Privacy Policy

• Plax works without an account. You can read, choose topics and save stories without giving us anything.
• Plax shows ads from Google, in the app and on the website (see Ads below). They are the only part of Plax that uses an advertising ID or advertising cookies. There are no analytics or tracking tools.
• Your topics, saved stories and reading history stay on your device unless you choose to sign in with Google. Then a small account keeps your topics and saved stories so they follow you to another device.
• You can delete the account, and everything stored in it, at any time: in the app, on this page, or by email.
• We do not sell personal data. The ads are served by Google, which handles the data it collects itself (see Ads).

Kept on your device. The topics you pick, the stories you save, the list of stories you have already seen (so they do not come back), your language and your theme. On Android this is in the app's private storage and is left out of Android backups. On the website it is in your browser's local storage. Clearing the app's data or your browser's data removes it.

Sent to Plax when you read. To load stories, the app and website ask Plax's servers for a page of stories, sending the topics and language you chose and the ids of stories you have already seen, so they are not sent again. None of this includes your name, email or any identifier of you or your device. Like any web service, our hosting provider (Vercel) handles ordinary connection details such as your IP address, browser or app type and the time, to deliver the service and keep it secure. We do not use them to build a profile of you.

Go deeper, translations and quizzes. When you ask Plax to go deeper on a story, take a quiz or read a story in Hindi on the website or in the app, the text of that story (its headline and summary) is sent to Plax's servers and from there to the AI and translation services that write the result. Depending on availability these can be Google (Gemini), Groq, OpenRouter, Microsoft (Azure Translator) and MyMemory. The request does not carry your name, email or account. The result may be kept and shown to other readers of the same story, so that it is only written once. AI text can contain mistakes, which is why the app labels it.

Sharing a story. Share and Copy link send the story's public details (headline, summary, source and picture address) to Plax to make a public page for it, so the people you send the link to can open it. The page does not say who shared it.

Publishers' pictures and links. Pictures load straight from the publishers' servers, which can see your IP address when they do. Links to full stories open in your browser and are covered by each publisher's own policy. The stories belong to their publishers.

The app's settings. The Android app (from plax-rouge.vercel.app/news and from Google Play alike) also asks plax-rouge.vercel.app/news now and then, when it opens and at most every few hours, for a small settings file: which topics and news sections to offer, which features are on, how often an ad page comes, a notice to show, whether a newer version is on Google Play, and a few menu links. The file holds no code and nothing about you, and the request carries no account, cookie or identifier; the app keeps the last file it read on your phone. Like any web request it shows your IP address and the time to our hosting provider (Vercel).

The Android version downloaded from plax-rouge.vercel.app/news (not Google Play) also asks plax-rouge.vercel.app/news once a day whether a newer version exists. Nothing about you is sent. Versions from Google Play are updated by Google Play.

Updates to the app's own code. The Android app (from plax-rouge.vercel.app/news and from Google Play alike) also asks Expo's update service (expo.dev), when it opens, whether a newer version of its own code (its screens and wording, not a new app) is ready, and downloads it in the background if so. The request carries the app's name and version, the fact that the phone runs Android, and a random number that the update library makes for this installation, which the service uses to count the installations that received an update and to release an update to some of them first. It carries no name, email, account, advertising ID or anything you read or saved. Like any web request it shows your IP address and the time to Expo.

Plax is free and is paid for by ads from Google: Google AdSense on the website and Google AdMob in the Android app. An ad is shown in a strip at the foot of the screen and, every few stories, on a page of its own. Each one is marked as an advertisement, and you can swipe past it.

What Google receives. To show an ad, Google's ad service receives your IP address and details of your browser or device. On Android it also uses your advertising ID, a random identifier that you can reset, or delete, in your phone's settings. On the website it can set cookies, or read identifiers, in your browser. Google uses these to choose and show ads, to limit how often you see one, to measure whether ads work and to guard against fraud, and may keep what it collects under its own policies, linked below. Plax does not send Google your name, your email address, your account, your topics, your saved stories or what you read.

Consent. If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, Plax asks for your consent first, with a message from Google's consent tool, and shows only the ads that you allow. You can change your choice at any time: in the app, open the menu and choose Privacy settings; on the website, use the button below.

Your other choices. You can turn personalised ads off in Google's Ads Settings, reset your advertising ID in your phone's settings (under Privacy or Google, then Ads), and clear your browser's cookies. How Google uses information from sites and apps that use its services is explained at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites, and Google's own privacy policy is at policies.google.com/privacy.

Plax is meant for people aged 13 and over, and its ads are not directed at children.

Signing in happens on Google's own page, so Plax never sees your Google password. Plax's account provider, Supabase, receives your email address, name, profile picture address and a Google account identifier from Google, and Plax stores these with the account.

What the account stores:

• your email address, name and profile picture address, and a random account id;
• the topics you chose and the stories you saved (headline, short text and category);
• on the website only: which stories you read (their category, how long you spent, and whether you saved, shared or finished them), how many you have read and your reading streak, used to order your For you feed. The Android app sends only your topics and saved stories.

Why: to show your topics and saved stories on every device you sign in on, and to keep the account secure. They are not used for advertising and not shared with anyone except the providers that run the service: Supabase (accounts and database), Vercel (hosting) and Google (sign-in).

How it is protected: everything travels over HTTPS. The database only lets a signed-in person read or change their own rows. On Android the sign-in session is sealed with the Android Keystore and left out of backups. On the website, signing in sets a cookie that keeps you signed in; the only advertising cookies are the ones Google’s ad service sets (see Ads).

You can delete your Plax account in any of these ways. The first two are immediate and need nothing from us.

• In the Android app: menu, then Account, then Delete account.
• On the website: Delete your account. Sign in with Google and confirm. You do not need the app.
• By email to richardhenryjames64@gmail.com, from the address of the account, with “Delete my Plax account” as the subject. We delete it within 30 days, usually much sooner.

Deleting removes the account and everything stored in it: email, name, picture address, topics, saved stories, reading activity and sign-in sessions. It cannot be undone. Copies in the database provider's routine backups, if any, expire on its normal schedule. Topics and saved stories already on your device stay there until you remove them or clear the app's data. Story pages that were shared stay available so that links keep working; they contain no personal information.

• Account data: until you delete the account.
• Data on your device: until you clear it.
• Hosting connection details: for the short period our hosting provider keeps them under its own policy.
• AI results and shared story pages: kept so that other readers get the same result or link. They contain no personal data.
• Ad data: kept by Google, under its own policies (see Ads), not by Plax.

Plax is meant for people aged 13 and over and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you think a child has made an account, write to richardhenryjames64@gmail.com and we will delete it.

You can use Plax without an account, sign out at any time, and delete the account as described above. Depending on where you live, for example under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act or the EU's GDPR, you may also have the right to ask what we hold about you, to have it corrected, or to withdraw consent. Write to richardhenryjames64@gmail.com and we will answer.

If we change this policy we will update the date at the top. If a change affects what we collect, we will say so in the app or on the website.

Plax Labs, richardhenryjames64@gmail.com. More ways to reach us are on the Contact us page.