Privacy

The short version

• You can read Golo without telling us anything.
• We set no cookies on readers, only one to keep you signed in if you join Gist, and we run no ad networks or outside trackers.
• We count visits with our own tool, which does not store your IP address and cannot follow you from one day to the next.
• You only give us something when you choose to: an email for the mail, an account to post on Gist, a nomination for Spotlight.
• We have never sold anyone's details and will not.

When you sign up for the mail

We keep your email address, which country hub you signed up from, which page you signed up on, the date, and the network address your browser connected from. We use it to send you the newsletter and nothing else. Every mail has an unsubscribe link, and you can also ask us at [email protected] and we will take you off.

The list sits on our own server today. If we move it to an email service later, we will name that service here first.

When you join Gist

Anybody can read Gist. To post, you make an account: a handle, a password and an email. Your handle and what you post are public, so pick a handle you are comfortable with. Your email is never shown to another reader, and nothing is sent to it today; it is how we could reach you, and how a forgotten password will be recovered once we send mail.

We keep your password only in scrambled form, so nobody can read it, us included. With your account and with each post we also keep a scrambled version of the network address it came from. Scrambled means we cannot read it back. It is there so one person making many accounts, or spamming, can be told apart from everybody else. Some posts wait for an editor before they appear, and a post enough readers report goes back to a person to look at.

Signing in sets one cookie, which keeps you signed in for up to 90 days and holds nothing but your handle, signed so it cannot be forged. Want a post or your account gone? Write to [email protected] and say which. We take it down, or you can delete your own posts yourself.

When somebody replies to you, we keep a note of it for your notifications: who, where, and their first words. If you turn on phone alerts, we also keep the address your phone's alert service (Google, Apple, Mozilla or Microsoft) gives us for that device. An alert sent through them carries no words at all: it only wakes your phone, which then asks us what happened. Turn alerts off on the notifications page and the address is forgotten.

A picture you post is made smaller and stripped of everything your camera wrote into it, including where it was taken, before it is kept. A video is kept as you recorded it, except that the place it was filmed, which phones write into the file, is wiped first. Both are stored with Cloudflare, the network in front of our site, in a bucket only golo can open, and they go when your post goes. Who you follow and what you save are kept on your account: the number of people following you is shown on your profile, but nobody sees who they are, and nobody sees what you saved. When a post has a link in it, our server fetches that page once to make its card, so the site you linked to sees golo, not the people who read your post.

A voice note is recorded in your browser, and only once you press Voice note does it ask for your microphone. Its shape (how loud it is from start to end) is measured on your phone and kept with it, to draw its bars. It is kept like a video, in the same bucket, and goes when your post goes. A meme is made on your phone and goes up as an ordinary picture. When you vote in a poll we keep which answer you picked against your account, so you can change it; everybody sees how many picked each answer, never who. We also keep the last day you posted and how many days running, to show your run on your profile. When a topic is shared, the picture WhatsApp and others show is made from what is already public on it: the title, and a line from a reply people liked.

When you react on Gist

Reactions are a running count per post. So that each person counts once, we keep a scrambled version of a random ID your browser keeps, or of your network address, beside the reaction. It does not point to your name or your account.

When you put someone forward for Spotlight

We keep the name you send, your reason, your email if you give one, and the network address your browser connected from, so an editor can follow it up. Nothing is published from it without our own reporting first.

How we count readers

We measure Golo ourselves rather than handing readers to an outside analytics company. When you open a page we record the page, the site that sent you (if any), your country, and whether you are on a phone or a computer. On a story we also record how far down you got and roughly how long you spent reading it, so we can tell which stories actually hold people.

Visitors are counted with a code made from your network address and browser that changes every day, so we can say "so many people read this today" without keeping your address or recognising you tomorrow. Your country comes from the network our site sits behind. Known bots are ignored, and so are our own staff.

What your browser remembers

We do not set any cookies on readers. A few things are kept in your own browser's storage, on your device, where we cannot read them unless you send them to us: whether you chose light or dark, whether sounds are on, the random ID that lets Gist count your reactions once, which reaction you pressed, any ad you have closed, the stickers you used last, the voice note speed you chose and where you stopped in a voice note. Clearing your browser data clears all of it.

If you sign in to Gist, one cookie keeps you signed in (see above). Our editors sign in to a private admin, which sets a cookie of its own. That is for staff, on staff devices.

Ads

Ads on Golo are images we host ourselves and show to everybody. They are not chosen based on you, and there are no tracking pixels in them. Clicking one takes you to the advertiser's own website, where their privacy policy applies, not ours.

Who else can see any of this

The company that hosts our server, and the network that sits in front of it to keep the site fast and fend off attacks. Our stories and settings are kept in a private code repository. Gist accounts, posts and reactions, and the mailing list, stay on our own server. We do not share them with anyone else, and we will not sell them. The only other time we would hand anything over is if the law actually required it.

How long we keep things

Your email stays on the list until you leave it. Gist posts and accounts stay until an editor takes them down or you ask us to remove yours. Visit records are kept as a rolling window and the oldest are deleted automatically. Nominations are kept while we are still considering them.

Your rights

Under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 you can ask us what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it, object to how we are using it, or withdraw your consent at any time. Write to [email protected] and we will answer within 30 days. There is no charge. If you are not satisfied, you can complain to the Nigeria Data Protection Commission.

As each new country hub opens, the law of that country applies there too: Ghana's Data Protection Act, Kenya's Data Protection Act, South Africa's POPIA.

Children

Golo is written for adults. We do not aim any of this at children under 13 and we do not knowingly keep their details. If you believe a child has sent us something, tell us and we will delete it.

Changes

When we change how any of this works, we change this page and move the date at the top. If it is a change that actually affects you, we will say so in the newsletter rather than quietly editing the page.

Contact

Golo is published by Ceqo Media. For anything on this page, write to [email protected].