Privacy Policy
Effective date: November 12, 2026
This Privacy Policy describes how 4Internet, LLC ("4Internet," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, discloses, retains, and protects personal information when you use 4search.com or another website in the 4Search network that links to this Policy (collectively, the "Services").
This Policy must be read together with our Terms of Use, Cookie Policy, U.S. State Privacy Notice, and, where applicable, our separate Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy.
1. Scope and role
4Internet is the controller or business responsible for personal information collected through the first-party portions of the Services. Third-party websites, retailers, search providers, advertisers, and AI providers may act under their own privacy notices when you authorize or interact with those services.
2. Information we process
| Category | Examples and source |
|---|---|
| Search and interaction information | Queries, filters, result type, pagination, and other instructions you submit directly. A query may reveal sensitive interests, including health, religion, politics, finances, or other private matters. |
| Limited technical and security information | IP address, user agent, referring page, automated-request classification, and ordinary HTTP connection information may be processed by our application, hosting, content-delivery, firewall, or security systems to route requests, prevent abuse, maintain availability, and preserve necessary business records. When a page is opened from another site or app, the request record keeps only that site's or app's host name (for example, google.com), never the rest of its address; with any campaign tags in the link, it is used to count, in aggregate, how visitors reach the site (search engines, other sites, apps, email, or tagged links), and never to profile a visitor. Successful contact, advertising, copyright, accessibility, and privacy form records retain the submitting IP address, user agent, referring page, and entered CAPTCHA security code with the communication. If a bot-classified visitor completes the human check, a one-way user-agent digest, expiration, and remaining search allowance are kept in the server session. To tell people apart from automated clients, the page script reports, once per page view, the browser's screen and window dimensions, pixel ratio, pointer type and touch-point count, the standard WebDriver automation flag and the browser's declared brand and mobile hints, whether the reported platform contradicts the user agent, the kind of first input (mouse, touch, pen, wheel, or keyboard), a count of pointer movements and the depth of scrolling, the category of the referring page (search engine, social network, this site, other, or none, never its address), the navigation type (new, reload, or back), how long the page had been open, and the page URL. These are recorded with the request's IP address, user agent, and country code, together with whether standard request headers were present, the network operator (autonomous system) of the address and whether it is a hosting provider, and the recent request rate from the address. From these the application derives a human-likelihood score that is stored with the record and used only to distinguish people from automated clients. Nothing is stored in your browser for this purpose, no pointer positions are recorded, and the values are not combined into a persistent browser identifier. The current application does not use canvas, WebGL, STUN, ICE-candidate, or comparable browser fingerprinting, and does not read plugin, font, storage, hardware, network, timezone, or language inventories. When you open a story, or a topic's More link, from a home page that shows stories by topic, the page sends a short request naming the story (a code made from its headline) and its topic; these requests are counted, in aggregate, to place the stories people open higher on that page, and never to profile a visitor. |
| Information you submit | Name, email address, optional telephone and business information, message contents, request details, and CAPTCHA security code submitted through contact, advertising, copyright, accessibility, or privacy forms. |
| Privacy-choice information | Choices stored in your browser to remember whether optional AI services may load. If you enable the optional Saved preferences category, the stocks you follow and your chart settings on Finance pages, and the members of Congress, committees, bills, races and prediction markets you follow on Politics pages, and your home place, units and the places you follow on Weather pages, and the prediction markets you follow and your odds format on Predictions pages, and the places you save, your recent searches and your distance units on Maps pages, and the topics you follow, are also kept in your browser, not in an account; the page sends the symbols on your watchlist with the price requests that display it, and the list of what you follow on Politics with the requests that display it. The Weather home place and units are cookies (wx_home, wx_units) sent with your requests so Weather pages can show them, and the places you follow are sent with the requests that display them. The prediction markets you follow are sent with the requests that display them. The places you save on Maps, your recent searches and your units are not sent to our servers. The list of topics you follow is not sent to our servers; to show their latest stories first, the home page asks for each one (up to eight) with a request of its own. Google-hosted search results are recorded as an always-active search category when configured. We also recognize Global Privacy Control as described below. |
