RefRunner

Privacy Policy

Effective date: October 30, 2026

Overview

RefRunner is a reference-checking tool operated by Literate Computing. We are committed to protecting your privacy. This policy explains what data we collect, how we use it, and your rights.

Your data is processed in your browser

RefRunner works in your browser. The manuscript text you provide is processed locally and is never sent to our servers. To check your references, RefRunner sends each one (its title, authors, year, DOI or ISBN) to the bibliographic services listed below. Most of those requests go straight from your browser to the service. Library of Congress, ERIC and Semantic Scholar searches go through our server at hub.refrunner.com, which forwards them; they can appear in that server’s ordinary request logs. If you are logged in to https://hub.refrunner.com/, your settings are saved there so that they persist across devices and sessions.

Saved reference lists

When you are signed in, the reference list you are working on is saved to your account so you can recover it and continue later. A saved list includes the reference text you pasted, the records we matched them to, the in-text citations we found, the file name and the citation style. It does not include the body of your manuscript.

RefRunner staff open saved lists to improve RefRunner — to find references that were matched wrongly, styles we format badly, and lists that failed to load. Saved lists are never shared with third parties and are never used to train anything. You can delete a saved list at any time from the Sessions panel; deleting it removes it from our server.

Third-party API calls

When you look up references, your browser makes requests directly to third-party services including:

  • OpenAlex (privacy policy) — for metadata lookups
  • Crossref (privacy policy) — for DOI resolution
  • Open Library/archive.org (terms of service) — for book metadata and cover images.
  • The Library of Congress (legal notices) — for book metadata, when you are signed in.
  • ERIC, the U.S. Department of Education’s education research index — for reports and articles in education.
  • doi.org, DataCite, Wikidata and DOAJ — to learn who registered a DOI, and for datasets, theses, software, films and open-access journal articles.
  • Semantic Scholar (privacy policy) — when you choose it as a Live Search engine, for papers the DOI registries do not hold. Used under the Semantic Scholar API License; records are attributed to Semantic Scholar on the card.
  • UNESDOC, UNESCO’s document catalogue, via UNESCO’s open data portal (privacy policy) — only for a reference that names UNESCO as its author or publisher, or cites a unesdoc.unesco.org link.

When you paste a link to a Google Doc or a Dropbox file instead of uploading it, your browser fetches that file from Google or Dropbox directly, under their privacy policies; the link and the file never pass through our servers.

At this writing, RefRunner (and Literate Computing) provide you with an OpenAlex API key that is tied to an email address we provide. You may also provide your own OpenAlex API key; if you do, it may be stored on our server in your settings.

Google and Microsoft Sign-In

If you sign in with Google or Microsoft, we receive your name, email address, and profile picture from the respective service. We use this information solely to identify your account and provide the service. We do not sell or share your personal information with third parties for any reason.

Analytics

With your consent, we use Google Analytics to see which features are used and how people move through the site, so we can improve it. Google Analytics sets cookies with a pseudonymous identifier and receives your IP address; we do not send it your name, email or the references you check. It loads its cookies only after you click Accept on the cookie banner, and you can decline. We do not use advertising pixels.

Cookie settings

You can change your choice at any time. Declining removes the analytics cookies already set.

You have not chosen yet, so no analytics cookies are set.

Payments

Paid plans are billed by Stripe, our payment processor. Your card details go to Stripe and never reach us; we receive whether your subscription is active, its plan and its renewal date. Stripe’s handling of your data is described in its privacy policy. You can see and cancel your subscription at hub.refrunner.com/my/billing/subscriptions.

Your rights

Literate Computing, LLC, 204 W Spear St, STE 3837, Carson City, NV 89703, USA, is responsible for the personal data described here. Wherever you live, you can ask us to:

  • tell you what personal data we hold about you, and give you a copy;
  • correct it if it is wrong;
  • delete it. You can delete a saved reference list yourself from the Sessions panel; to close your account and delete everything, email us;
  • stop using it for analytics. That is the cookie setting above.

Email support@refrunner.com and we will answer within 30 days. Your account, settings and saved lists are stored on our server in the United States, and the services we use (Stripe, Google Analytics and the bibliographic services above) also process data in the United States.

If you are in the European Union or the United Kingdom: we use your account data and saved lists to provide the service you signed up for, payment data to bill you, analytics data only with your consent, and server logs for our legitimate interest in keeping the service secure and working. You also have the right to object to processing, to receive your data in a portable form, and to complain to your data protection authority.

Children

RefRunner is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

Data retention

We do not store your manuscript text on our servers. Saved reference lists (above) are kept until you delete them or your account is closed. Any account data associated with Google Sign-In is retained only as long as your account is active. You may request deletion of your account data by contacting us at the address below.

RefRunner Toolkit (Chrome extension)

RefRunner Toolkit is a browser extension from Literate Computing that helps you check and look up scholarly references. This section covers the extension.

What the extension reads

Only when you click the toolbar button, choose an item from its right-click menu, or press one of its keyboard shortcuts, the extension reads, from the page you're on:

  • the text you have selected, and
  • the page's address and its citation metadata (the DOI, title, authors and publication date that publishers put in the page for reference managers).

It never reads pages in the background, and it does not see your browsing history.

What it sends, and where

Only what is needed for the action you chose:

  • OpenAlex (api.openalex.org): a DOI or OpenAlex ID, to show the work's title, authors and year and to fill in the other identifier.
  • doi.org: DOIs, to learn whether Crossref or DataCite registered them.
  • Crossref (api.crossref.org): a DOI, to show whether the work has been retracted or corrected, with a link to the notice.
  • DataCite (api.datacite.org): an arXiv DOI, to show whether the preprint has been withdrawn.
  • RefRunner (www.refrunner.com): the references or DOIs you send to it. Reference text travels in the part of the link after #, which stays in your browser and is not sent to RefRunner's servers. If a RefRunner tab is already open, the extension hands the references to that tab.
  • Open Library (openlibrary.org): an edition's ID, when you use the extension on an Open Library book page or link, to get its title, authors, year, publisher and ISBN.
  • ERIC (api.ies.ed.gov): a record's ID, when you use the extension on an ERIC record page or link, to get its title, authors, year, publisher, ISBN and DOI.
  • Links you click (OpenAlex, Crossref, DataCite, doi.org, Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar, Google, PubMed, Europe PMC, Wikidata, OpenCitations, JSTOR, ERIC, the Library of Congress, Open Library, ResearchGate) open in a new tab with the DOI or text in the address, exactly as if you had typed it there. On its own, the extension contacts only OpenAlex, Crossref, DataCite, doi.org, Open Library and ERIC, as described above.

What it stores

Nothing about you. The extension keeps one setting used only by its developers (whether to use a local test server). It has no accounts, cookies, analytics or tracking, and it does not sell or share data with anyone.

RefRunner links carry utm_source=chrome-extension so RefRunner can count visits that came from the extension. That tag identifies the extension, not you.

Changes and questions

If this section changes, the new version will be posted here with a new effective date. Questions about the extension: open an issue at github.com/literatecomputing/refrunner-toolkit/issues, or use the contact page below.

Contact

For privacy questions or requests, please contact us via the Literate Computing contact page.