What we collect.

The short version

You can read Briefline without an account. We use Google Analytics to count visits and see which sections people read, which sets cookies — details below. There is no advertising technology, and we do not sell or share your data. If you create an account we store your email address; if you use Local news we store the ZIP code you enter; if you sign up for the daily brief we store that address.

Reading without an account

Google Analytics runs on the site. It tells us how many people visit, which pages they read and roughly where in the world they are — as counts, not as a profile of you. To do that it sets two cookies in your browser, _ga and _ga_N7NF92YFLR, which last up to two years and hold a random identifier so a repeat visit is not counted twice. We do not link that identifier to your account, and we have not enabled Google's advertising or cross-site features.

You can refuse it. Any browser setting or extension that blocks analytics stops it working, and Google publishes an opt-out add-on that covers every site.

Your browser also stores one preference locally — whether you chose light or dark — and that never leaves your device.

Our host, Netlify, keeps standard server logs of requests, which include IP addresses, as part of serving and protecting the site.

Headlines link out to the publisher who wrote them. Once you follow a link you are on their site, under their privacy policy, and they may well track you in ways we do not.

If you create an account

Accounts are handled by Supabase, which stores your email address, which sign-in method you used, and the date you joined. If you sign in with Apple we also store the display name Apple provides — Apple sends it once, on your first sign-in, and never again.

Signing in with Apple or Google means those companies know you signed in here. If you use Apple's Hide My Email, we only ever see the relay address, not your real one.

Your session is kept in your browser's local storage so you stay signed in. It is not a tracking cookie and is not shared.

Local news

Local news needs a ZIP code, and we store it on your profile so you do not have to type it again. To find headlines for that area we send the ZIP code to api.zippopotam.us to turn it into a city and state, then send that city and state to Google News to search for local coverage. Neither request includes your name, email, or account.

The advertise form

If you submit the form on Advertise we store what you type — company name, contact name, email, website and message — so we can reply. It is used for that and nothing else.

The daily brief

If you enter your address in the daily brief box we store it, along with the date and whether you were signed in at the time. We do not store anything else about you from that box.

Signing up sends you one email asking you to confirm the address is yours, sent through Resend. Nothing else is sent until you confirm. After that the brief arrives each morning at 8:00 ET, and every email carries a link to remove yourself — asking us to remove you removes you.

If you become a member

Payments are handled by Stripe. Your card details go to Stripe directly and never touch our servers — we cannot see them and do not store them. What we keep is a record that a subscription exists: its status, whether you pay monthly or yearly, when the current period ends, and Stripe's identifiers for you and the subscription.

Stripe is the payment processor and handles that data under its own privacy policy, including for fraud prevention. Cancelling is self-serve from your account, and deleting your account removes our record of the subscription.

What we do not do

• No advertising cookies, no ad networks, no retargeting
• No fingerprinting or session recording
• No selling or sharing of personal data
• No profiling or automated decisions about you

Who processes data for us

• Supabase — accounts and database
• Netlify — hosting and server logs
• Apple, Google — only if you choose to sign in with them
• Stripe — payments, only if you become a member
• Google Analytics — counts of visits and page views
• Zippopotam.us, Google News — only when you use Local news, and only the ZIP code and the city it resolves to

How long we keep things

Account data is kept until the account is deleted. Membership records are kept while the subscription exists and are removed with the account, though Stripe keeps its own transaction records as the law requires of it. Daily brief addresses are kept until you unsubscribe. Advertising enquiries are kept while we deal with them. Collected news articles are deleted automatically after 14 days, and contain nothing about you.

Your rights

You can delete your account yourself, at any time, from your account page. It removes your account, the ZIP code saved for Local news, and your address from the daily brief, immediately and for good. Nothing is kept back and there is no waiting period.

You can also ask for a copy of what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, object to how we use it, or ask for it in a portable form. Write to us and we will act on it.

Contact

Email privacy@briefline.news.

Changes

If what we collect changes, this page changes with it and the date at the top moves. Material changes will be announced on the site rather than made quietly.