| External-service information | Google processes the query, page URL, IP address, browser information, and related connection data necessary to return Google-hosted search results. If you affirmatively enable AI, the query and selected result context may also be processed by the configured AI provider. On Weather pages, your browser loads map, radar and satellite images directly from U.S. government servers (the U.S. Geological Survey, NOAA and NASA), which receive your IP address and browser information in order to deliver them. If you choose "Use my location", your browser's position, rounded to about 100 meters, is sent once to find the nearest place and is not kept. The Weather overview may show the weather near the approximate location our content-delivery network derives from your IP address; that location is not kept either. On Maps pages, your browser loads the map, satellite and aerial images, elevation data, street-level photos and Wikipedia pictures directly from their providers (OpenFreeMap, national mapping agencies, NASA, ESA, Amazon Web Services' open-data service, Panoramax, Wikimedia and the others listed on the Maps page “About these maps”), which receive your IP address and browser information in order to deliver them. What you type into the Maps search box, the places you ask directions between and the points you click are sent to our servers, which look them up with OpenStreetMap's search services (Nominatim and Photon) and our own routing server; those services receive the words or the point, never your IP address. If you use your location on Maps, your browser shows your position on the map itself and sends it to our servers only with a request that needs it (such as directions from where you are or a search near you); it is not kept. To ask the public services less often, answers are kept on our servers without anything that identifies you: searches and routes for up to two weeks, other answers longer. The map may open near the approximate location our content-delivery network derives from your IP address, rounded to about 10 kilometers; that location is not kept either. |
| Affiliate transaction information | We may receive aggregated or transaction-level commission reporting from a retailer after you follow an affiliate link. We do not receive your payment-card number from the retailer. |
| Shopping link clicks | When you follow a store link from our Shopping pages, we record the click: the product and the store, the search words that led to it, the page and position of the link, the site and the time. The record lets us match a store's commission report to the click. No cookie or other identifier is set for it, and it does not include your IP address. |
| Link clicks | Links to other websites on our pages pass through a short address on our site (/r/) that sends you on to the website at once. When you follow one, or a link a page adds after it has loaded, we record the click: the address of the linked page, the kind of page and the position of the link on it, the page the link was on and its search words, the time, your IP address, user agent and country code, and whether the request came from a known automated client. The page script adds the random code of the page view (the one its automation-detection report carries, held only in the page’s memory), what followed the link (mouse, touch, pen, keyboard, middle button, or the link menu), how long the page had been open, and whether the browser marked it as a real input. From these and the page view’s report the application derives a human-likelihood score for the click. Clicks are counted, in aggregate, to learn which results and websites people find useful and to tell people apart from automated clients; they are never used to profile a visitor, and no cookie or other identifier is set for them. The linked website receives at most our site’s address as the referring page, never your search words. |
We do not require an account to perform ordinary searches. We do not intentionally collect government identification numbers, payment-card data, passwords, medical records, or precise geolocation through our public forms. Do not submit such information.
3. Purposes and legal grounds
We process information only as reasonably necessary to:
- provide search results and functionality you request;
- respond to communications, advertising inquiries, legal notices, accessibility feedback, and privacy requests;
- protect the Services, prevent fraud or abuse, enforce our terms, and maintain reliability;
- comply with law, valid legal process, and recordkeeping obligations;
- operate essential Google-hosted search results and optional AI features after any required choice or consent; and
- measure affiliate transactions and administer our business.
Where the GDPR or a comparable law applies, our legal grounds are performance of a requested service, our legitimate interests in security and service operation, compliance with legal obligations, and consent for optional technologies or processing where consent is required. You may withdraw consent prospectively through Privacy Choices.
