Out West AI / PingFinder / Privacy Policy
PingFinder Privacy Policy
The short version: PingFinder collects nothing. It has no accounts, no servers of ours, no analytics, no advertising and no tracking of any kind. What it finds on your network stays on your devices.
What the app handles
- Scan results — the addresses, host names, hardware addresses, vendors, open services, latencies and device types PingFinder finds, along with any names and notes you add. They are stored on your device and, if you have iCloud enabled, in the app's own iCloud container in your personal iCloud account.
- Your settings — timeouts, port sets, theme and the rest, stored the same way.
- Latency monitors and history — the series charted on the Latency screen and the record of past scans, again stored on your device and optionally in your iCloud.
None of this is sent to Out West AI. We have no server that PingFinder talks to, and there is nowhere for us to receive it.
What leaves your device
Only the network probes you ask for, sent to the addresses you type in:
- ICMP echo requests to the addresses being scanned, and TTL-limited probes when you run a traceroute.
- TCP connections to common service ports on those addresses, to see what each device is running.
- DNS queries — reverse lookups for the devices found, and whatever you ask for in the DNS tool, sent to the resolver you choose (your router, your system resolver, or a public one such as 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8).
- Bonjour browsing on the local network, to pick up friendly names, models and advertised services.
Vendor lookups are answered from the IEEE registry bundled inside the app, so identifying hardware needs no network connection and reveals nothing to anyone.
iCloud
If you are signed in to iCloud, PingFinder stores its documents in its own iCloud container so they follow you between your Mac, iPhone and iPad. That container is part of your Apple Account and is governed by Apple's privacy policy; we cannot see inside it. If iCloud is unavailable the same data is stored locally and the app tells you so. You can turn iCloud off for PingFinder in your system settings.
Local network permission
macOS and iOS ask your permission before an app may find devices on the local network. PingFinder needs it to do its job. The permission is used only for the scanning, traceroute, DNS and Bonjour features described above, and you can withdraw it at any time in Settings › Privacy & Security › Local Network.
What we collect
Nothing. PingFinder contains no advertising SDKs, no third-party analytics or telemetry, no crash-reporting service of ours and no tracking identifiers. It makes no network connections other than the probes listed above.
Your data, your control
- Delete any scan, monitor or device from within the app.
- Export results as CSV or JSON whenever you want a copy.
- Deleting the app removes its local data; removing its iCloud container in your system settings removes the synced copy.
Children
PingFinder is a network utility and is not directed at children.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the updated version will be published at this address with a new effective date.
Contact
Questions about privacy in PingFinder? Email william@olgadowns.com, or use the form at outwest.ai.