Privacy Policy
Last updated: 25 August 2026
clean-news is a personal, non-commercial side project run by an individual. It shows summarised news headlines and remembers which ones you've already read. This page describes exactly what it stores.
The short version
No advertising, no analytics, no tracking pixels, and nothing is ever sold or shared. Even when you sign in, your email address is never stored.
If you don't sign in
You can use clean-news without an account. The first time you mark an article
read or change a setting, a random identifier (for example anon:3f2504e0-…) is generated and stored in a cookie in your
browser. It isn't linked to your name, email, or anything else about you.
Simply reading the page creates nothing at all — no cookie is set and no record is created until you actively mark something read or save a setting.
If you sign in with Google
Signing in is entirely optional, and exists only so your read history follows you between devices.
When you sign in, Google sends this site a signed token. From it, only the account identifier (Google's sub — an opaque
number like 1081347…) is kept. Your email address, name, and profile picture are not stored.
The token is verified and discarded.
What is stored against your identifier
- Which articles you've marked as read, and when
- Your settings: which sources or categories you've hidden, any keyword blocklist, and any custom categories you've added
That is the complete list.
Other services involved
- Cloudflare hosts the site and database. As with any web host, its servers process requests and keep standard operational logs.
- Google Sign-In loads on the Settings page only, so that the sign-in button can be shown. Google's own privacy policy governs that interaction.
- Google's favicon service supplies the small publisher icons next to each story. Your browser requests these from Google, which means Google can see which news sources appear in the feed you load. If you'd rather that didn't happen, a content blocker will stop it, and the site still works normally without the icons.
- News publishers. Opening an article takes you to the publisher's own website, where their privacy policy applies.
Cookies
One cookie, cn_uid. It holds your identifier and a signature that
prevents tampering. It is strictly necessary for the site to remember what
you've read, and is not used for advertising or tracking.
How long things are kept
Articles are deleted a few days after publication, and the record of your having read them is removed at the same time. Your settings persist until you delete them or ask for your data to be removed.
Deleting your data
Signing out removes the cookie from your browser. To have the stored data for your account deleted entirely, email harish.parwani@gmail.com and it will be removed.
Children
This site isn't directed at children under 13.
Changes
If this policy changes, the date at the top will change with it.