4. Cookies, local storage, and optional services
The Services use limited first-party browser storage to remember privacy choices and, if you enable Saved preferences, the stocks you follow and your chart settings on Finance pages, and the members of Congress, committees, bills, races and prediction markets you follow on Politics pages, and your home place, units and the places you follow on Weather pages, and the prediction markets you follow and your odds format on Predictions pages, and the places you save, your recent searches and your distance units on Maps pages, and the topics you follow. A short-lived, strictly necessary PHP session cookie is created only when a form requires CSRF protection or CAPTCHA state, or when a bot-classified visitor is offered or completes the server-timed human check. A strictly necessary browser-check cookie (fs_bc) is set by a short page script the first time you open a comparison of your own symbols on a Finance page, or a results page narrowed to a topic, a source, a place or a tag; it holds only an expiry time and a code that is valid from the network you connect through, lasts up to 30 days, and is not recorded with your requests. Google-hosted search results are part of the essential search service when configured. AI remains disabled unless authorized through the privacy-choice panel. See the Cookie Policy for a current description and controls.
5. When information is disclosed
We may disclose information only in the following circumstances:
- Processors and service providers. Hosting, content delivery, security, database, communications, and technical vendors may process information under contractual restrictions to provide services to us.
- External services. Information necessary to return essential Google-hosted search results is sent to Google. If you enable AI-assisted answers, the query and selected context are sent to the configured AI provider identified in our AI Transparency Notice. If you use the microphone button in the search box, your browser turns your speech into text with its own speech service (Google in Chrome, Microsoft in Edge, Apple in Safari), which receives the recording under its maker's terms. Only the resulting text is placed in the search box; we do not receive or keep the recording.
- Retailers and linked websites. When you select an external result or affiliate link, you direct your browser to that third party, which then processes information under its own terms.
- Legal and safety matters. We may disclose information when reasonably necessary to comply with law or valid process, protect rights or safety, investigate misconduct, or establish or defend legal claims.
- Corporate transactions. Information may transfer as part of a merger, financing, reorganization, sale, or similar transaction, subject to applicable notice and legal requirements.
We do not sell personal information for monetary consideration. We do not authorize cross-context behavioral advertising or other processing treated as a "sale" or "sharing" under applicable state law unless the visitor has made an affirmative choice and applicable law permits it. You may opt out or withdraw a choice at any time.
4Internet separately offers commercial licenses for curated indexes, classifications, feeds, enriched data, search-output compilations, and independently generated or deidentified query-response datasets. Those business data products do not include identifiable consumer search histories collected by the current application. Licensing non-personal Service data is governed by the Automated Access and Data Licensing Policy and does not authorize a licensee to identify, profile, or contact an individual visitor.
6. Sensitive information and consumer health data
We do not use search queries to create individual profiles, infer sensitive characteristics, determine eligibility, or make decisions producing legal or similarly significant effects. We process a query to return the results requested. Because health-related queries may constitute consumer health data under certain laws, additional disclosures and rights appear in our Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy.
