Privacy

What this site collects

This page describes what actually happens when you read Plural, rather than reserving rights we do not use.

No accounts, and one form

There is no sign-in, no comment field and no contact form. Every page is a static file, so there is no database of readers because there is nothing to put in one. The one thing the site asks you for is an email address, and only if you choose to subscribe to the daily letter, which is described next. What it does load is described below.

The daily letter

If you subscribe, we store your email address and the topics you ticked, and nothing else. We do not ask for your name. The list is held by Buttondown, Inc. in the United States under its own privacy policy, and it is never sold, shared or used for anything but sending you the letter.

Subscribing is confirmed by email before anything is sent, so an address can only ever be added by the person who owns it. Every letter carries a one-click unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing removes you from the list rather than marking you inactive. You can also write to us and we will remove you.

Buttondown records whether a letter was delivered and whether it was opened. We use that to tell whether the letter is working at all, not to build a picture of you, and it is never joined to anything the site records.

Counting pages, and nothing else

One measurement runs on this site: Vercel Web Analytics, which counts page views. For each view it records the page you opened, the site you arrived from if any, your country, and whether the device is a phone or a desktop. It sets no cookie, stores nothing in your browser, assigns you no identifier, and cannot follow you to any other site. We use it to learn which articles are read and how far into them people get. We cannot use it to learn anything about you, because it does not collect anything about you.

The data is processed by Vercel Inc. in the United States under its own privacy policy, and is retained there rather than exported, joined to anything else, or used to build a profile. That counter is cookie-free; the Google tag described next is not.

The Google tag

The site also loads Google’s tag (gtag.js, identifier AW-18526477095). Unlike the page count above, this one does set cookies in your browser and sends data to Google LLC, which may use it to recognise your browser across other sites that carry Google tags, and for advertising measurement and audiences. What is sent includes the page you are on, your IP address, and an identifier stored in your browser. Google’s own privacy policy governs what it then does with it, and we do not control that.

We are telling you this plainly rather than burying it, because the rest of this page promises very little collection and that promise should not quietly stop being true. If you would rather not be tracked by it, a browser that blocks third-party cookies, or any standard content blocker, will stop the tag loading, and the site works exactly the same without it.

Those two scripts are all the JavaScript the site loads. Every page is otherwise a static file.

What the host records

The site is served by Vercel, which keeps ordinary server logs: the address of the request, the page asked for, the time, and the browser's user-agent string. These are generated by the act of serving a page and are retained by Vercel under its own policy. We do not export them, join them to anything, or use them to build a profile of a reader.

Links away from the site

Every article links to the original reporting it draws on. Those are other publishers’ sites and their own privacy practices apply the moment you follow a link. We have no control over them and receive nothing back when you do.

Your rights

India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act gives you rights over personal data held about you. The page counts are not personal data: they carry no identifier, no cookie and no stored address, so no record in them refers to you. The Google tag is a different matter, and the data it collects is held by Google rather than by us, so a request about it is one Google is placed to answer. Write to [email protected] with anything you want to access, correct or erase and we will answer, and tell you plainly where the data sits if it is not with us.

Children

The site is written for adult readers and is not directed at children. No part of it asks anyone for personal information.

Changes

If this ever stops being true, this page changes before the practice does, not after. Questions go to [email protected].