Privacy & Data Use

croton.news is an independent, experimental local news project. We do not run ads, we do not use advertising trackers, and we never sell or share reader data. This page describes everything the site collects, why, and for how long.

Analytics

We measure readership ourselves, on our own server — no third-party analytics service is involved. A small first-party script counts the page view and, so we can tell which stories actually get read, how far down the page you scrolled and how long the tab was visible. It uses no cookies and stores nothing on your device. On the server, your visit is recorded only as a one-way salted hash that is rotated every 24 hours (the method popularized by Plausible Analytics): the same reader is one anonymous visitor within a day, but visits can never be linked across days, and the raw IP address and browser signature behind the hash are never written to disk. If a link that brought you here carries campaign tags (utm_*), we record those tags to learn which outreach works. We see aggregate patterns — never who you are.

Server logs

Like nearly every website, our web server keeps standard access logs (IP address, page requested, browser type) for security and debugging. Exact retention: the main access and error logs are deleted at the daily rotation — raw IP addresses live there for roughly 24 hours; a second log used for readership classification keeps one extra day (roughly 48 hours). After that, only derived aggregates survive: a network classification (local / out-of-area / datacenter) and a salted hash of the address that cannot be reversed to an IP. We do not analyze logs to identify readers.

Comments

When you comment on an article we store the name you enter, your comment text, and the time it was posted. Comments are public. No email address or account is required. To have a comment removed, use the contact form and identify the comment; we will delete it.

News tips

Tips are confidential by default: the name and email fields are optional, and we do not require them to act on a tip. We say "confidential" rather than "anonymous" deliberately — while our server's standard access logs exist (about a day, see above), a submission is not technically anonymous to the server. If your safety depends on true anonymity, submit from a network not associated with you.

Retention: tip content is kept in a private database until it has informed reporting or is deleted at your request; any correspondence is kept under the same terms; no raw IP address is stored with a tip. Tips are never published as-is — they inform reporting; they do not replace it. We never reveal a source without their permission. If you include contact information, we use it only to follow up.

Contact form & email

Messages sent through the contact form or to our editorial address are kept as ordinary correspondence and used only to respond to you. Corrections you report may be summarized (without your identity) in our public corrections log.

Third-party requests

Fonts are served from our own server, and our analytics script is first-party (see above). Article pages run no third-party code at all.

Cookies & local storage

The site sets no tracking cookies. Your browser's local storage is used only for interface preferences (for example, remembering that you dismissed the AI-content disclaimer). That data never leaves your device.

Your data, your call

To ask what we hold about you, or to have a comment, tip, or message deleted, contact us. We honor deletion requests without requiring a reason.