7. Retention
| Record | Standard retention |
|---|---|
| First-party operational request records | The application records requested URLs and queries (including any campaign tags a link carries), the host name of the site or app the request came from (never the rest of its address), IP address, user agent, country code when supplied by the network, HTTP status, timing, and automated-request classification for security, abuse prevention, diagnostics, service operation, and aggregate counts of how visitors reach the site. For browsers that run the page script, the display and interaction signals described in Section 2 (screen and window size, pixel ratio, pointer and touch capability, automation and browser-hint indicators, first-input kind, movement and scroll counts, referrer category, navigation type, time open), the network-operator classification and request rate of the address, and the derived human-likelihood score are kept alongside these records for the same purposes and period. It does not create canvas, WebGL, STUN, ICE-candidate, or comparable browser fingerprints. |
| Page and search-result caches | Public informational pages may be cached by URL for performance. Rendered external result titles, URLs, snippets, query text, page, and tab may be cached to operate and audit search; visitor IP address and user agent are not duplicated into those search-cache records. |
| Infrastructure and security logs | Ordinarily no more than 30 days unless an incident, legal obligation, or active investigation requires a longer period. |
| General and advertising communications | Up to 24 months after resolution, unless a shorter or longer period is reasonably required. |
| Privacy-rights and legal request records | Up to 36 months after final resolution, or longer when required to demonstrate compliance or preserve legal claims. |
| AI response cache | Disabled by default. If enabled, the normalized query text, the generated response and the site it was made for are stored in the application cache. The configured cache period controls reuse only; the application does not automatically delete AI cache history. Each AI Mode message in the operational AI log is linked to the browser report of the page it was sent from, with its human-likelihood score, to tell people from automated use. |
| Browser privacy choices | Until you change them, clear browser storage, or the choice is superseded. |
| Saved preferences (watchlist, chart settings and Politics follows) | Kept only in your browser until you remove them, turn off Saved preferences (which deletes them), or clear browser storage. |
| Saved preferences on Weather pages (home place, units, followed places) | Kept only in your browser: the home place and units cookies up to one year, followed places until you remove them. Turning off Saved preferences deletes the home place and the followed places; clearing cookies or browser storage deletes all of them. |
| Saved preferences on Predictions pages (followed markets, odds format) | Kept only in your browser until you remove them. Turning off Saved preferences, or clearing cookies or browser storage, deletes them. |
| Saved preferences on Maps pages (saved places, recent searches, units) | Kept only in your browser until you remove them. Turning off Saved preferences, or clearing browser storage, deletes them. |
| Saved preferences on Topics pages (followed topics) | Kept only in your browser until you remove them. Turning off Saved preferences, or clearing browser storage, deletes them. |
We may retain information longer when required by law, necessary for security or fraud prevention, or reasonably necessary to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims. When retention ends, information is deleted or de-identified in accordance with documented procedures.
8. Your privacy rights
Subject to applicable law and verification, you may request access, correction, deletion, portability, restriction, or confirmation of processing; withdraw consent; opt out of sale, sharing, targeted advertising, or qualifying profiling; limit certain uses of sensitive information; and appeal a denied request. We will not discriminate against you for exercising a privacy right.
Submit a request through our Privacy Request Form or review instructions in Privacy Choices. We will request only information reasonably necessary to verify and fulfill the request. Authorized agents must provide authority as required by law.
We treat an enabled Global Privacy Control signal as an opt-out of sale, sharing, and targeted advertising for that browser where required. Because the older "Do Not Track" signal does not communicate a standardized legal choice, we do not interpret it as a universal opt-out; use Global Privacy Control or our Privacy Choices instead.
9. International processing
4Internet operates from the United States. Information may therefore be processed in the United States and other jurisdictions where an authorized provider operates. Where required, we rely on an adequacy decision, approved contractual safeguards, another lawful transfer mechanism, or an applicable derogation. A person located outside the United States does not waive statutory rights merely by using the Services.
10. Children
The Services are intended for a general audience and are not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from a child under 13 without legally sufficient authorization. A parent or guardian who believes a child submitted information should use the Privacy Request Form. See our Children's Privacy Notice.
11. Security
We maintain administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information. No system can guarantee absolute security. We limit collection, restrict administrative access, protect the server configuration that contains credentials, and maintain incident-response and deletion procedures appropriate to the nature of the information.
12. Changes
We will review this Policy at least annually and update it when our practices or legal obligations materially change. Material changes will be identified by a revised effective date and, when required, a prominent notice or renewed consent. A materially different use of previously collected information will not be applied retroactively without a lawful basis.
13. Contact
Privacy Site Coordinator
4Internet, LLC
8275 South Eastern Avenue, Suite 200-265
Las Vegas, Nevada 89123
United States
Telephone: (800) 568-4638
Online: Privacy Request Form. Questions not involving a rights request may be submitted through Contact Us.