache expires. You can also complain to your data protection authority.
Children
Have a Comment is a tool for adults and creators and is not directed at children.
Contact
Questions or requests: hello@haveacomment.com. We will update this page if anything changes and show the date at the top.