Is DeepDyve LitHub Connect safe?
DeepDyve LitHub Connect scans academic pages you visit and sends detected citation IDs to its own servers automatically.
On roughly 90 publisher sites, PubMed, and Google Scholar, the extension's content scripts scan each page for DOI/PMID identifiers as soon as it loads and relay them to the background service worker. The service worker batches and rate-limits these, then sends a GET request with the identifiers plus the page URL and title to DeepDyve's own openurl-webextension endpoint - this happens on every matching page navigation, not only when the user runs a lookup.
Who publishes itDeepDyve, Inc - no other listings under this identity, 3 shared hostnames
DeepDyve, Inc - no other listings under this identity, 3 shared hostnames
What this publisher told the store about itself, and the other listings that told it the same thing.
Shared hosts - 3 hostnames
Hostnames hardcoded in this extension that few other listings call. That can mean one operator behind both, and it can equally mean a small shared vendor, so it is context rather than a conclusion. Hosts that many listings call are left out: they are services, not connections.
AI-generated. Findings may contain errors. Those marked Verified have been manually reviewed.
Publishers can request a review.
What it can do
Permissions this extension asks for, as declared in version 4.2.28. Asking for a permission is not a finding on its own - it is what the extension can do if it chooses to. The current listed version is 4.2.29, which we have not unpacked yet.
Read and change your data on every site you visit
<all_urls>
Run its own code inside the pages you visit
scripting
Store data in your browser
storage
Where it sends data
Destinations our analysis observed DeepDyve contacting. Sending data somewhere is not a finding on its own - an extension that syncs your settings has to talk to its own server - but it is where your data can go, and who else it goes to.
- www.deepdyve.com
DeepDyve sends data to www.deepdyve.com. One other extension we have analysed sends data here.