Transparencee

Inspiration

We created Transparencee to make online tracking visible to everyday users.
Most people know tracking exists, but they cannot easily see what is happening while they browse.
Our goal was to turn hidden tracking behavior into clear, real-time insight.

What it does

Transparencee is a Chrome extension that monitors the current website and surfaces privacy-related signals in a simple popup.
It highlights third-party activity, persistent cookies, fingerprinting hints, and tracker categories such as ads, social, and analytics.
It then presents an easy-to-understand privacy status so users can quickly judge how intrusive a site feels.

How we built it

We built Transparencee as a Manifest V3 browser extension with a connected backend service.
The extension handles on-page signal collection, tab-aware aggregation, and popup presentation.
A backend API processes the collected features and returns structured output that the extension displays to the user.
We focused on clean data flow, stable messaging between scripts, and a UI that communicates clearly without overwhelming detail.

Challenges we ran into

One major challenge was reliability across different websites, since tracking patterns vary widely.
Another was coordinating asynchronous browser events so the popup always reflects up-to-date information.
We also had to balance detection sensitivity with noise reduction, especially for fingerprinting-related behavior.
Finally, keeping the extension and backend contract aligned during iteration required careful version discipline.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that Transparencee delivers meaningful tracking visibility in a form that is fast and accessible.
We built an end-to-end pipeline that works in real browsing conditions, not just controlled demos.
We also created a clean, branded popup experience that turns technical telemetry into understandable user feedback.
Most importantly, we shipped a tool that helps users make more informed privacy decisions.

What we learned

We learned how much browser-extension engineering depends on lifecycle details, permissions, and event timing.
We learned that strong product value comes from clear interpretation of signals, not just collecting large amounts of data.
We also improved our skills in API design, integration testing, and debugging distributed behavior across client and backend components.
This project reinforced the importance of building privacy tools that are transparent, practical, and user-centered.

What's next for Transparencee

Next, we plan to improve tracker attribution detail and provide clearer per-site history views.
We also want to add user-facing recommendations that explain concrete steps to reduce exposure.
On the engineering side, we plan to strengthen model calibration, expand test coverage, and improve deployment automation.
Long term, Transparencee can grow into a broader privacy intelligence layer across browsing sessions and devices.

Built With

• chrome-extensions-api
• css
• fastapi
• google-bigquery
• html5
• javascript
• python
• scikit-learn
• uvicorn