SpamBlaster is published by Wilburn Pacific Company. This policy covers three separate things: the SpamBlaster app that runs on your computer, this website (spamblaster.org), and Vortex, the optional sync service. They are different, and they handle data differently, so we describe each on its own below.
One distinction runs through all three, and it is worth stating plainly because it is easy to blur. The app sends us nothing about your mail. That is true for every user, paid or not, and nothing on this page qualifies it. Vortex is not an exception to it: Vortex moves your own data, to your own devices, because you asked it to, in a form we cannot read. Data we collect about you is one thing; data of yours that you move using our service is another, and we do not intend to let the second quietly become the first.
The SpamBlaster app
SpamBlaster is local-first. It filters your mail on your own machine. The following are properties of the software itself, verified in how it is built:
- Local-first. Everything runs on your computer. The background service listens only on 127.0.0.1 (loopback). It is not reachable from the web.
- Encrypted at rest. Your rules and the block events live in an encrypted local database. The key is held in your operating system keychain, never on disk.
- Credentials stay in the OS keychain.Mailbox sign-in tokens and the dashboard's API token live only in the OS keychain (Windows Credential Manager), never in plaintext on disk.
- Minimal data. Block logs record only the sender name, the sender address domain, and the matched rule pattern. They never store message subjects or bodies.
- No product telemetry. No analytics, no tracking, no usage pings. Nothing about your mail leaves your machine.
What leaves your machine
The app connects out only for these, all of which you control:
- Connections to your mail provider(s) and their sign-in (OAuth).
- The current version of SpamBlaster, only when you trigger a check for updates. If an automatic update check is ever offered, it is optional and sends only a version string, never your mail or any telemetry.
- spamblaster.org links, only if you choose to open them.
Nebula, the cloud filter
Nebula is optional, requires a paid plan, and is SpamBlaster running in the cloud: a filtering node we operate in Microsoft Azure, connected to a mailbox you authorize. Its terms are the Nebula Service Agreement. It says different things from Vortex about the same data, on purpose, and this section is where those differences are stated.
Your SpamBlaster Nebula node reads your mail in order to filter it. The authorization you grant at your provider lets your node read the mailbox and move or delete what your rules match. You can revoke authorization there at any time or delete it in your SpamBlaster account.
No SpamBlaster employee can browse your mail.Your SpamBlaster Nebula node runs with no interactive access for anyone other than you, including our staff. This is a property of how it is deployed. Its storage is encrypted under a key only the running service can obtain, and its logs are built and tested not to carry message content or credentials. What remains a promise rather than a mechanism is that nobody at SpamBlaster holds a standing way to read the key itself and we keep an alert on any attempt by a person to do so. The only access to any data is through a user's account in their SpamBlaster Nebula dashboard.
What your node keeps, and for how long.
- The mailbox credential your provider issues when you authorize a mailbox, for as long as the mailbox is connected.
- Your rules, safelist and blocked-mail history for as long as your plan is active. The history keeps sender names and addresses and the rule that matched, never message text.
- Working data about mail which no rule applies to, so that your SpamBlaster Nebula node is able to suggest potential spam to Blast. The working data includes hashed fingerprints of those messages, each sender's name and domain and the domains it links to, the sender and subject of the few messages it is suggesting as spam, and a machine learning model trained only on your own actions if enabled. You can turn all of this off in the app, which also erases what it kept.
- Backups.Our hosting keeps daily copies of your node's encrypted storage for 14 days, so that a fault on our side does not lose your data.
- Ordinary server records, including IP addresses and request times, kept for 30 days. They carry identifiers, not content.
Where it lives, and who touches it. SpamBlaster Nebula runs on Microsoft Azure in the United States. Microsoft hosts the compute and the encrypted storage on our behalf. Your node connects outbound to your own mail provider wherever it is. Clerk signs you in, Stripe handles payment, and Azure Communication Services delivers the mail we send you. None of them receives your mail or your rules.
When it goes.When your plan ends, your SpamBlaster Nebula node stops scanning at its next pass and holds everything for 30 days, so that a renewed plan picks up where it left off. After that, when you request your data to be deleted, or when you delete your account, we delete your node's storage, the credential in it, and the backup copies. To take your rules with you before then, you can export them from the SpamBlaster Nebula dashboard.
We do not sell, we do not advertise with, or train shared models with your mail data. The model your node uses was built from our own consented email data.
Vortex, the sync service
Vortex is optional, requires a paid plan, and is off unless you turn it on. It copies your rules, safelist and blocked-mail history between your own devices. Its terms are the Vortex Service Agreement.
Your data is encrypted on your device before it reaches us and is decrypted only on your devices. We cannot read it. We cannot see your rules, your safelist, who has written to you, what any message said, or anything else inside it.
What we can see anyway. Encryption hides contents, not the shape of them, and we would rather say so than let you assume otherwise:
- How much you store, and how often it changes. That gives us a rough idea of how much mail is being blocked for you, and roughly when. It does not tell us what was blocked, or by whom, or from whom.
- The names you give your devices.You choose these, and they do not have to be the computer's real name. We hold the name so that you can tell your devices apart when you manage them.
- Identifiers your devices generate for themselves, and the account your plan belongs to.
- Ordinary server records, including IP addresses and request times, which any service on the internet receives. We use them to run and protect the service.
Your recovery code. It is generated on your device and never sent to us. We do not have it, we cannot display it again, and we cannot reset it. If you lose access to every connected device and the recovery code as well, the data stored in Vortex cannot be recovered by anyone, including us. That is the cost of the encryption being real.
Where it lives. Vortex runs on Microsoft Azure in the United States. Microsoft hosts the encrypted data on our behalf and cannot read it either.
When it goes. When your plan ends, when you delete your Vortex, or when you ask us to delete your data, we delete the stored data within 30 days, along with the redundant copies our hosting keeps of it. Your own devices keep their copies; ending Vortex stops them being kept in step, and deletes nothing from your computers.
We do not sell it, we do not advertise against it, and we do not use it to train anything. We could not do any of those with it even if we wanted to, which is the point of the design.
This website
This website is a normal website, separate from the local-first app. It is where you read about SpamBlaster, download it, and contact us. It uses the following:
- Anonymous analytics.We record which pages are viewed, and errors that happen in a page, using Microsoft Azure Application Insights, to understand how the site is used and to keep it working. We record a page's address without anything after it, write no cookies for this, and do not tie it to an identified person. We do not sell it.
- Accounts (optional). You can use SpamBlasterwithout an account. If you choose to create one, our authentication provider, Clerk, processes your email address and sign-in details on our behalf so we can sign you in. If you turn on two-step verification, we keep your authenticator app's secret encrypted, and your backup codes only as one-way fingerprints of them. We delete both when you turn it off or delete your account.
- The contact form. When you contact us, we collect the name, email, and message you submit so we can reply. We use it to respond to you. We do not sell it or use it for unrelated marketing.
- Cookies. The site uses only the cookies needed for the features above (for example, keeping you signed in). There are no third-party advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.
What we do not do
- We do not sell your personal information.
- The SpamBlaster app does not phone home about your mail. There is no product telemetry. Using Vortex does not change this: it moves your data where you told it to, and reports nothing about you to us.
- We do not track you across other websites.
Your choices
You can run the SpamBlaster app without creating a website account. Your rules and block data stay on your machine and are yours. If you created an account, you can ask us to delete it and any data we hold about you by writing to us through the contact form.
Changes
If this policy changes, we will post the updated version here and revise the date above.
Contact
Questions about privacy? Contact us.