beSearch is designed with privacy in mind. We minimize data collection
and are transparent about what information is processed and where it goes.
What we do NOT do
No tracking cookies - We do not use cookies at all
No user accounts - There is no login, no user profiles
No advertising - We do not sell ads or monetize user data
No IP logging - Your IP address is not written to disk. It is used in-memory for rate limiting only and is not persisted
What we DO process
Search queries are forwarded to the Brave Search API (a US-based service) to retrieve results. Importantly, your IP address is never sent to Brave — all requests are made server-side from our EU server, so Brave only sees our server's IP address, not yours. Brave receives the query text, language, and country preference, but cannot identify individual users. See Brave's privacy policy
Local storage - Your country/language preferences, recent search history, and an anonymous session ID are saved in your browser's localStorage. This data never leaves your browser and is never sent to our servers. You can clear it at any time from the home page or by clearing your browser data
Analytics events - If you click on search results, anonymized impression and click data may be logged to improve ranking quality. This data includes the query text and an anonymous session identifier, but not your IP address
Feedback and judgments - If you voluntarily submit feedback on search results, this is stored on our server to improve search quality
What each party sees
beSearch sees
Your IP address
Your browser / device info
Cookies or login
Search history / profile
Query text (not logged to disk)
Language + country preference
Click data (anonymous session ID)
Brave API sees
Your IP address
Your browser / device info
Cookies or login
Who you are
Query text
Language + country preference
Our server's IP (Hetzner, DE)
Data transfers outside the EU
Our servers are in the EU (Hetzner, Germany). Search queries are sent
server-side to the Brave Search API (US) to retrieve results. Your IP
address and browser information are never included in these requests —
Brave only sees our server as the origin. When Brave is unavailable,
queries are routed through our self-hosted SearXNG instance (on the same
EU server) which contacts Google, Bing, and other engines — again, only
our server's IP is exposed, never yours.
GDPR
We aim to comply with the GDPR. We minimize data collection, do not build
user profiles, and do not sell data. If you have questions or requests
regarding your data, contact us at security@besearch.eu.