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Usage statistics

When you use Profundis, we receive the queries you run, which you may consider sensitive. We try to be as transparent as possible about what we keep and what we do with it.

What do you keep when I run a query?​

When you reach profundis.io, your traffic first passes through a WAF / CDN (currently Cloudflare) that inspects it to detect and block malicious behavior.

For each search, we then write an entry to our internal security and usage logs. An entry contains:

  • the full query you ran (for example host:test.com),
  • your account identifier and your IP address,
  • the search type (hosts, DNS, certificates, whois...), the channel (web app or API), and timing metrics (how long the search took).

We do NOT put your email, name or phone number in these logs. We never store your name or phone number at all, and we keep your email only to operate your account.

How long do you keep my queries?​

Search queries and usage logs are kept for up to 12 months. After that, they are deleted or kept only in an aggregated, anonymized form that can no longer be tied to you.

What do you do with my queries?​

We retain and analyze your queries for three purposes, and only these three:

  • Improve the service: see which fields and searches are common and how fast they are, so we can make the search engine more relevant and efficient.
  • Preserve security: detect and block abuse, scraping, and attempts to bypass our protections.
  • Audit: verify that the service and its access controls behave as intended.

This analysis is internal only. Perspective Analytics, editor of Profundis:

  • does NOT sell your queries or share their content with any external entity other than the WAF / CDN provider that routes your traffic,
  • does NOT use your queries for advertising or advertising profiling,
  • makes NO automated decision about you based on your queries.

Aggregated product statistics (for example, how often the host field is queried) are kept at the field-category level, not on the content you searched for. We then use them to optimize the search engine and make it more efficient.

Anything else?​

If we detect that you try to bypass a security protection in place (for example, a malicious payload injection), you are automatically blocked.

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