Privacy Policy
Last updated: 13 September 2026
Clay Tribune is a small independent publication. This page says who is responsible for it, what information is involved when you read it, why, on what legal basis, who else sees it, how long it is kept and what you can ask of us. It is written to meet the EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection, and the privacy laws of the US states that have them, because we are read in all of those places. Where a term below means something specific in law, we say so.
Who is responsible
The controller of your personal data is Clay Tribune, an independent publication based in Houston, Texas, United States. The quickest way to reach us about anything on this page is hello@claytribune.com. We are small enough not to be required to appoint a data protection officer; the same address reaches the person who handles these requests.
What we collect, and why
Reading the site
You can read everything here without an account. When you do, your browser sends what it sends to every website: your IP address, browser and device type, the page you asked for, the page you came from and the time. Our hosting provider and our content delivery network, Cloudflare, record this in server logs to serve pages, keep the site up, block automated abuse and diagnose faults.
Legal basis: our legitimate interest in running a secure, working website (GDPR Article 6(1)(f)). This processing is necessary for the site to exist and cannot be switched off; it is limited to what a web server needs and the logs are kept for the short period the providers describe in their own policies.
Comments
If you leave a comment, WordPress stores the name, email address and website you enter, the comment itself, and your IP address at the time, which is used only to filter spam. Your email address is never published. Comments are checked for spam by Akismet, which receives the comment and the details above for that purpose. The comment form does not offer to remember you between visits and sets no cookie of its own.
Legal basis: our legitimate interest in running a discussion and keeping spam out of it (Article 6(1)(f)). Comments stay published until you ask for them to be removed.
The newsletter
If you sign up, we store the email address you give us, the time you signed up, the page you signed up from and a confirmation token. Nothing is sent until you click the link in the confirmation email (double opt-in); if you never click it, the address is deleted. Every email we send carries an unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing takes effect immediately. We do not track whether you open or click anything.
Legal basis: your consent (Article 6(1)(a)), which you can withdraw at any time by unsubscribing. We keep the address until you unsubscribe, then only a record that you did, so we never email you again by mistake.
Tips and messages
If you send us a tip or a message through the form, what you write and any contact details you include are emailed to us so we can read and act on it. Nothing from the form is stored on the website itself. To stop the form being abused, the site briefly remembers a hashed form of your IP address so the same address cannot send hundreds of messages a minute; that record expires within minutes.
Legal basis: our legitimate interest in receiving and answering correspondence (Article 6(1)(f)). We keep messages as long as they are useful to the work and delete them when they are not.
The word checker
The “Check your own words” tool runs on text you paste in. The text is processed to give you the result and is not stored.
The shop
If we open a shop on this site, buying something will require your name, delivery address, email address and payment details. Payment details go directly to the payment provider and never touch our server. We will add the specifics here before the shop opens.
Cookies and similar technologies
We set no tracking cookies of our own. The cookies that can be set on this site are:
- Cloudflare — a security cookie (
__cf_bmand similar) that distinguishes people from automated traffic. Strictly necessary; it expires within a day. - Google Analytics — measurement cookies, only with your consent where consent is required. See Analytics below.
- Google AdSense — advertising cookies and identifiers, only with your consent where consent is required. See Advertising below.
Where the law requires consent for non-essential cookies — the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland — you are asked before any are set, through the consent banner that appears on your first visit. You can change or withdraw your choice at any time from the “Privacy settings” link in the footer, and the site works in full whichever way you choose. Elsewhere, you can block or delete cookies in your browser without losing access to anything here.
Analytics
We use Google Analytics, through Google’s Site Kit, to see which pages are read and roughly where readers are, in aggregate. IP addresses are not stored by Google Analytics 4. In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, analytics runs only after you consent, and Google’s Consent Mode ensures no measurement cookie is set before then. You can also opt out everywhere with Google’s browser add-on.
Legal basis: your consent where consent is required (Article 6(1)(a)); elsewhere, our legitimate interest in understanding what is read (Article 6(1)(f)).
Advertising
This site is paid for by advertising, served by Google AdSense. Google and its certified partners use cookies and similar identifiers to serve and measure ads and, where you allow it, to personalise them based on your visits to this and other sites. Google acts as an independent controller for that processing; its own description of it is at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, no advertising cookie is set until you make a choice in the consent banner, which uses the IAB Transparency and Consent Framework so your choice reaches every ad partner. If you decline, you still see ads, but non-personalised ones. Anywhere, you can turn off personalised advertising at Google Ads Settings or opt out of third-party vendors at aboutads.info.
Legal basis: your consent where consent is required (Article 6(1)(a)); elsewhere, our legitimate interest in funding the publication (Article 6(1)(f)).
Content from other services
Some pages load content from other companies, which necessarily see your IP address when they deliver it:
- YouTube — video embeds. We use the privacy-enhanced
youtube-nocookie.complayer, which sets no tracking cookie unless you press play. - Cloudflare — delivery and security for every page.
Fonts are served from our own server, not from Google, so reading a page sends nothing to Google on its own.
Who else sees your data
We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it with anyone except:
- the service providers named on this page, who process it on our behalf or, in Google’s case for advertising and analytics, as independent controllers under their own policies: our hosting provider, Cloudflare, Google (Analytics, AdSense, Site Kit), Automattic (Akismet), and the email service that delivers the newsletter;
- a court, regulator or law-enforcement body where the law requires it.
International transfers
We are in the United States, so if you read from the EEA, the UK or Switzerland your data is processed here. Google, Cloudflare and Automattic are certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and its UK and Swiss extensions, which the European Commission has recognised as providing adequate protection, and our contracts with providers include the standard contractual clauses where they apply.
How long we keep things
- Server logs: for the short period our hosting provider and Cloudflare keep them, typically days to a few weeks.
- Comments: until you ask for them to be removed.
- Newsletter address: until you unsubscribe; unconfirmed sign-ups are deleted.
- Messages sent to us: as long as they are useful, then deleted.
- Consent choices: your cookie choice is stored in your browser for twelve months so you are not asked on every visit.
Your rights
Under the GDPR and the UK GDPR you can ask us to tell you what personal data we hold about you and give you a copy; to correct it; to delete it; to restrict or object to how we use it; to hand it over in a portable form; and, where processing rests on consent, to withdraw that consent, which does not affect what was done before. Write to hello@claytribune.com. We answer within a month, free of charge, and we may ask you to confirm you are who you say you are before releasing anything. You also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority: in the EU, the authority of the country where you live (list); in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office; in Switzerland, the FDPIC.
If you live in a US state with a privacy law — California, Texas, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut and others — you have comparable rights to know, correct and delete, and to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information and of targeted advertising. We do not sell personal information. To opt out of targeted advertising, use the consent banner or the Google links above; we also honour the Global Privacy Control signal from your browser as an opt-out. Use the same address for any request.
Automated decisions
We make no decisions about you by automated means, and we build no profile of you. Our advertising partner’s personalisation is described under Advertising and is under your control.
Children
This site is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 16 in the EEA and UK, or under 13 elsewhere. If you believe a child has given us information, write to us and we will delete it.
Security
The site is served over HTTPS throughout, sits behind Cloudflare, and access to its administration is limited to the people who run it, with strong authentication. No system is perfectly secure; if we ever learn of a breach affecting your data, we will tell you and the relevant authority as the law requires.
Other languages
This policy is published in English, Spanish and German. The translations are provided for convenience; if they differ, the English version is the one that applies.
Changes
If this policy changes materially, the date at the top changes with it, and for a significant change we say what changed. Continuing to use the site after a change means the new version applies.