At SecretMsg, privacy is not an afterthought or marketing slogan—it is the foundational design constraint of our entire architecture.
Last Updated: September 2026
We do not ask senders for a name or account. A mobile-app sender value is stored only as a SHA-256 hash with a message and, when blocked, in that recipient's block list; it cannot be reversed into an identity.
We never sell, trade, or license your personal information or your messages. The Android app serves ads through Google AdMob; this website serves no ads at all.
A successful deletion request removes the primary D1 account record, handle, profile, and received messages. It is not universal erasure; the limits below apply.
SecretMsg allows users to receive questions and messages through social media and direct links:
secretmsg.net/yourname) and share it on Instagram Stories, WhatsApp, TikTok, X, or other channels to invite questions from anyone who has access to the link.We collect information depending on how you interact with our platform:
<handle>@v2.secretmsg; it is not a real mailbox and cannot receive email.Except for the advertising ID above, none of these values is a hardware identifier. SecretMsg does not use a first-party analytics SDK and does not run session replay, heatmaps, or clickstream tracking. The Android app does include Google's advertising SDK, which section 03 explains in full.
Push-preview limit: For a new message, FCM receives the registered FCM token, a random message ID, the unread-message count, and a message preview truncated by SecretMsg to 140 characters, with an ellipsis added when truncated. The full message body is never sent through FCM.
SecretMsg is funded by advertising and by one optional in-app purchase. This section says plainly what that involves, because a project that asks you to trust it with anonymous messages has to be exact about this part.
Where ads appear: Ads are served by Google AdMob, using the Google Mobile Ads SDK, in the Android app only — as a banner and as an optional rewarded video. This website serves no ads. secretmsg.net loads no Google Mobile Ads SDK, no ad exchange, and no ad script, so no ad code runs in your browser when you use the site on desktop or mobile.
What an ad request contains: The request is assembled by Google on your device and includes the device advertising ID, IP address, device model and OS version, app and SDK version, screen size, language, and a coarse location inferred from the IP address. It does not include your SecretMsg handle, your display name, your messages, your replies, your contacts, or the identity of anyone who sent you a message. SecretMsg does not join advertising data to message content or to your account record.
Identifiers and opting out: The device advertising ID is a resettable identifier assigned by Android for advertising. You can reset it or limit its use to non-personalised ads in Android Settings, under Privacy → Ads (the exact path varies by device and Android version). Google provides a system-level opt-out for advertising, and Google's certified ad-settings page is available at adssettings.google.com.
Personalised versus non-personalised ads: In the EEA, the UK, and Switzerland, personalised ads are only served if you consent. Without consent, or if you opt out, Google serves non-personalised ads, which are selected without using your advertising ID or your prior activity. Outside those regions the app asks for consent where required, and you can always change your choice in the app's settings.
European consent: Where the GDPR, the UK GDPR, or the ePrivacy Directive requires it, the Android app shows a consent management platform before any ad is requested. If you decline, ads are non-personalised or suppressed. Consent can be withdrawn at any time in the app, and withdrawing it stops personalised ads from then on.
US state privacy rights: If you live in a US state with a comprehensive privacy law — including California, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, and others — you may have the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information, to opt out of targeted advertising, to limit the use of sensitive personal information, and to know what categories of personal information were disclosed. Google serves as the ad partner and handles those rights in its own systems. You can exercise them through the Google My Ad Center or Ads Settings links above, and you can also email us at privacy@secretmsg.net and we will route the request. The Android app also presents an “Ad privacy options” entry in Settings, which opens Google’s privacy options form so you can change an advertising choice you already made — withdraw consent, or exercise a US state opt-out, depending on where you are. It appears only when that choice is actually available to you.
Removing ads: A single one-time Google Play purchase, remove_ads, disables ads in the Android app for your account. It is not a subscription. Purchased ads-free status is stored on your SecretMsg account, so it follows you rather than living on one device.
What ads do not mean here: Serving an ad does not give an advertiser, us, or Google access to your inbox. Message content, sender identity, and the fact that you use SecretMsg are not disclosed for ad targeting. We do not use Firebase Analytics, Crashlytics, session replay, or any first-party analytics SDK, and we do not run ad code on this website. The anonymity guarantees in section 01 are unchanged by advertising.
We never sell, rent, license, or monetize your personal information, messages, or emails to advertisers or third-party data brokers. Ad revenue is generated by Google selling ad placements, not by us selling your data.
