Privacy

The short version

ONE sets no cookies. There are no advertising networks, no analytics services, no session recording, and no third-party trackers on this site.

We count views, plays and votes, because the whole point of ONE is to learn whether a pick was worth your time. So that one person is not counted twice in a day, our server turns your network address and browser type into a code, using a random value that is destroyed every day. The address itself is never stored, and once that day's value is destroyed, not even we can connect the code back to you or to your visits on any other day.

There are no accounts. We never ask for your name, email address, or location.

There is nowhere on ONE to write anything. The only thing you can send us is a one-tap answer to whether a pick was new to you.

What we keep

Your answer to “Was this new to you?”, stored against the pick it was about and the anonymous daily code described above. Answering again changes your answer rather than adding another.

Anonymous activity: that a pick was viewed, played, read, opened at its source, or shared, stored against the same daily code.

Nothing else. We keep no account, profile, browsing history, or record of who you are.

How the anonymous code works

When you vote or when a pick is viewed, our server combines your network address and your browser's name with a secret random value, and scrambles the result into a code that cannot be reversed. We store only the code.

The random value changes every day, and each earlier day's value is deleted. That makes today's codes impossible to link to yesterday's, and impossible to trace back to an address, including by us.

We also use the code to limit how often anyone can post or vote, which keeps the service usable and the counts honest.

What is stored on your device

The answers you gave, so the button you chose stays highlighted. They live in your browser's own storage and are not sent to us in that form.

Clearing your browser data removes them. We cannot recover them for you, because we never had them.

Embedded players

Videos from YouTube play in YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode (youtube-nocookie.com), which YouTube describes as not storing information about visitors unless they play the video. Once you press play, you are using YouTube, and YouTube's terms and Google's privacy policy apply: https://policies.google.com/privacy.

Some videos are provided through YouTube API Services, which we use only to read public information about videos. We never access your YouTube or Google account.

Films from Vimeo play in Vimeo's player with its do-not-track setting turned on, which Vimeo describes as stopping the player from tracking session data, including cookies. Once you press play, Vimeo's terms and privacy policy apply: https://vimeo.com/privacy.

Podcast episodes stream directly from the publisher's own audio host, and nothing is requested from it until you press Listen. Podcast hosts commonly measure downloads, which can include your network address and device type; that information goes to them, not to us.

When you follow a link to the original work, you leave ONE and that site's own privacy practices apply.

Who else is involved

Our hosting provider runs the servers and database that ONE uses.

We send the public work we are evaluating — titles, descriptions, and the opening of an article or transcript — to Google (Gemini) to score it and write the previews. We never send your messages, your votes, or anything about you.

We use no advertising networks, analytics vendors, or data brokers, and we sell nothing to anyone.

Server logs

Our hosting provider records basic technical information for every request, such as the time, the response status, and the network address it came from. This is standard for any website and is used to keep the service running and to limit abuse. Those logs are held by the provider on its own schedule.

Children

ONE is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them. There is nothing here for anyone to post, and we hold no information that identifies a visitor of any age.

How long anything is kept

The daily random value: one day. Anonymous votes and activity: kept, because after that day they cannot be connected to anyone. Server logs: on our hosting provider's standard schedule.

Text from the articles and videos we evaluate is kept only until it has been scored, and never in full.

Where it is processed

Our hosting provider and our AI provider operate internationally, including in the United States, so requests may be processed outside the country you are in.

Security

Traffic is encrypted in transit, and our provider keys are held on the server and never appear in the page you load. The strongest protection is structural: we hold no accounts, no email addresses, and no network addresses, so there is very little here worth stealing.

No service can promise perfect security, and we do not.

Your rights

Privacy laws including the California Consumer Privacy Act give you rights to access, correct, and delete personal information a business holds about you, and to opt out of its sale or sharing.

We sell nothing and share nothing for advertising. Because votes and activity are stored under a daily code we cannot trace back to you, there is no profile to hand over, and nothing you have written, because there is nowhere to write. If you have a question about any of this, write to us.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the date at the top of the page changes with it. If we ever begin collecting something we do not collect today, we will say so here plainly rather than by quietly broadening the wording.

Contact

Questions about privacy, or to exercise a right described above: balmodyco@gmail.com.