Privacy Policy

The short version

• Ads from GoogleSTTPN shows ads through Google AdSense. Google may use cookies to show and measure ads; see Advertising for your choices. STTPN itself doesn’t set cookies for readers or build profiles of you.
• For You stays on your devicePersonalization is stored in your browser and never sent to our servers.
• We don’t sell dataSTTPN doesn’t sell information about you. Google’s ad cookies are the only advertising data collection, and you can turn off personalized ads.
• Messages stay privateWhat you send through the contact form is used only to read and reply to it, and you can ask us to delete it.

Who we are

Straight To The Point News (“STTPN”, “we”) is an independent news website at sttpn.com, run by the founders of Straight To The Point News. We are responsible for the personal information described in this policy. To reach us about privacy, use the privacy request form.

Reading the site

• STTPN has no reader accounts, subscriptions, comments or newsletter, and STTPN does not set its own cookies for readers. Ads on the site come from Google AdSense, described below.
• The site is hosted on Cloudflare. Like any web host, Cloudflare processes technical request information (such as IP address, browser type and the page requested) to deliver the site and protect it from abuse, under Cloudflare's privacy policy. Cloudflare's security features may set short-lived, strictly necessary security cookies (such as __cf_bm and cf_clearance) to tell people and bots apart; they aren't used for advertising or to track you. See Cloudflare's cookie list.
• We do not currently run website analytics on public pages. If we add privacy-focused analytics, this page will be updated first.
• STTPN doesn't sell personal information, and we don't build profiles of individual readers.

Advertising

• STTPN shows ads served by Google AdSense. Google and its partners may use cookies, device identifiers and similar technology to show ads, limit how often you see them, measure them and, unless you opt out, personalize them based on your visits to this and other websites. See how Google uses information from sites that use its services.
• You can turn off personalized ads at Google's My Ad Center or opt out of many ad networks at aboutads.info.
• If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, we ask Google to show you only non-personalized ads. Visitors in places where the law requires consent (such as the EU, UK and Switzerland, and some U.S. states) are asked through Google's consent message before personalized ads are used.
• STTPN doesn't choose which ads appear, and ads never affect our reporting or our publication ratings.

For You preferences

For You works without an account. The first time you open the For You page, we ask once whether you'd like it personalized. If you choose “Show my For You”, it is saved only in your browser's local storage on this device:

• your answer and when you gave it (if you choose “No thanks”, only that decision is stored, so we don't ask again);
• up to six topics you picked, and a small score per category that goes up when you open a story, a category page or a category on the For You page (at most once per story or category per day). Scores fade by half about every 30 days and are deleted after 90 days. A short daily key stops the same story being counted twice. We never keep a list of the pages you read;
• if you share it, your place: a country, state or province, and (optionally) a nearby city.

Location. Sharing your location is optional and only happens when you press “Use my location” and allow it in your browser's permission prompt. Your browser then gives the For You page your position once. The page matches it to a place name using a map file it downloads (country and state/province outlines from Natural Earth) on your device. Only the place name is kept; your coordinates are not stored and never leave your browser. You can also choose a place by hand instead. Your browser remembers whether you allowed location for sttpn.com, and you can change that in its site settings.

These preferences are never sent to STTPN's servers, to analytics or to anyone else, and stories are ordered inside your browser. To show For You, your browser downloads the same general list of published stories that everyone gets. Stories are ordered by how recent they are, your topics and place, and whether our editor marked them as major, and about one in five spots goes to stories outside your usual topics. Political ratings and coverage meters are never used, and we never infer political views.

Use Personalization settings on the For You page at any time to turn personalization off, change your topics or place, turn location off, or Clear everything. Clearing your browser's site data also deletes it. Personalization never changes search results or category pages.

Light and dark mode

The site follows your device's light or dark setting. If you pick Light or Dark under Appearance in the menu, that one choice is saved in your browser's local storage on this device so the next page looks the same. It is never sent to STTPN. Choose “Device” to remove it.

2026 midterms map

The polls on the midterms map are public poll results that STTPN's server reads from Wikipedia on a schedule. Your browser doesn't contact Wikipedia unless you follow a link there, and nothing about you is sent to Wikipedia. When you open a state, your browser asks STTPN's own server for our stories about that state.

Trending topics

The “Trending” strip lists topics STTPN has reported on, chosen by our editor. When enabled, it is informed by Google Trends' public “Trending now” export for the United States and Canada, which reflects search interest on Google — not STTPN readers. We don't send any reader information to Google to produce it, and the “+” on a topic simply opens its page; there is no follow feature.

Videos

The Videos page and the homepage's Featured video show titles and thumbnail images from STTPN's YouTube channel. Thumbnail images load from YouTube's image servers (i.ytimg.com), which receive standard request information such as your IP address. We don't embed YouTube players; selecting a video opens it on YouTube, under Google's privacy policy.

