Pigeon is operated by Ingenius LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (“we”, “us”). This policy explains what we collect from readers of pigeonnewspaper.com, why, and what you can do about it. It is written to be read, not to be survived.
The short version
We keep a record of what you read on Pigeon, so we can tell which stories and which news sources are worth your time. If you have an account, that record is attached to your account. If you do not, it is attached to a random number stored in your own browser and nothing else.
No advertising. No third-party tracking of any kind — no analytics company, no ad network, no social pixel, nobody. We do not follow you onto other websites. We have never sold or shared any of it and we will not. The record lives in our own database and goes nowhere else.
You can see what we hold, get a copy, turn the recording off, and delete everything.
What we collect
If you create an account
- Your email address. Used to identify your account, confirm it is yours, let you reset your password, and send you the small number of emails an account requires.
- Your password, which is hashed by our authentication provider before storage. We never see it and cannot recover it.
What your account stores
- Stories you save, including a copy of the headline, place, date, and the link to the original source. We keep that copy because a Pigeon story page expires after about two weeks — the copy is what lets your saved list still show you what you kept, and still hand you the primary source, after our own page is gone.
- Words you save to My Vocabulary, with the definition as it read when you saved it.
- Your reading preferences — the categories you pick, the local areas you follow, and your light or dark theme.
What you read on Pigeon
We record what you do on Pigeon’s own pages, and attach it to your account if you have one:
- which stories you opened, and when;
- how far down a story you read;
- which sections and pages you visited;
- whether you tapped a word to see its definition;
- whether you followed a link out to an original source;
- whether you came back on a later day;
- the type of device and the width of the screen, so we know where to spend our design effort.
If you are not signed in, we still count the same things. We do it with a random marker we create the first time you visit and store in your own browser. It is not tied to your name, your email, or anything you have told us, because at that point you have told us nothing. If you later create an account, that marker is joined to your account so that what you read before signing up is not double-counted and is not lost. You can clear it at any time by clearing your browser’s storage for this site, or by using the switch described under “What you can do” below.
Why we do this at all. We decide which news sources earn their place on this page. Without a record of what readers actually open and actually finish, we are grading our own homework — we would be judging a source by how highly our own ranking scored it. Reading data is the only independent evidence we have. We use it to decide what to cover, what to cut, and whether our writing is working.
What we will not do with it. We do not try to make you stay longer. A five-minute read is a five-minute read; that is the product, and we will not measure ourselves on time-on-page or build anything designed to hold your attention past the news.
Collected automatically, by our providers rather than by us
Our website host and our database provider record standard technical information — IP address, browser type, time of request — as part of operating and securing their services. We do not use it to build a profile of you.
What we do not collect
We run no advertising. We use no third-party analytics service and no third-party tracking scripts of any kind — the record described above is written to our own database by our own code, and no outside company receives it. We do not track you across other websites. We do not collect your precise location. We do not ask for your name or your phone number. We do not store your card number or any part of it; if you subscribe, your card is handled by our payment processor and never reaches us.
How we use it
To run the service: to keep you signed in, to sync your saved stories, words and preferences between your devices, to send the small number of emails an account requires, and — if you subscribe — to bill you and to support you.
And to edit the paper: to see which stories and which sources readers actually value, where readers stop reading, whether our writing is plain enough, and whether the primary-source links get used.
Who we share it with
We share information with service providers who operate parts of Pigeon on our behalf, and only so far as they need it to do that:
| Provider | What it does | What it holds |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Accounts, authentication, and the database | Your email, password hash, saved stories and words, preferences, and your activity record |
| GitHub Pages | Serves the website | Standard request logs |
| Stripe | Takes payment, if you subscribe | Your card details (which never reach us), your email, your subscription status |
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising. We do not give it to advertisers, data brokers, or analytics companies, because we do not use any. We may disclose information if we are legally required to, or to protect the rights and safety of readers or the service.
Do Not Track
Some browsers send a “Do Not Track” signal. That signal is about being followed from site to site.
Pigeon does not track readers across other websites or services at all, and we do not permit any third party to collect information about your activity over time or across other websites through Pigeon. There is nothing for that signal to switch off, so we do not act on it.
To be plain about the distinction: we do keep a record of what you do on Pigeon’s own pages, as described above. If you want that off, use the switch under “What you can do” — that is the control that actually does something here, and a browser signal is not.
What you can do
- See it and get a copy. Sign in and open your profile page. You can see your saved stories, saved words and preferences there. To get a copy of everything we hold about you, including your activity record, in a file you can open, write to privacy@pigeonnewspaper.com. We will send it within 30 days and normally within a few days.
- Correct it. Your preferences and saved items are editable on your profile. For anything else, write to privacy@pigeonnewspaper.com.
- Turn activity recording off. There is a switch on your profile page. Turn it off and we stop recording what you read, on that browser and on your account, and we delete the activity we have already recorded for you. Everything else on Pigeon keeps working exactly as before.
- Delete your account. Deleting your account deletes your email address, your saved stories, your saved words, your preferences and your activity record. Do it from your profile page, or write to privacy@pigeonnewspaper.com. We complete deletions within 30 days and normally immediately. Counts that no longer identify anybody — for example “412 people opened this story” — survive, as counts, because they cannot be traced back to you.
We will not charge you for any of this and we will not make you jump through hoops for it.
How long we keep it
| What | How long |
|---|---|
| Your account, saved stories, saved words and preferences | Until you delete them |
| Your activity record, reader by reader | 90 days, then it is reduced to counts that identify nobody |
| Counts that identify nobody | Kept indefinitely |
| The random marker for a reader with no account | Until you clear your browser storage or turn recording off |
| Subscription and payment records | As long as tax and accounting law requires |
| Our providers’ technical logs | As set by each provider |
California readers
California’s “Shine the Light” law (Civ. Code § 1798.83) lets California residents ask whether we disclosed personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. We do not, and never have.
Children
Pigeon is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has created an account, write to privacy@pigeonnewspaper.com and we will delete it.
Where this service is offered
Pigeon is offered to readers in the United States, and information is stored in the United States. If you are outside the United States, you should not create an account.
Security
Accounts are protected by transport encryption, database access rules that scope every record to the account that owns it, and a minimum password length of 15 characters. No system is perfectly secure, and we do not claim otherwise.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy in a way that materially affects how we handle your information, we will post the updated policy here with a new effective date and, for account holders, send notice to the email address on the account before the change takes effect. We will not start collecting a new kind of information about you before the policy that describes it is published.
Contact
Ingenius LLC
Registered office: 8 The Green, STE B, Dover, DE 19901, USA
privacy@pigeonnewspaper.com