Privacy Policy

The short version

Unlike our sister site toolcrate.cc, newscrate does have a server — it fetches news and event data on a schedule and stores that in a database so the site can show it to you. newscrate itself doesn't track who's looking at it: browsing doesn't require an account, and we don't attach what you read to an identity. The ads on some pages are the exception, as they come from Google (see below).

What we store, and why

Flight emergencies: when you check a place, your browser asks adsb.lol for aircraft squawking an emergency near it. That request goes from your browser, so adsb.lol sees your IP address and the coordinates checked, as with any website. Nothing else is sent.

Chatter: posts shown in the Chatter card are fetched by our server from Reddit, Bluesky, Mastodon and Lemmy's public feeds. Your browser doesn't contact them unless you click a post.

Articles and events: titles, short excerpts, links, and hazard alerts — all pulled from public sources, none of it about you. See the Methodology page for exactly where it comes from.

The contact form: if you use it, whatever you type (message, and optionally a name/email if you want a reply) is sent as an email to our inbox via a Cloudflare service, the same way a normal email would be. It is not saved into our database — it exists only as that one email.

What we don't currently have: user accounts, logins, passwords, or any server-side record of your reading history or preferences. If personalisation features are added later that require this, this policy will be updated first, and it will describe exactly what changes.

Local storage on your device

Your browser's local storage (not a cookie) holds your dark/light theme choice, your Lite mode setting, a short list of recently viewed items for the search feature, and, so the site still works without a connection, your last five place checks. All of it stays on your device and is never sent to us. Clearing your browser's site data removes it.

Third-party sources

The articles and events we display originate from other organisations (news publishers, data providers) who have their own, separate privacy and data practices for their own sites. Following a link from newscrate takes you to their site, governed by their policy, not this one.

Advertising and cookies

Some pages show ads from Google AdSense, which helps cover the cost of running the site. The ad script loads only after the page has finished loading, and it isn't used on the status, contact or donate pages. Google and its partners may use cookies or similar technologies to show ads and measure them, based on your visits to this and other sites. Visitors in the EU, EEA, UK and Switzerland are asked for consent first.

You can turn off personalised ads in Google's Ad Settings or at aboutads.info/choices. How Google uses data from sites that show its ads is explained at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

Analytics

We may use basic, privacy-respecting analytics to understand overall traffic (e.g. how many people visit a page), without identifying individual visitors personally.

Data retention

We don't currently run automatic deletion of older ingested articles or events. Since none of it is personal data, the risk this poses is low, but we're noting the gap honestly rather than implying a retention policy that doesn't exist yet.

Children's privacy

newscrate is not directed at children, and we don't knowingly collect any personal information from anyone, of any age — see above for why there's essentially nothing to collect from a visitor in the first place.

Contact

Questions about this policy can be sent to admin.toolcrate@gmail.com or via the contact form.