Privacy

You do not need an account to read anything here, and reading does not require you to identify yourself.

This site embeds no third-party trackers and no advertising, and it does not use Google Analytics or any other outside analytics service. Fonts are served from this site’s own domain rather than from a font provider, so loading a page does not tell anyone else that you visited.

The first time you visit, a banner asks whether you allow one analytics cookie. You can accept, reject, or read the details under Options. Until you accept, no analytics cookie is set and your browser sends us nothing for analytics.

If you say no, or have not chosen yet, the server still counts the page view while it sends you the page: which page it was, the kind of site that sent you there (for example “a search engine” and its name, taken from the ordinary Referer header your browser sends with every request), any campaign tags in the link, and whether you are on a phone, tablet or computer. No cookie, no identifier, nothing that could tell your next visit apart from anyone else’s.

If you accept, the site sets hv_visitor, a random identifier that lasts a year, so that we can tell a returning reader from a new one. With it we record which pages you read, how long the page was open and in use, how far down you scrolled, which share buttons and outside links you tapped, what you searched for on this site, how fast pages loaded for you, your browser family (“Safari”), and your country, worked out on our own server from your IP address. The IP address itself is never stored.

Your choice is remembered in the hv_consent cookie for six months, after which the banner asks again. If your browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control, we treat that as a no and do not show the banner.

Everything stays on this site’s own server and is never shared or sold. Individual records are deleted after 90 days; after that only daily totals per page remain, such as “120 views on 3 March”.

You can change your mind at any time in cookie settings, also linked at the bottom of every page. Turning the cookie off deletes it.

You can sign in with Google, or create an account with your email address. Signing in is only needed to like articles; everything else works without it.

With Google, you sign in on Google’s own page and we never see your password. We keep two things: the name on your Google account, and the identifier Google gives us for you. We do not ask for or store your email address or photo.

With an email account, we keep your email address, the name you gave (or the part of your address before the @), and your password in a scrambled form that cannot be turned back into the password. We use your address only to send you the link that confirms it and, if you ask, a link to sign in. These emails go out through our email provider, Hostinger. No newsletters, and your address is never shared or sold. Until you tap the confirmation link, we hold your address for up to a day and then delete it.

Each account is separate: signing in with Google and then with your email makes two accounts, because we never join accounts by email.

While you are signed in, the site keeps one cookie, __Host-hv_reader_session, that keeps you signed in for up to 90 days (a month if you do not come back). It holds a random value; our server stores only a scrambled form of it. While you sign in with Google, a second cookie, __Host-hv_oauth, lives for up to ten minutes to check that the answer from Google belongs to your sign-in, then is deleted.

When you like an article we store that your account liked it, and when. A like cannot be taken back. The For You page uses your likes to show articles from the same topics; that happens on this site only and is never shared.

You can delete your account at any time from the account page (tap your name at the top of any page). That deletes your name, your email address or Google identifier, your password, your sessions and your likes. Nothing is kept.

The Facebook, X, LinkedIn and Pinterest buttons under each article are ordinary links. Nothing is loaded from those services and nothing is sent to them unless you tap one, at which point their own privacy rules apply.

The server that hosts this site keeps ordinary web-server logs — the requested address, the time, the response status, and technical details needed to keep the site running and secure. These are used for operating and debugging the site and are not used to build a profile of you or sold to anyone.

No advertising networks. No cross-site tracking. No selling or sharing of personal data. No profiling for marketing.

Articles link to their sources. Those sites have their own privacy practices, which this notice does not cover, and following a link means their rules apply rather than these.

Features that would change any of this — comments, or links that measure which articles get shared on social networks — do not exist yet. This page will be updated before any of them goes live, and the date at the top will show when.