Privacy Policy

• Lede does not ask for your name, email address or phone number.
• Your topics, saved stories and alerts are tied to a random id in a cookie, not to you as a person.
• There are no analytics tools, advertising trackers or third-party scripts in Lede.
• You can download everything Lede holds about your browser, and delete all of it, in Settings.

The first time you open Lede, it gives your browser or app install a random id. Lede keeps the following against that id:

• the topics you follow, and the alert sensitivity you chose;
• which stories you read, saved, hid or chose to follow, and the subjects Lede has learned you keep coming back to;
• alerts sent to you, and the daily briefs and weekly reports built for you;
• the questions you typed into Ask and the answers, so a repeated question can reuse its answer;
• a notification token, only if you turn notifications on;
• your plan (free or Pro) and its expiry date, only if you subscribed.

Nothing in this list names you. If you type a name or personal detail into a custom topic or an Ask question, it is stored as you wrote it, so please do not.

• lede_reader: the random id described above. It is HttpOnly (page scripts cannot read it) and lasts 400 days. On the secure site it is named __Host-lede_reader.
• lede_lang: your interface language, kept for a year.
• lede_theme: light or dark, only if you chose one, kept for a year.
• lede_entered: a session cookie that remembers you have passed through the start page. It ends when you close the browser.
• On-device storage: your recent searches, your morning brief reminder settings, a count of your visits (for the install suggestion) and, for offline reading, copies of the stories and pages you opened. They never leave your device.

None of these are used for advertising or for following you to other sites.

Like any website, the servers that host Lede receive your IP address, browser type and the address requested. Our hosting and database providers process this on our behalf to deliver the service and keep it secure; their own log retention applies.

Lede's own logs record events and error types, not your reading history or your questions. Records of model calls hold counts, timings and estimated cost, never the text sent. Lede deletes them after 30 days.

• Articles and stories are kept for 30 days, except stories you saved, which stay until you unsave them or delete your data.
• Ask history and alerts are removed after 90 days.
• Your topics, reading state, briefs and weekly reports stay until you delete them or delete your data.

Lede's servers, not your device, read public feeds and search interfaces (such as publisher feeds, Hacker News search and GDELT). Those sources never see who you are. When you open an original article you visit the publisher's own website, which has its own privacy policy and may set its own cookies.

If the operator has configured an AI model provider, Lede sends it article headlines and excerpts to write analyses, briefs, weekly reports and translations, and your Ask question together with the stories it uses to answer. It does not send your reader id, cookies or IP address. The provider's own terms govern what it does with the text.

Without a provider, Lede uses a built-in engine that runs on its own servers and sends nothing to a third party. Every analysis says which one wrote it.

Lede Pro is sold through Apple's App Store or Google Play in the apps, and through Stripe on the web, with RevenueCat helping to connect app purchases to your plan. They handle your payment details and receipts under their own privacy policies. Lede receives only your entitlement: which plan, whether it is active, when it ends and the provider's customer id. Lede never sees a card number.

When a sponsor card appears, it is labelled as sponsored. Lede counts how many times each sponsor card was shown and tapped per day as an overall number. It never records who saw or tapped it, and it never builds a profile of you for advertisers. A sponsor's own website is outside Lede and has its own policy.

If you turn on notifications, Apple or Google gives your device a token and Lede stores it against your reader id, with your language, only to send you alerts. Turning them off, or deleting your data, removes it. The morning brief reminder is scheduled on your device and involves no server.

Lede contains no analytics software, no advertising network, no social buttons and no fingerprinting. Its fonts are served from Lede itself, and its security policy stops the app from loading scripts or content from other sites.

Open Settings, then Reading data to download a copy of what Lede holds for your browser (a JSON file), or to delete it all. Deleting removes your reader record and everything tied to it, clears the cookie, and cannot be undone. It does not cancel a subscription: cancel in the App Store, Google Play or your Stripe receipt first. Copies kept on your device for offline reading are not removed by it; clear the site's data in your browser or phone settings to remove them.

Because there are no accounts, Lede can only find your data through the cookie in your browser. It cannot look you up by name or email. If you cleared your browser data, the old record can no longer be linked to you, and it is removed as described under retention or on request. You may have rights over your data under the laws where you live, such as access, deletion and objection; the tools above are the fastest way to use them, and you can also write to us.

Lede is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child has used Lede, contact us and we will help remove the data.

Lede uses encrypted connections, an HttpOnly reader cookie, a strict content security policy and rate limits. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot promise otherwise.

Our hosting, database and model providers may process data in countries other than yours. Where the law requires safeguards for such transfers, we rely on the arrangements those providers offer.

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will update the date at the top and, where practical, tell you in the app.

Questions about privacy: github.com/nhaajtt/lede/issues.