Privacy notice

What we collect and why

We use your email to verify sign-in, maintain your account and handle service requests. We record your confirmation that you are at least 18, with its version and date; the signup form does not collect a birth date or identity document. This is an age declaration, not independent identity or age verification. Public usernames can be anonymous. We store your display name, profile photo, ranking preference, follows, likes, comments, moderation reports and the content you create to provide those features. Comments are visible to other verified readers; treat them as shared community content rather than confidential messages.

Authentication cookies keep you signed in. A signed referral cookie can retain a distributor link during signup; the verification attempt carries that credit into account creation. We keep the verified signup attribution to apply the agreed distributor credit to later eligible support, rather than replacing it after a new link is visited. We also keep time-limited sign-in and session records and hashed rate-limit identifiers to protect access and reduce abuse. Our hosting and service providers may process connection information, including IP addresses and operational logs.

We use Google Analytics to count visits and understand which pages and features people use, so we can improve Pressfolk. It sets first-party analytics cookies and receives page addresses without query strings, the referring site, your device and browser type, and an approximate location derived from your IP address. Private account, editor, profile and referral pages use a generic section address and title. For a newly verified account we send a sign-up event that says whether the account came through a distributor link. For people who join through our publisher comparison page, we also measure their first and second published articles, without sending article text or titles. These events do not include your email, username or account identifier. Google signals and ad personalization are turned off. Google Analytics is not loaded for visitors in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, on print copies, or in browsers that send a Global Privacy Control signal. You can also block it with your browser settings or Google's opt-out browser add-on.

For visitors in the United States who choose “Allow ad measurement,” we also use Google Ads to learn whether our ads lead to new verified accounts. This allows Google's tag to store and read ad-click information in first-party cookies and browser storage, and to send Google a verified-signup signal with a random conversion reference used to avoid duplicate counts. Google may receive ad-click identifiers, a page address limited to its section and supported ad-click parameters, and browser, device and connection information, including your IP address. We do not send your email, username, account identifier, article content or payment details with this signal, and we do not enable enhanced conversions, remarketing or ad personalization.

Ad measurement stays off until you allow it and is unavailable outside the United States, on print copies, or when Global Privacy Control is detected. You can decline it without losing access to Pressfolk, or change your choice using “Ad measurement” near the footer. Declining or withdrawing permission stops future conversion events and clears Pressfolk's accessible Google ad-click cookies and storage. It does not recall information already sent to Google. Your choice is remembered in this browser for 90 days. This choice is separate from the website analytics described above.

We store a fixed publisher-comparison-page source for new accounts that join through that page, together with account and article publication dates, to assess how many new writers go on to publish. That source is separate from distributor credit and cannot change who earns a commission. We keep a random signup conversion reference on the account so retries do not count the same signup more than once.

We also count article views and distributor-link visits ourselves, as daily totals. These counts set no cookies, store nothing on your device and do not record who visited, or your IP address, account, device or the site you came from. A publication's owner sees the view totals for its articles, along with its follower and paid-supporter counts. Each distributor sees the visit totals for their own links and how many accounts and paid supports those links brought in, never which readers they were.

For paid support, we store subscription identifiers, status, amounts, invoice and refund records, and accounting records. When you start paid support, we share your sign-in email with Stripe, so checkout is filled in for you and Stripe can send your receipts and renewal, expiring-card and failed-payment notices. Stripe processes payment details. For payout setup, Stripe receives the private contact email shown to you before you continue and handles the identity and bank information needed for verification; a public anonymous username does not make financial verification anonymous. Pressfolk stores recipient identifiers and setup status needed to manage earnings. Do not submit full payment credentials through our support form.

The support form stores your reply email, selected topic, message, request reference and status. If you are signed in, the request can also record your account identifier. Your reply email and message are available only to Pressfolk's support operator. Sending a request does not subscribe you to marketing email, create a paid subscription or publicly display the message.

What other people can see

Public profiles show your username, any display name and profile photo you add, and any writing you publish on your profile. Profile photos are re-encoded in your browser before upload, which removes camera and location details. Publications and profile writing you publish are public. If you opt into Karma, your display name or username may appear with the count of qualifying publications you currently support. Follows and likes are not paid support. Your sign-in email, support requests, private payment details and payout documents are not public profile fields. If you post private information in a comment or publication yourself, others with access can see that post.

Service providers

Pressfolk uses Cloudflare for hosting, MongoDB Atlas for application storage, Resend for requested sign-in emails, Stripe for subscriptions, payment emails and recipient verification, Google Analytics for website analytics, and Google Ads for optional ad measurement. These providers process information to deliver their services. Google may also process measurement information under its own privacy policies. Stripe may process information for its own payment, verification and regulatory purposes. Public publications and RSS feeds can be accessed and copied by readers and feed services. We do not sell your personal information. Our Google measurement configuration has ad personalization and remarketing turned off.

Retention

Sign-in links expire after 15 minutes and can be used once. Sessions last up to 30 days. Expired sign-in, session and rate-limit records are deleted automatically. Daily view and link-visit totals are kept while the related publication or distributor account remains open. Google Analytics keeps event data for 14 months. Your ad-measurement preference lasts 90 days; Google's ad-click cookies and storage follow Google's retention settings. Clearing cookies or browser storage also clears the records held there, and a browser-session record helps avoid resending the same signup. Google may retain measurement information already received under its own retention policies. We keep account, profile and content records while your account is open. Support requests are kept for up to two years after they are closed. Payment, invoice, refund, earnings and payout records are kept for seven years after the related transaction to meet tax and accounting obligations, including after an account is closed. Records needed for an open dispute, security investigation or legal obligation are kept until it is resolved.

Your requests

Use the support form to ask for a copy of your information or to correct or delete it. We will verify that you own the account before acting. When we delete an account, we remove or de-identify its email, profile and content, except the records we must keep as described above, and we will tell you which records are kept and why. We aim to complete verified requests within 45 days. If we decline a request, you can ask us to reconsider by replying through the support form. The operator is Steve Longoria, a sole proprietor in Oregon; use Contact Pressfolk.