The Hour Brief runs no ads, sells no data, and needs no account to read. This page covers exactly what is collected — on the website and in the iOS and Android apps, which are the same website wrapped in a native shell.
Last updated: 25 September 2026
If you only read editions, the sole data collected is privacy-friendly, aggregate analytics through Vercel Web Analytics: counts of page views and referrers, plus the country, device type and browser of visitors in aggregate, with no cookies, no cross-site tracking, and nothing that identifies you personally. Everything below happens only if you choose to interact.
The email address you enter is sent to and stored by MailerLite, the service that delivers the daily edition. It is used only to send you The Hour Brief. It is never sold, rented, or used for anything else. Every email has an unsubscribe link; you can also ask to be removed using the contact below.
Vote and comment data is stored in Vercel KV (a hosted Redis database).
The quiz needs no account and asks for no name. Your answers, score and streak are stored only on your own device. When you finish a quiz, the site adds your score to an anonymous tally (for example, “12 readers scored 4/5”) so you can see how you compare. The tally contains only counts: no name, no identifier, and no link back to you. To limit repeat submissions, a one-way hash of your IP address is kept for about 24 hours and then deleted, the same as for votes. Tallies are stored in Vercel KV and deleted after about 30 days.
If you share your score or a story, the link contains only the score or story reference and a “shared from The Hour Brief” tag; nothing about you. A score image is drawn on your own device and handed straight to your share sheet; it is not uploaded to us.
“Listen to today’s brief” plays a recording of the day’s edition read in an AI-generated voice. Once a day we send the public text of the edition (nothing about any reader) to Sarvam AI’s text-to-speech service, and the resulting audio file is stored on Cloudflare R2. When you press play, your device downloads that file, just as it downloads any other page or image from this site; Cloudflare, like Vercel, sees the request and your IP address in order to deliver it, and we do not use that to identify you. If the recording is not available, your device’s own text-to-speech engine reads the edition aloud instead: that speech is generated on your device and nothing is sent to us. Your chosen playback speeds are remembered on your device only.
Friends leagues are optional. Nobody types a name: when you start or join a league, the site creates a random device ID on your device and the server gives you a generated name (for example, “Curious Otter 27”). We store, for each league, its generated name, the members’ random IDs with their generated names, and each member’s daily quiz score. Other members of the league can see your generated name and scores; they cannot see your device ID, and it is never linked to an email address or any real-world identity. Anyone with a league’s invite link or code can join it, so share it only with people you want to play with. League data is deleted about 120 days after the league was last active. You can leave a league at any time from the app or site, which removes you from its member list; you can also email us to have your league data deleted. Nothing is stored about leagues if you never start or join one.
The iOS and Android apps load this same website inside a native browser view. They collect no additional data beyond what the website does, described above.
The site sets no advertising or tracking cookies. It uses your browser's localStorage only to remember, on your own device, which items you've already voted on, whether you've dismissed the "new edition" prompt, your daily quiz answers, scores, streak and badges, the stories you save for later, your text-size choice, which sections you show and in what order, your Listen speed, and (only if you use leagues) your league codes and random device ID. All of it stays on your device, except that a league’s code and your random device ID are sent to our league service so the league works, as described in “If you join a friends league” above.
Each has its own privacy policy. No data is shared with anyone for advertising.
The Hour Brief is a general-audience news digest and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.
If this policy changes, the updated version will be posted here with a new date.
Questions about privacy, or a request to remove your email or a comment: milindroy101292@gmail.com.