This FAQ describes the technical privacy risk implications of using Propel Accelerator, and the special steps that Propel Software Corporation takes to minimize those risks. (Please note: Propel's official Privacy Policy is the definitive representation made by Propel regarding our handling of personally-identifiable information about our customers. The information presented in this document is for general informational purposes only.)

Personally-identifiable Information on Propel Servers

If you have a high level understanding of how Propel Accelerator works (see How Does It work?) you may be concerned that Propel Accelerator could be used to track your browsing activities in a way that could violate your privacy. Propel recognizes that your privacy is very important, and therefore we have implemented the Propel Acceleration Service so that personally-identifiable information cannot be easily tracked or easily derived from data within our server infrastructure. When your Propel Accelerator client software connects to our infrastructure, it identifies itself using a unique client ID. Our infrastructure has a database of client IDs that are authorized to receive acceleration, but that database does not contain any personally-identifiable information associated with the IDs, such as your name, address, or email address. Further, we have designed all of our server logging features in such a way that no single log contains a direct record of the Web sites visited by specific clients. Personally-identifiable information regarding browsing activities is subject to the Privacy Policy and can be derived from information logged by Propel only by applying special post-processing.

Personally-identifiable Information on Your Computer

The Propel Accelerator client software that resides on your personal computer introduces the same sort of privacy risk as your browser software does. Your browser stores temporary files on your computer's hard drive. These files are sometimes collectively called your "browser cache". It is possible for someone with sufficient expertise to use the information in your browser cache to determine what Web sites you have visited. For this reason, your browser software includes commands that allow you to delete its temporary files. The Propel Accelerator client software also stores temporary files on your computer's hard drive in the "Propel cache". Those files could also be used to determine what Web pages you have visited, so Propel Accelerator includes a command (on the Propel Accelerator menu's Options dialog) so that you can delete those temporary files at any time.

Propel Client/Server Communication

The Propel Accelerator client software does not transmit any historical record of your browsing activities to our servers other than non-user-identifiable summary timing and compression information, and diagnostic information. Such information is used solely for overall system performance monitoring and quality assurance.