We never disclose a sender's name or account to the recipient because we do not ask for one, and we never pass message content to the ad network.
We never run advertising pixels, ad tags, or ad code on this website, and we do not do cross-site behavioral advertising: SecretMsg does not follow you around other sites or apps.
We do not use a first-party analytics SDK — no Firebase Analytics, no Crashlytics, no session replay, no heatmaps.
remove_ads purchase and to record the resulting ad-free entitlement on your account.SecretMsg uses a send-time Cloudflare Turnstile check and recipient-configured hidden-word filtering. In the standard setting, a matching message is quarantined for the recipient's review; in strict mode, it is rejected and quarantined. The filter is rules-based and does not use automated machine-learning classification, does not understand context, and cannot be represented as a comprehensive detector of CSAM, grooming, or other abuse. Recipients can report or block a message; reporting quarantines it and records the report reason, while blocking stores the sender-fingerprint hash in that recipient's block list and removes the message.
Public Social Sharing by Users: When an Account User chooses to post a response publicly, the question and answer become visible on their public Q&A thread and wherever they share it on social media.
Service Processors:
remove_ads purchase stops ad requests entirely.Compliance & Safety: We may disclose relevant information when we believe in good faith that it is necessary to comply with valid legal process, prevent imminent harm, enforce our terms, or protect users. We may also preserve relevant records for a valid legal process.
Depending on your location, you may have rights to access, correct, export, restrict, object to, or request deletion of personal information. You may update your display name, avatar, and safety settings directly in the app. Contact us for other access, correction, or export requests.
adssettings.google.com and My Ad Center, and the app presents an “Ad privacy options” control in Settings that opens Google’s privacy options form, shown only when the SDK reports that a choice is available to you. Email privacy@secretmsg.net to reach us instead. We do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of users under 16.remove_ads purchase in the Android app stops ad requests being made by the app. There is no subscription to cancel and no recurring charge.Self-Service Account Deletion
Open Settings → Delete Account or use our public Delete Account page at secretmsg.net/delete-account. A full signed-in session is required.
After a successful request, SecretMsg deletes the received messages, blocked-sender records, reports involving the account as recipient or reporter, pairing codes, purchase records including the ad-free entitlement, email-keyed one-time-code sessions, identifiable account-derived rate-limit rows, and finally the primary D1 account row. The row includes the handle, profile, PIN hash, FCM token, and stored email field. For a handle/PIN account, deleting the email field removes the synthetic <handle>@v2.secretmsg placeholder; no deletion message is sent because it is not a mailbox. For a legacy account, the real email is removed from the D1 account row, but provider-side copies are outside this operation.
Deletion limits:
The mobile app attempts to clear its local account data after the server request, but local cleanup is separate from the server transaction. Account deletion is irreversible and the account cannot be restored.
We do not track you across third-party websites or apps for advertising, and we run no ad code on this website, so a browser “Do Not Track” signal changes nothing about how secretmsg.net treats you. We also do not respond to a Do Not Track signal from your browser as an advertising opt-out inside the Android app, because the app's ads are requested by Google's SDK on your device. Use the controls in section 03 to change ad personalisation: reset or restrict your advertising ID in Android Settings, use Google's ad settings, decline consent in the app, or buy ad-free access once.
SecretMsg is not directed to children under 13, or to a higher minimum age where local law requires it. Users aged 13–17 may use the service only with parent or legal-guardian permission and in compliance with applicable law. We do not knowingly collect personal information from an under-13 user. Because the Android app requests ads, the consent and opt-out controls described in section 03 apply to users of any age, and we do not knowingly serve personalised ads without consent. If we learn that an under-13 user submitted personal information, or that a child used the app, a parent or guardian may contact us at safety@secretmsg.net to request review and deletion. Our child-safety reporting and escalation policy is published at secretmsg.net/p/child-safety-policy.
remove_ads purchase is kept with your account so the app can stay ad-free; it is removed when the account is deleted. Google keeps its own copy of the purchase under Google Play's retention rules.Processor retention and legal-preservation periods are controlled independently by the relevant provider and law and may be longer. We use HTTPS for implemented application and processor paths and apply authentication, hashed credentials, access-aware endpoints, rate limits, and other reasonable technical and administrative safeguards.
If you have questions regarding this Privacy Policy, our data practices, or wish to exercise a legal privacy right, contact us at: