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VOTVS
Privacy

VOTVS is an independent, reader-funded newsroom. This page explains exactly what happens to data when you read it - written to be read, not to be survived.

Last updated: 18 August 2026

The short version

There are no accounts on this site, no comment system and no analytics tracker. We do not sell data and we do not build profiles of readers.

One thing stores information: your own display preferences. There is no advertising on this site and no ad network is loaded, so nothing here follows you to another site.

What this site stores on your device

  • votvs-locale - a cookie recording which language you chose, so you are not sent back to English on every visit.
  • votvs-theme - stored in your browser's local storage, recording whether you prefer light or dark mode.

Neither identifies you. Both are readable only by this site, and clearing your browser data removes them.

Advertising

There is none. This site carries no advertising, loads no advertising script and belongs to no ad network. Nothing on these pages is tracking you across the web in order to sell you something later.

That is a funding decision as much as a privacy one: the site is paid for by readers, so it does not need to be paid for by your attention.

Newsletter

If you subscribe, your email address is sent to Buttondown, the service that stores our mailing list and sends the newsletter. We ask for nothing else. Every email carries an unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing deletes you from that list.

We do not share, rent or sell the list.

Video

Videos are embedded from YouTube using its no-cookie domain, and they only load after you click play. Until you do, YouTube receives nothing. Once you press play, YouTube's own privacy policy applies to that playback.

Server logs

The site is hosted on Vercel, which keeps short-lived request logs - IP address, browser, page requested - as every web host does. They exist to keep the site running and to stop abuse. We do not use them to identify readers.

Your rights

If you are in the EEA, the UK, Turkey or another region with data-protection law, you have the right to ask what we hold about you, to ask for it to be corrected, and to ask for it to be deleted. In practice the only thing we are likely to hold is an email address on the newsletter list.

Write to hello@votvs.com and we will answer.

Children

This site is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect information from them.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top of this page changes with it. We will not quietly widen what we collect.