Privacy Policy

In brief

This site is a set of pages you read. It has no accounts to sign up for and no comments to leave. Since 23 September 2026 it counts its readers, using Google Analytics, so that we know which pages are worth the work. Its pages may also show advertisements from Google AdSense, which help pay for the site so that nobody is charged to read it. Those two Google services are the only third parties on the site, and the only reason it sets cookies. Apart from them, the only personal information the site ever holds is what you choose to send us, and the ordinary record a web server keeps of the requests it answers. The daily quiz remembers your answers in your own browser, and nowhere else. This page explains each of these, what we do with them, and how to say no.

What we collect, and what we do not

We do not ask you for anything in order to show you a page, and we never try to work out who you are. There is no fingerprinting on this site, and we do not sell or share anything about our readers.

Advertising is the one part of the site that can use information from beyond it: Google may choose an ad based on other sites you have visited, unless you decline or switch that off. It is described under Advertising, with every way out.

Four things are described below: the technical record every web server keeps, the counting described under Counting readers, the advertising, and anything you write to us yourself.

The daily quiz keeps a note of your answers on your own device. That note never reaches us; it is described in its own section below.

Server logs

Like every website, this one runs on a server, and the server keeps a log of the requests it answers. A line in that log records the address your connection came from, the time, the page you asked for, and the browser and device you used. The hosting company keeps these logs for a short period for security and to keep the site running, and then discards them. We look at them only in aggregate, to see which pages are read and to notice when something breaks. We do not use them to identify readers.

Counting readers

This site uses Google Analytics 4 to count how many people read which pages. We use it for one thing: to see what is read and what is not, so that the work goes where the readers are. We do not use it to identify anyone, and we have not turned on any of its advertising features. It counts; the advertising described below is a separate service.

When you open a page, a script from Google records the page you are on, the page or search that sent you there, roughly when you arrived and how long you stayed, and the sort of browser, device and screen you are using. It also works out an approximate location — usually the country, sometimes the city — from the address your connection came from. Google Analytics 4 does not record that address itself: it is used to estimate the location and is then discarded.

Robots are not counted. Before Google's script is loaded, the page checks two things your browser already says about itself: whether it is being controlled by automation software, and whether its description matches, letter for letter, a scraper we have seen in our server logs. If either is true, the script is not loaded and nothing is sent to Google. The check happens in your browser, and its answer is not stored or sent anywhere. A person whose browser happens to match a scraper's description exactly is simply not counted; every page works the same.

On one page, the daily quiz, it also counts two things a reader does: finishing the day's puzzle, and pressing its Share button. Each count carries the puzzle's number and nothing else.

Most pages also have a Share button. When you use it, the page tells Google Analytics which page was shared and which way you chose: your device's own share menu, copying the link, or one of the services listed, such as WhatsApp or email. It does not learn what you wrote, who you sent it to, or whether you sent it at all.

What Google receives goes to Google, and Google's own privacy policy covers what it does with it. If you would rather not be counted, you have three ways out that we cannot override: Google publishes a browser add-on that switches Analytics off everywhere, most privacy-minded browsers and content blockers already block this script by default, and blocking or clearing the cookies below has the same effect. Nothing on this site is withheld from you if you do — the pages behave identically, because the counting has nothing to do with showing them.

Advertising

Pages on this site may show advertisements. They are supplied by Google AdSense, Google's advertising service for websites. We decide where on a page an ad may appear; Google decides which ad fills the space. We are not told who is shown which ad, and we give Google nothing about you: no name, no email address, nothing you have sent us.

To choose and show an ad, Google, and the other advertising companies it works with, use cookies and similar technologies. They learn which page you are reading, receive the address your connection came from and details of your browser and device, and may recognise your browser from its visits to other sites that use Google's advertising. This lets Google and its partners show you ads based on your visits to this site and to other sites on the internet, which is called personalised advertising. Google also uses this information to count how often an ad was seen or clicked, to stop you seeing the same ad too often, and to detect fraud.

The ad itself may be supplied by another advertising company that Google allows to take part. Your browser then fetches it from that company, which may set cookies of its own. Google explains all of this in how Google uses information from sites that use its services and in its explanation of advertising.

You can decline, and every page still works:

• If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, you are asked before any advertising cookie is set, in a message from Google shown on your first visit. If you decline, you may still see ads, but they are chosen from the page you are reading, not from your browsing elsewhere. Your answer is kept in a cookie so that you are not asked on every page; clear this site's cookies and you will be asked again.
• Anyone, anywhere, can switch off personalised ads from Google in My Ad Center, which also shows the interests Google uses to choose ads.
• Many other advertising companies can be switched off at once at aboutads.info or, in Europe, youronlinechoices.eu.
• A content blocker, or blocking third-party cookies in your browser, stops most of it. The site does not ask you to turn one off.

