Privacy

What we store

For account holders: your email address, a display name, when you signed up and last signed in, and any outlet ratings and comments you submit. Sign-in links and codes are stored only as one-way hashes; there are no passwords anywhere in the system.

Why we store it

The email address exists to sign you in and for nothing else: it is never shown publicly, never sold, and never used for marketing. The display name and your comments are stored because you chose to publish them.

What is public

Your display name, your comments, and the score each comment accompanies. Your email address and your individual scores without a comment are not public; scores feed only the aggregate figure on each outlet page.

Where you place an outlet

When you rate an outlet, you can, if you wish, also say where you place it on political axes. Your answers are stored with your rating. Only the combined results for each outlet are shown publicly, never one reader's answers.

Your answers to “Where do you stand?”

Your answers to the questions of “Where do you stand?” stay in your browser. We keep them there so that you can carry on where you left off and so that the media map can show your place (“You”); your choice of whether it shows stays there too. They are sent neither to us nor to anyone else. You clear them with “Delete your answers” in the quiz, “Delete it” on the map, or by clearing this website's data in your browser.

The «Dispute» form

When you dispute a position on the media map, the form e-mails the desk only what you write: why, the link you give and, if you give it, your address so that we can answer. The site does not store it, and sends nothing else about you, neither your IP address nor your browser. The e-mail goes through the service that also sends the sign-in links.

Your questions in Ask Protagoras

If you use Ask Protagoras, we keep your questions and the answers until you delete them. We also keep, for as long as the account exists, how many questions you asked each day and what the answers cost, so we know how much Ask Protagoras is used and what it costs.

Your questions are sent through OpenRouter to whichever provider runs the model that writes the answer: today GPT-6.1 Sol by OpenAI and, if it does not answer, Gemini 4 Argon by Google. When a web search is needed, the model sends a search phrase to the Exa search engine, through GPT-6 Luna by OpenAI. For the models we ask that they go only to providers that do not keep the questions or train on them.

When Ask Protagoras reads an article, the outlet sees the Protagoras server, not you.

Nobody reads your conversations. Only if you press «Wrong answer?» and agree do the editors see that answer and your question.

You delete one conversation or all of them on your conversations page, in your account. Answers you sent with «Wrong answer?» are not deleted with them. Deleting your account removes everything else, and those answers are no longer linked to you.

How long we keep it

For as long as the account exists. Sign-in links and codes expire 30 minutes after they are sent and are deleted a day later, or with the account.

Deleting your account

The account page has a delete button that works immediately, without emailing anyone. It erases your comments, your email address and the account itself. Scores you submitted remain in the anonymous totals so published averages do not silently change, but nothing links them to you.

Signing in with Google

If you use Google sign-in, we receive and store your Google account identifier, verified email address and name. We request nothing else and never post or read anything on your behalf.

Cookies

Protagoras sets no tracking, analytics or advertising cookies of its own. There is no Google Analytics or any other statistics tool, and none of our cookies follows you to other sites. The one exception is the pages behind our posts: they load the post from Instagram, which may use its own cookies there under Meta's policy. What is stored is what the site needs to work: the language you are reading in, a short-lived security token that protects forms from abuse, for 30 minutes after you ask to sign in the address we sent your code to, and -- only once you sign in -- your session cookie. Leave "Keep me logged in" ticked and that session lasts 30 days on this device; clear it and the session ends when you close your browser. Signing out deletes it immediately. Because none of our own cookies serves tracking, we show no consent pop-up for them.

Images from the outlets and Instagram

Story photographs are not copied onto our servers: they load directly from each outlet's own server, so that we are not republishing their material. That means your browser contacts those outlets' servers, and they see your IP address, as they would for any request on the internet. We explicitly ask your browser not to tell them which Protagoras page you are on. When you click a link through to an outlet, however, you are on their site under their own terms and policy. On the pages behind our posts, the post loads straight from Instagram as soon as the page opens. Instagram (Meta) then sees your IP address and, if you are signed in to Instagram in this browser, that it is you. We do not tell Instagram which Protagoras page you are on either.

Page speed

To know how fast our pages open, your browser sends us five load timings once for each page, together with the kind of page, the width of the screen and the type of connection. We keep nothing about you or your visit: each timing only adds one to a count for the day, divided only by kind of page, size of device, connection and whether the page opened inside the Facebook or Instagram app. No cookies are used for this, and if your browser asks not to be tracked, it sends nothing.

Journalists' names

We keep the name of each article's author as the outlet itself publishes it in its feed. We use it only to tell an outlet's editorial apart from its columnists and its guest writers. We collect nothing else about journalists. If you are a journalist and want to know what we hold about you, write to info@protagoras.news.

Contact

For any privacy question or request, write to info@protagoras.news.