Privacy policy

• Reading the site. Our web server keeps a log of each request: the page, the time, your browser type, the page you came from and your IP address. We use it to count readers, see which pages are read, find faults and stop abuse. From the IP address we work out a country and keep a scrambled (hashed) form of the address, not a profile of you.
• Views and loves. So a story’s view count and love count are honest, your browser is given a random number in a cookie. It is not linked to your name or email.
• The daily email. If you sign up we keep your email address, the page you signed up on, whether you confirmed, how many editions we sent you, and your town or area if you choose to tell us. You are only added after you click the confirmation link, and every email has a one-click unsubscribe.
• Comments. Readers of the daily email can comment. The name you type and your comment are public. We keep the email address the comment came from so we can deal with abuse; it is never shown.
• Paid articles. If you buy an article or a publisher plan, payment is taken by Stripe. We receive your name, email and what you bought, never your card number. We keep what you submit: the article, your company name, website, pictures and links.
• Saved stories. Stories you save, and the name you last commented with, are kept in your own browser’s storage and are not sent to us.
• Messages. If you write to us we keep the correspondence.

We use a small number of first-party cookies. We do not use advertising cookies or third-party analytics. When you first arrive a notice asks whether you accept the one optional cookie; you can change your answer at any time with “Cookie settings” at the foot of every page.

• Optional: a visitor number, so one person counts as one view and can take back a love (kept up to two years). Only set if you accept it. If you decline, views are still counted once per reader using a short-lived code made from your address and browser, which is not stored on your device and is discarded the same day.
• Your cookie choice itself (kept up to one year).
• A reader cookie, set when you confirm the daily email, so the comment box opens and the signup boxes stand down (kept up to one year).
• An administrator cookie, only for the people who run the site.

You can also clear or block cookies in your browser; the site still works, but commenting will need you to sign in again.

Adverts and sponsored cards on this site come from our own partner network, served from blokstreams.com. When one is shown or clicked, the network records that it was shown or clicked, on which site and when, and your browser type and IP address reach it as they would any web server. It does not use advertising cookies and does not follow you across other companies’ websites. Paid articles are marked “Sponsored” and their links are marked as sponsored links.

The site may also show banners from its own sponsors, marked Sponsored. This site counts how often each banner is shown and clicked; it does not use advertising cookies for them, and a click takes you to the sponsor’s own website, which has its own privacy policy.

Our reports are written with the help of software (Google’s Gemini models) from published sources, which are listed on every report. That process uses published news, not your personal information. The only text of yours that is sent to that software is what you type into a “generate a draft” box when writing a paid article.

We do not sell personal information. These companies process it for us, each only for its own job:

• Google Cloud, which hosts the site and its data.
• Stripe, which takes payments.
• Resend, which delivers the daily email and confirmation messages, and Google Workspace for our own correspondence.
• Google (Gemini), for the draft generator described above.
• YouTube or Vimeo, only if you play a video that a sponsored article has embedded from them.

We may also disclose information when the law requires it, or to protect the site and its readers from abuse.

• Server logs: up to 12 months.
• Your daily email record: until you unsubscribe, and then a minimal note that you did, so we do not email you again.
• Comments: until you ask us to remove them or we take them down.
• Purchases and submissions: for as long as the article is published, and as tax and accounting law requires.

You can unsubscribe from the daily email with the link in any edition. You can ask us for a copy of the information we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete it, including any comment you posted, by writing to daniel@monsterkong.com. We answer within 30 days. If you are in the European Union, the United Kingdom, California or another place whose law gives you rights over your personal information, those rights apply, and you may also complain to your data protection authority. Where the law asks for a legal basis: we rely on your consent for the daily email, on a contract for purchases, and on our legitimate interest in running, measuring and protecting the site for the rest.

The site is a general news service and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect their information; if you believe a child has given us some, write to us and we will delete it.

Our servers and service providers may be outside your country, including in the United States and the European Union. We protect information in transit with encryption and limit who can reach it. If we change this policy we will change the date at the top; a significant change will be announced on the site or by email to subscribers.