Can other people tell I have a CourtListener account?

In general, no, people on the Internet cannot tell whether you use CourtListener.

However, when you register an account with CourtListener, you create a username that may be exposed to others as part of certain social features like public tags and public prayers.

If you use these features, people may surmise that you use CourtListener, if your username reveals your real identity (for example, if you are Justice Sotomayor and your username is justicesotomayor). If your username is not related to your identity, others cannot tell if you use CourtListener even if you use these features.

How do we do this?

CourtListener is designed not to share whether you have an account. We use many approaches throughout the registration and authentication system to accomplish this:

• If somebody tries to create a new account with your email address, we do not tell them your email is taken. Instead, we tell them the new account was created even though it was not, and we send you an alert.
• If somebody tries to log into CourtListener with your email address, we ensure that when we check the submitted information, it takes just as long as it would if you did not have an account. This prevents timing attacks.
• We do not allow new accounts to be created that look like email addresses.

This is a sample of the approaches we take to protect your privacy.

Find something we missed?

If you believe you can determine whether somebody has a CourtListener account, please review our Vulnerability Disclosure Policy for instructions about how to proceed.

Thank you!