When you write to us

If you send us a message, through the contact page, the feedback form or by email, we receive whatever you put in it: usually your name, your email address and the message itself. The feedback form also sends the rating and the answers you chose, and the address of the page you were on when you opened it — the form shows you that address before you send. We keep all of it in our mailbox for as long as we need it to answer you and to act on what you said, which for a correction can mean until the fix is published and recorded. We do not add your address to any list, and we do not share it with anyone, advertisers included.

What you send through a form on this site reaches us as an email, sent from our own server to our own mailbox, both run by our hosting company. No form service or other company handles it on the way. The email is addressed to us; the site never sends anything to the address you typed, and we write back to you ourselves.

To stop the forms being flooded, the server counts how many messages arrive from each connection address in an hour. It keeps that count in memory only, never writes it down, and forgets it within the hour.

If you sign up for email updates, we keep your address so that we can send them, and only for that. Your signup reaches our mailbox with its date and a note that you ticked the consent box, which is our record that you asked. Every message we send includes a way to unsubscribe, and unsubscribing removes your address.

The daily quiz

The Nations Daily Quiz remembers how you did, so that it can show your result again when you come back and count how many days in a row you have played. It keeps this in your own browser, in what browsers call local storage: a small note this site writes on your device. It is not a cookie, and it is never sent to us, to Google or to anyone else. It holds the date of each puzzle you played and which answer you chose in each round. It holds nothing about who you are. The practice rounds offered after the puzzle ("Keep playing") are not kept at all, and send nothing anywhere.

The quiz has a button that deletes the note, and clearing this site's data in your browser deletes it too. If your browser does not allow local storage, the quiz still works; it just cannot remember yesterday.

When you finish a puzzle, and when you press its Share button, the page tells Google Analytics that it happened, as one more count beside the page views described under Counting readers. The count says which puzzle it was and nothing else: not your answers, not your score, and not where you shared it. Sharing is done by your own device's share menu, or by copying the text yourself; the site does not post anything anywhere.

Cookies

This site sets no cookie of its own. The cookies it causes are Google's, and there are two groups. (The daily quiz's note is kept in local storage, not in a cookie; see The daily quiz.)

Counting. Google Analytics sets two cookies, used only for the counting described above. One, named _ga, holds a random number that lets Google tell one browser from another, so that two visits from you are not counted as two people. The other, named _ga_WDQ8RGC9B2, remembers that a visit is still the same visit. Neither carries your name, your address or anything you have typed, and they last up to two years unless you clear them.

Advertising. Where a page shows ads, Google sets cookies on this site, such as __gads and __gpi, which help decide which ads to show and how often, and on its own advertising domains, such as doubleclick.net, which is how it recognises a browser across the sites that use its advertising. Google's consent message keeps your answer in a cookie of its own. Another advertising company that supplies an ad may set its own cookies too. Google lists the cookies it uses, and what each is for, in how Google uses cookies. These cookies hold identifiers, not your name or anything you have typed.

Your browser may also keep ordinary cached copies of pages and images so that they load faster next time; that is your browser's behaviour, not a cookie, and clearing its cache removes them.

You can delete every one of these cookies in your browser's settings, or refuse them with a content blocker, and the site will work exactly as before. If it ever needs a cookie of its own — to remember a setting you chose, say — this page will say so before it happens.

Fonts, images and other companies

The typeface, every picture belonging to the site and every line of its own code are served from our own server. Your browser does not contact a font service, an image host or a script library to display a page. Two Google services are the exceptions: Google Analytics on every page, and Google AdSense wherever a page shows an ad. When an ad is shown, it may come from another advertising company that Google works with, as described under Advertising.

Pages link to the organisations that publish the data, and articles sometimes link elsewhere. An advertisement is a link too. Once you follow a link you are on someone else's site, and their privacy policy applies, not this one.

The choices under a page's Share button are links of the same kind. Nothing from Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Reddit, WhatsApp or any other service is loaded into our pages, so none of them can see you reading here. Press one and your browser opens that service's own sharing page with this page's address filled in, and from then on its privacy policy applies.

Children

The site is written for a general audience. It is suitable for readers of any age, but it is not aimed at children. It asks children for nothing, and it is not told who anyone is, so it cannot tell a child from anyone else. We do not knowingly keep personal information from children, and if a parent or guardian asks us to delete a message a child sent, we will.

Your rights

You can ask us what personal information we hold about you, which will be either nothing or the messages you have sent us, and you can ask us to delete it. Write to the address at the top of this page. We answer such requests ourselves, and there is no form to fill in.

What Google holds about you from the counting and the advertising is held by Google, and Google answers for it. Its privacy policy explains how to see, download or delete that information, and My Ad Center shows what it uses to choose ads.

Changes to this policy

The date at the top of this page is when the text was last read through and confirmed. If the site starts collecting anything it does not collect today, this page will be updated first and the change will be noted on the Updates page.