Overview

MacDNS is designed with privacy as a core principle. Your DNS queries are processed entirely on your local machine and are never sent to our servers. MacDNS only collects the email address needed to manage your license, support requests, and purchase-related communication.

Data We Collect

Email address. We collect only the email address associated with your MacDNS license so we can provide license activation, renewal, and customer support.

When you purchase a license, checkout, payment processing, invoices, taxes, fraud checks, refunds, and purchase records are handled and stored by Dodo Payments, our Merchant of Record. We do not have access to your credit card information, bank details, or other financial data. Please refer to Dodo Payments' Buyer Terms and Privacy Policy for details on how they handle buyer and payment data.

Data We Do NOT Collect

DNS queries - All DNS resolution happens locally on your Mac
Browsing history - We have no visibility into your internet activity
Payment details - Credit card, bank, tax, and billing details are handled by Dodo Payments
Personal files - MacDNS only accesses its own configuration files
Analytics or telemetry - No usage tracking or analytics in the app
Crash reports - We do not collect automated crash reports

Local Processing

MacDNS operates entirely on your local machine:

DNS queries are resolved locally using a DNS resolver
Blocklists are downloaded and stored locally
All configuration is stored on your Mac
Statistics are computed and stored locally

QNAME Minimization

MacDNS uses a privacy technique called QNAME Minimization (RFC 7816). Here's what it means in simple terms:

Normally, when your computer asks "What is the IP of mail.example.com?", it sends the full domain name to every DNS server in the chain. This means multiple servers see exactly which website you're visiting.

With QNAME Minimization enabled, MacDNS only sends the minimum information needed at each step. The root server only sees ".com", the .com server only sees "example.com", and only the final server sees "mail.example.com". This dramatically reduces how much of your browsing activity is exposed to third parties.

Third-Party Services

Dodo Payments (Payment Processing)

Dodo Payments is the Merchant of Record for MacDNS purchases. They handle and store buyer, payment, invoice, refund, fraud-check, and tax-compliance data under their Buyer Terms and Privacy Policy.

Blocklist Sources

MacDNS downloads blocklists from various public sources. These downloads are direct from the source servers and do not pass through our infrastructure. The sources include well-known ad blocking lists like EasyList, threat intelligence feeds, and other community-maintained lists.

Security

MacDNS is designed with security in mind:

All license validation uses encrypted communications (HTTPS/TLS)
Payment and buyer data are handled by Dodo Payments, not stored by the MacDNS website
Local-only processing keeps your DNS queries private

Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new policy on this page and updating the "Last updated" date.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or our data practices, please contact us at:

Email: privacy@macdns.app