Legal

Privacy policy

There is no account. A prompt does not come to us. This page is what the website and the app actually record, and what they leave alone.

This policy covers the rootmode website, the desktop software we publish, and the small collector that draws the explorer. “rootmode,” “we,” and “us” means the company organized under the laws of the State of Wyoming that operates rootmode.ai, together with its successors. “you” means anyone who visits the site, runs the app, or runs a worker. Operators who serve models are independent. Their machines are not ours.

Last updated 14 October 2026.

What never comes to us

• No account, email, or password. There is nothing to sign up for.
• Your prompts, answers, pictures, and chats. They stay on your computer, and a job travels from your computer to the operator who answers it. We do not sit in the middle of that, and we do not store it.
• Who asked. The explorer never receives a client identity.
• Your wallet seed. Keys are created on your machine and stay there. We do not take custody of USDC.

The operator who runs the job has to read the prompt in order to answer it. That is their machine, not ours. What they do with it is their responsibility. The Terms say the same thing.

The website

When you press Download, we count the click: which installer the button sent you to (from the browser’s user agent), and a country derived from the connection address. The address itself is dropped. We do not keep who you were.

The light or dark theme is stored in your browser under rootmode.theme. That never leaves the browser. We do not set a tracking cookie, and we do not run a third-party analytics script on the site.

The app

Chats, keys, and settings live in the app’s data on your computer. Uninstalling the app, or deleting that folder, removes them from the machine. We do not have a copy.

Once a day the app checks whether a newer version exists. That check can also say that an install exists, so the explorer can show how many copies are in use. What it sends is a random id the app made up for itself, the version, the operating system, and the processor type. A country is derived from the connection and the address is not kept. Nothing about what you asked, which model you used, or who you are.

This is on unless you turn it off. In the app: Settings → “Let rootmode count this install.” Off, the update check carries nothing. To delete a row we already stored, email legal@rootmode.ai and we will tell you how to read that id off the machine so we can remove it.

A log the app writes for diagnosing a crash stays on the computer. It is not uploaded.

Workers and the explorer

A worker may report to rootmode.ai so the explorer can show a number. A worker that never reports is still a full member of the network. A report can include request and image counts, token totals the inference server measured, what the worker charged, its label, the models it serves, and its capabilities. A country comes from the connection, or from what the operator typed. The address is resolved to a country and dropped. If a salt is configured on the collector, a salted one-way hash of the address is kept so repeat reports can be recognised as one machine. Without a salt, not even that.

Those reports do not include prompts, answers, or the identity of the person who asked.

Finding a peer

A bootstrap node helps a fresh install find someone to talk to. Jobs do not travel through it. It can see that a connection was made. It cannot see the prompt.

Payments

Priced jobs settle in USDC on Base. A deposit, a lock, and a settlement are transactions on a public chain. They carry wallet addresses and amounts. They do not carry the prompt or the answer. Anyone can read a public chain. We do not hold the funds.

If you buy USDC with a card, that purchase is Stripe’s crypto onramp. Stripe sees the payment. Stripe does not see the job. Connecting a wallet may also go through Web3Auth. Those are their services, with their own privacy policies, and they are not a party to the inference.

Who we share it with

We do not sell this information. We do not hand it to an advertiser. We share it if we believe in good faith that the law requires it, or to protect someone from imminent harm. The same clause is in the Terms.

The explorer publishes the aggregate: counts, models, worker labels, countries. It does not publish an install id.

How long it stays

Download counts, install rows, and worker reports stay so the explorer can show history. Turning off “Let rootmode count this install” stops new reports from that copy. Email legal@rootmode.ai to ask for a stored install row to be deleted.

Children

The Terms require you to be 18 or older. We do not knowingly collect information from children.

Changes

We change this policy by posting a new version at rootmode.ai/privacy. The date at the top is the date it took effect.

Questions: hello@rootmode.ai. Privacy and legal: legal@rootmode.ai.

Effective 14 October 2026.