Privacy Policy

• If you create an account: your email address, username and a hashed password (never the password itself), plus your points, coins, streak, referral code and who referred you.
• When you use member features: the comments, ratings, likes and boosts you post, and a record of point-earning actions (reads, shares, offer clicks, daily reveals) with the time they happened.
• If you buy coins or a plan: payment is handled by Stripe. We receive your Stripe customer and subscription identifiers and what you bought, never your card details.
• If you send us a form: what you type into it (for example, your email on the privacy request form).
• Automatically, on every visit: pages viewed, links clicked, device and browser type, approximate location from your IP address and referring page, collected by our hosting provider and the analytics and advertising tools below.

• Sign-in cookie: keeps you signed in. It is set only when you sign in and is required for member features.
• Local storage: remembers choices on your device, such as a dismissed pop-up, your reading language and pending points. It never leaves your browser except as part of a request you make.
• Google Analytics and Google Ads measure traffic and the performance of our ads. You can opt out with Google’s Analytics opt-out add-on and ad settings.
• Microsoft Clarity records how pages are used (clicks, scrolling, and replays of page sessions) so we can fix layout and usability problems. By default it masks what you type into form fields. See Microsoft’s privacy statement.
• Affiliate networks (Impact, and the networks behind other offers) set their own cookies when you follow an affiliate link, so the merchant can credit us if you buy. The Impact tag on our pages also counts ad impressions.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Blocking the sign-in cookie signs you out; blocking the others does not stop the site from working. If your browser sends the Global Privacy Control signal, Google’s advertising cookies and ad personalisation are turned off for your visit.

• to run your account, points, coins, comments and leaderboard
• to process purchases and prevent fraud and abuse (for example, daily point caps)
• to measure and improve the site and our advertising
• to answer your requests and keep records of them

• Netlify, which hosts the site, its database, file storage and forms
• Stripe, for payments
• Google and Microsoft, for the analytics and advertising described above
• affiliate networks and merchants, when you click one of their links
• DeepL, which receives the article text (not your personal information) when you use “Read in …” translation
• Substack, if you subscribe to our newsletter through its embedded form

We may also disclose information when the law requires it or to protect the site and its members.

Account information is kept while your account exists and deleted when you ask us to close it, except records we must keep for tax, accounting or fraud prevention. Form submissions are kept until the request is resolved. Analytics data is kept according to Google’s and Microsoft’s retention settings (at most 14 months for Google Analytics).

You can ask to see, correct or delete the personal information we hold about you, close your account, or opt out of the use of your information for targeted advertising. Depending on where you live (for example California, other US states with privacy laws, the EU or the UK), you may have further rights, including to complain to your data protection authority. We do not discriminate against anyone for using these rights. Send a request with the form below; we may ask you to confirm you own the account before acting on it.

The site is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has given us information, send a request below and we will delete it.

When this policy changes, the date at the top changes too. Significant changes are noted on this page.