Research privacy

OBC Tools, operated by Dave Nick / Online Business Club, uses YouTube API Services to retrieve public comments when you explicitly start a collection. Our server forwards public video metadata, comment text, author display names, timestamps, likes and reply relationships to your browser. We do not infer private identities or sensitive traits.

Retrieved comments and video metadata are held only in the open page and in its temporary collection cursor. We do not save them in our database or browser storage. Refreshing, closing the page, locking the tool or choosing “Clear results” clears the page’s collection. Collection sessions expire after one hour. Downloaded files remain on your device: delete them when no longer needed and refresh or delete YouTube API data within 30 days.

Secure cookies maintain OBE access and a browser identifier for collection limits. Our database holds operational request counters, random collection identifiers and input hashes for abuse controls, without raw comments or video metadata. Old counters are removed during subsequent collections. Clearing results does not reset usage limits or delete comments on YouTube.

This release offers collection and export only. Comments are not sent to OpenAI, and AI insights are not enabled.

Google receives API requests for selected videos. YouTube thumbnails, if displayed, are loaded from Google’s image service. The page uses Google Fonts. See Google’s privacy policy, YouTube’s Terms of Service and Google account permissions. This tool does not request access to your YouTube account.

For privacy or deletion requests, contact Dave through your Online Business Club community support channel. Comment authors can use the same channel and provide the public comment URL to identify their data without sending additional personal information.

Updated 26 September 2026.