Plague News has no accounts and no sign-in, shows no advertising and sells nothing, your data included. This page says what the site, its API and its server for AI assistants learn about you, and what happens to it. Last changed 12 October 2026.
The assistant server and the API. A request carries the address it comes from and what was asked for. The server counts requests by address for one minute, to hold the limit of 60 a minute, and then forgets the count. It keeps a technical log of each request: the time, the path asked for, and whether and how fast it was answered. That log holds no address, no search words and nothing else that says who asked. It never receives your conversation with an assistant: only the request the assistant makes, such as the name of a tool, a search phrase or an id.
The website. Google Analytics counts visits and which features are used, with its advertising features off. In Europe it asks first; if you decline, it sets no analytics cookies and Google receives only anonymous signals without cookies. Elsewhere it counts without asking and sets its own cookies. You can change your choice under “Analytics choice” at the foot of the monitor. The site itself sets no cookies.
Your own copy. Your theme, watchlist, notes, history and the copy of the data that powers search and “since your last visit” are kept in your browser and are never sent to us. “Data and citation” on the monitor shows what is stored and clears it.
The Report button. When you report an item, the server keeps the item, the reason, the time, and two scrambled values that cannot be turned back into what they came from: one made from a random id your browser holds, one from your address and browser. They exist so that one reader counts once.
Mail. If you write to us, we have your message and your address.
The request count is held in memory to keep the service fair. The technical log is read to find faults and slow answers. Reports are stored in our database to count them and to prompt a check of the item. Mail is read and answered. Nothing is used to build a profile of a reader, and nothing is used for advertising.
We sell and rent nothing. Three kinds of outside service are involved. Google receives the analytics described above. A search by meaning, on the site, in the API or through an assistant, sends the words of the search to a machine model run by a service provider, so that they can be matched; they are sent without your address or any identifier. The SQL console, once you press Start, loads its engine from two outside hosts (cdn.jsdelivr.net and extensions.duckdb.org), which see your address as any website would. If you reach Plague News through an assistant, what you say to it is handled by its maker under its own privacy policy.
Request counts: one minute. The technical log: until the software is next updated, when it is discarded. Reports: for as long as the site runs, in the scrambled form described above. Analytics: 14 months, at Google. Mail: for as long as the correspondence is of use. What your browser holds stays until you clear it.
Everything on the site can be read without analytics, and the API, the data files and the assistant server need nothing from you. To ask what we hold about you, or to have a report or a message removed, write to us.
Amos Weiskopf, editor: editor@plaguenews.com. See also About and how to add Plague News to an assistant.