Our Core Privacy Promise
At MyCollegeLab, we believe that practicing programming, completing homework, and running laboratory algorithms should be a private, safe, and friction-free educational experience. You can run programs anonymously without creating an account or surrendering sensitive personal information.
How Your Code is Handled During Execution
When you click "Run Code" or press Ctrl+Enter, here is the exact technical lifecycle of your request:
- Encrypted In-Transit Transmission: Your source code and standard input (stdin) text are sent over an encrypted TLS connection (HTTPS) to our isolated execution cluster.
- Ephemeral Sandbox Creation: A sandboxed Linux container process is spawned specifically for your request, strictly isolated from the host filesystem, network, and other concurrent users.
- Compilation & Run: The compiler (GCC, G++, javac, Python, Node.js) compiles and executes your code within strict boundaries (5.0s CPU timeout, 256MB memory cap, 1MB output cap).
- Output Return & Immediate Destruction: Program outputs (stdout, stderr stream, runtime in milliseconds, and exit status) are returned to your browser. The container process and temporary files are immediately destroyed.
Information We Collect & How It Is Logged
To protect our servers from malicious abuse, prevent denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, monitor compiler health, and optimize response times, our backend operates an asynchronous, file-based activity logging pipeline:
1. Anonymous Client Telemetry
When you interact with our APIs, our server logs client technical telemetry:
- IP Address: Extracted safely through proxy headers (Cloudflare, Vercel, AWS) to enforce fair-use rate limits (120 requests/minute).
- Browser & Operating System: Parsed from the User-Agent header to identify device type (desktop/mobile/tablet), browser family, and OS version for compatibility testing.
- Coarse IP Location: Approximate country, region, city, and timezone derived from edge CDN headers (e.g., Cloudflare/Vercel) to optimize content delivery.
- Anonymous Session Fingerprint: A deterministic SHA-256 hash (e.g.
anon_...) used to correlate repeat operations without storing personal identities.
2. Asynchronous File Storage & Rotation (Zero Database Storage)
Activity logs are processed in a non-blocking background queue that never delays or slows down your code execution. Logs are recorded in secure, structured JSON Lines (.jsonl) files on the host disk and automatically rotated daily in the Asia/Kolkata timezone (IST, UTC+05:30).These activity logs are strictly NOT stored in any persistent relational user database.
3. Voluntary Feedback Submissions
If you submit feedback through our in-app dialog, you may provide your thoughts, bug reports, and an optional email address. This information is used strictly to respond to your report or resolve compiler bugs.
Future Authentication & Account Integration
While MyCollegeLab is currently completely anonymous, our architecture includes hooks for optional student accounts, saved lab assignments, and classroom features in the future.
If authentication is enabled, user credentials, user IDs, and auth tokens will be handled under strict security standards: authentication tokens in logs will be securely masked (never exposing full secret tokens or raw passwords), and code history will only be associated with accounts that users explicitly opt into creating.
Analytics & Advertising Measurement
To help students discover our free online compilers and keep our educational infrastructure sustainable, we utilize specific measurement tools:
Google Tag & Google Ads Measurement
We use the Google tag (gtag.js) with tag ID AW-18501482554 for Google Ads campaign measurement and conversion tracking. This allows us to evaluate advertising effectiveness when students discover MyCollegeLab via educational searches. Google may use cookies or web beacons to gather non-personally identifiable usage data in accordance withGoogle's Advertising Privacy Policy. You can opt out of personalized Google advertising at any time throughGoogle Ads Settings.
Vercel Web Analytics & Speed Insights
We employ @vercel/analytics and @vercel/speed-insights to measure real-world site responsiveness, Core Web Vitals (LCP, FID, CLS), and aggregate visitor counts. Vercel Analytics is privacy-friendly, does not track individual user identities across websites, and operates without third-party tracking cookies.
Third-Party Infrastructure & Services
To provide high-availability hosting and reliable compilation, we work with trusted infrastructure partners:
- Cloud Hosting (Vercel & AWS): Our frontend web application is deployed on Vercel's global CDN, and our backend execution sandboxes run on dedicated Amazon Web Services (AWS) compute instances in secure data center facilities.
- Formspree: Feedback submissions are transmitted securely via Formspree over HTTPS, which complies with GDPR and modern data privacy standards.
- Self-Hosted Typography: Fonts (Geist Sans and Geist Mono) are bundled directly inside the Next.js build and served locally, ensuring no third-party font tracking calls are made.
Questions About Privacy?
If you have questions regarding this Privacy Policy or wish to request details about how our execution engine and logging operate, please contact us through our in-app feedback dialog or our support team.