Donations

The Donate button links to STTPN's page on Patreon. STTPN doesn't process payments or store payment details; Patreon's own policies apply there.

Search

Searches are processed only to show results. STTPN does not store search histories, and the site's own request logs are configured not to record search terms.

Contacting us

If you use the contact form, we store your message, your email address and anything else you choose to fill in (such as your name, organization or links) so we can read and reply to it, for example to handle a correction request, a rating challenge or a business inquiry. Your email address is required so we can respond; your name is optional except for business inquiries and legal concerns. We don't publish your contact details, add you to a mailing list or share them with anyone else. If we use a tip or correction in our reporting, we won't name you without your permission.

To stop spam and floods of messages, we limit how many messages can be sent from one connection per hour. For this we store a one-way, scrambled code made from your network (IP) address together with a secret key; your IP address itself is not stored, the code can't be turned back into it, and the code is erased after a day. The contact form may also show Cloudflare Turnstile, a check that tells people and bots apart without puzzles for most visitors; Cloudflare processes the technical information it needs for that check (such as your IP address and browser details) under its Turnstile privacy policy, and doesn't use it to identify or target you.

Replies we send you are about your message. We don't send marketing email.

Service providers and sharing

We use a small number of service providers to run the site. They handle information only to provide their service to us:

• Cloudflare hosts the site, its database and images, protects it from attacks and, for the contact form, provides Turnstile.
• Google (YouTube) serves video thumbnail images directly to your browser.
• Google (AdSense) serves the ads on the site, as described under Advertising.
• Patreon handles donations if you choose to give; STTPN only links there.

We don't sell personal information or use it for profiling. Google's ad cookies, described under Advertising, may be considered "sharing" for targeted advertising under some state laws; you can opt out as described there. We may disclose information if the law requires it (for example, a valid court order), to protect the site or other people from harm or fraud, or to an organization that takes over STTPN, which would have to keep following this policy for information we already hold.

How long we keep information

• Contact messages: kept while we need them to respond. Closed messages are deleted after about 12 months, except correction requests and copyright or legal notices, which we keep as a record of how we handled them. You can ask us to delete yours sooner.
• The anti-spam sender code: erased after one day.
• Database backups: we keep copies of the site's database so we can recover from mistakes or failures. A deleted message can remain in an older backup until that backup is deleted, and we won't restore it except to recover the site.
• Information in your browser (For You, Appearance): stays on your device until you clear it; For You scores expire after 90 days.
• Cloudflare's technical logs are kept under Cloudflare's own retention policies.

Security

Contact messages are visible only to STTPN's editors, who sign in through Cloudflare Access with their own accounts; every editor request is checked on the server. The site is served only over HTTPS and uses security headers that block common attacks. No website is perfectly secure, so please don't send passwords, financial details, health information or other sensitive information through the contact form. If we ever learn of a breach affecting your personal information, we'll notify you as the law requires. Found a security problem? Please tell us privately.

Your choices and rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to ask whether we hold personal information about you, get a copy of it, correct it, or have it deleted, and not to be treated differently for asking. We offer these to everyone, wherever you live. The only personal information STTPN itself holds about readers is what you sent through the contact form; everything else (For You, Appearance) is on your own device, where you can see and clear it yourself.

1. Send a request. Use the privacy request form and choose what you'd like us to do.
2. Confirm it’s you. Send it from the email address you used before. We only act on requests from that address, and we may email you to confirm before deleting anything, so nobody else can see or delete your messages.
3. We respond within 30 days, with a copy of your messages, a correction or confirmation that they're deleted. If we keep something (for example a copyright notice involved in a dispute), we'll tell you what and why.

To opt out of personalized advertising, use the choices under Advertising. We treat a Global Privacy Control signal as an opt-out and show you only non-personalized ads. If you're not satisfied with our answer, reply to tell us and we'll look at it again; you may also contact your state attorney general or your local data protection authority.

Children

STTPN is a general news site for adults and teenagers and isn't directed to children under 13. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you're under 13, please ask a parent or guardian to contact us for you. If we learn that a child under 13 sent us a message, we'll delete it (after one reply, if needed, to tell them we can't keep it). A parent or guardian who believes their child contacted us can use the privacy request form.

Visitors outside the U.S.

STTPN is run from the United States and written mainly for readers in the United States and Canada. If you contact us from elsewhere, your message is processed in the United States and on Cloudflare's global network. Where privacy laws such as the EU or UK GDPR or Canada's PIPEDA apply, we rely on your request (to read and reply to your message) and on our legitimate interest in running and protecting a news website (security logs, the anti-spam code) as our reasons for processing.

Links to other websites

Stories link to sources and other publishers' coverage. Those websites have their own privacy practices.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle information, we'll update this page before the change takes effect and change the “Last updated” date above. If we ever start using information in a materially different way, such as adding analytics with cookies or advertising, we'll explain it here first and ask for consent where the law requires it.