JSON-Studio

Privacy — JSON Studio

Last updated: November 2026

This document is the complete privacy statement for JSON Studio, plus the auditable evidence for it. The short version:

JSON Studio collects no data. It transmits no data. It has no backend, no analytics, no telemetry, and no monetization machinery of any kind.

1. What data is collected

Nothing. Specifically:

Category	Collected?
Personally identifiable information	❌ Never
The JSON you paste, open, import, or inspect	❌ Never leaves your machine
Browsing history / page content / URLs	❌ Never read, never stored
Usage analytics, telemetry, crash reporting	❌ No SDKs exist in the build
Cookies or ad identifiers	❌ None
Location / IP / device fingerprinting	❌ None

How your JSON is handled:

Documents you paste or import exist only in the memory of the workspace tab you opened.
When you click Inspect Page, a one-time injection reads the current tab’s text, and the payload is staged in chrome.storage.session under json-studio:pending-document — session-scoped, 30-second time-to-live, consumed once, then deleted. It never touches disk and never leaves the browser.
Preferences (theme, indent size, default view) are stored locally via chrome.storage.local. They are the only thing persisted, and they contain only UI settings — never document content.

2. Permissions, and why each one exists

JSON Studio requests exactly three permissions and zero host permissions:

Permission	Why it is needed	Why it is safe
`storage`	Persist theme and view preferences locally	Local-only storage; no `sync` usage
`activeTab`	Read the current tab only after you click Inspect Page	Access is temporary and per-click, granted by Chrome to whatever tab is focused
`scripting`	Inject the one-time page extractor on your click	No content scripts are declared; injection happens only on a user gesture

What is deliberately absent:

❌ No host_permissions / <all_urls> — the extension cannot read pages it was not explicitly granted.
❌ No content scripts — nothing auto-runs on any website you visit. Popular formatters rewrite JSON pages automatically; JSON Studio never touches a page unless you click.
❌ No tabs, webRequest, cookies, downloads (beyond optional in-page downloads), identity, or nativeMessaging.
❌ No web_accessible_resources — other sites cannot probe the extension.

Key navigation shortcuts (open workspace, inspect page) are declared as commands only — they trigger the same user-initiated flow.

3. Auditable evidence: the full source audit

You do not have to trust this document. The claims above are mechanically verifiable against the source in src/:

Audit grep	Result
`fetch\\|XMLHttpRequest\\|WebSocket\\|axios\\|gtag\\|analytics\\|sentry\\|beacon`	0 matches in `src/`
`eval\\|new Function\\|innerHTML\\|document.write\\|script.src`	0 matches
`content_scripts\\|host_permissions\\|<all_urls>\\|web_accessible_resources`	0 matches
Remote-host URLs outside the restricted-scheme denylist	0 matches

The built manifest in .output/chrome-mv3/manifest.json declares exactly three permissions and no host permissions.

There is one string containing https:// in src/lib/page-inspection.ts — the Chrome Web Store URL in the denylist of pages the extension refuses to inspect. It is a string constant that is never fetched.

Dependency graph note: all shipped libraries (WXT, Vue 3, CodeMirror 6, Pinia, Lucide) are bundled into the extension package; no runtime network fetch of code occurs, and the build does not reference any external CDN.

4. Red flags this project deliberately avoids

The well-known JSON Formatter (bcjindcccaagfpapjjmafapmmgkkhgoa, 2M users) dropped to 1.5★ after users reported donation hijacking and undisclosed tracking, and antivirus products tagged it as PUP.Optional.Hijacker. ¹ JSON Studio treats those reports as a design specification of what to never do:

Red-flag pattern	JSON Studio’s structural answer
Auto-rewriting pages via content scripts on every JSON URL	No content scripts declared. Page capture is user-initiated only.
Undisclosed analytics/tracking SDKs	No network-capable code exists in the bundle at all.
Donation / nag prompts, hijacked navigation	No promotional UI, no redirects, no new-tab hijacks, no monetization code paths.
Broad host access justified as “convenience”	`activeTab`-only access, granted per click.
Closed source opacity	Open source — the audit table above is reproducible by anyone.

¹ Verbatim user reports from the Chrome Web Store listing, June 2026. This project states only what users publicly reported and makes no independent legal accusation.

5. Chrome Web Store submission checklist

Single purpose: JSON viewing/formatting/validation.
Permission justification drafted for storage, activeTab, scripting.
No remote code (MV3 service worker + bundled assets only).
No user-data collection of any category in the store’s data-usage disclosure.
Data cannot be sold, transferred, or used for unrelated purposes — no data access exists.
Privacy policy: this document (host a public URL of it on the repo/homepage when publishing).
No Restricted Keyword / misleading claims in the store listing.
Item compliance review: store assets, description, and screenshots (pending manual review).

6. If this ever changes

It won’t without a major published release note: any PR that adds a network API, telemetry, monetization, or content scripts is rejected by policy stated in CONTRIBUTING rules in README. If a future version ever wanted any capability on this list, the permission gate and this document give you the chance to uninstall before updating.