Privacy policy

1. Readers without an account

If you read the site signed out, ARCANE counts your reading without knowing who you are. Your browser is given a random identifier in a cookie (arcane_vid), and the site records which pages of the publication it opened, about how long each was read and how far, whether you came from a search engine, a social network, another site or none (the kind of place, never the address), and whether the account gate, offer or setup steps were shown or completed. These records carry no name, no email address and no IP address, and they are never joined to an account.

If your browser sends the Global Privacy Control signal, or its clock is set to a European or UK time zone, no identifier is set: your pages are counted, and nothing links one visit to the next.

The server also keeps ordinary request logs (address, page requested, time, browser type) for security and capacity work; those are retained for a bounded period and then discarded. Opening Alpha as a guest sets a signed session cookie so Alpha can count the small number of questions guest access allows; it holds no personal details.

If you join the reader email list (the signup in the footer or under an article), ARCANE stores your email address, the wording you agreed to and when, the page you joined from and, if you arrived from one of its posts, that post’s campaign label. We email you a link to confirm the address first and send nothing until you open it. The list is used only to email you once a day with the articles ARCANE published that day. It is kept apart from the reading records above and never joined to them, it is never sold or shared for marketing, and every email carries an unsubscribe link. Unsubscribing stops the emails; write to the contact address in section 10 to have your address deleted.

2. Account holders

When you create an account, ARCANE stores:

• your email address and a one-way hash of your password;
• the interests you choose during onboarding (who you are, which beats and regions Alpha should watch for you) and any mandate you later describe, so the front page and Alpha can be ordered around what you actually cover;
• reading events on published investigations: which cards were shown to you, which you opened, how long you stayed, whether you finished, saved or dismissed a piece. These are used to tune what Alpha shows you and to judge which headlines earn their place. They are not used for anything else;
• the questions you put to Alpha and the answers it gave, kept so a standing question can be revisited as the record changes;
• which theses you have chosen to follow.
• if you choose to enter them in the ARCANE iPhone app, the holdings you list (a symbol and a quantity for each). The list is encrypted before it is stored, with a key kept outside the database, and is used only so Alpha can describe your exposure to you. It is read-only: ARCANE does not connect to a broker and never places an order;

A signed, HTTP-only session cookie keeps you signed in. While you are signed in, the counting in section 1 does not run, no advertising is shown to you, and no advertising script or cookie is loaded.

3. Billing

Website subscriptions are handled by Stripe, which acts as its own data controller for payment details. ARCANE stores your Stripe customer identifier, your plan and its status, and never your card number. Stripe’s privacy notice governs what Stripe holds.

Subscriptions purchased in the iPhone app are processed by Apple. ARCANE links Apple transaction identifiers, the purchased plan, renewal and expiry status to your account identifier so access can be restored across devices. ARCANE never receives your Apple payment-card details. After account deletion, a minimal purchase-ownership record remains to prevent a purchase from being assigned to another account and to handle refunds and financial records. Deleting ARCANE does not cancel an Apple subscription; manage renewal in your Apple subscription settings.

4. Advertising

The ARCANE iPhone app carries no advertising and does not load advertising scripts. ARCANE does not retain the anonymous reading and advertising measurements described in section 1 from the app. The account-based reading events described in section 2 still support your reading recommendations.

There is no advertising on the site, and no advertising script or cookie is loaded. If that changes, this page changes in the same release, and readers on a paid plan will still see none.

5. Services that see your requests

• Microsoft Azure hosts the site and its database in the United States.
• Microsoft Azure also processes Alpha questions and source context with hosted AI models. The optional voice features use the services described below.
• Stripe processes payments and hosts the checkout and billing portal pages.
• Google Fonts serves the typefaces, so your browser requests them from Google.
• Most editorial images are fetched by ARCANE’s own server and served from arcane.markets. A small number of images load directly from the publisher that owns them, and that publisher sees an ordinary image request from your browser.

The counting in section 1 is ARCANE’s own and is sent to no analytics company. No social-media script runs on the site, and no advertising script either. ARCANE does not sell personal data and does not share it with anyone for marketing.

6. What it is used for

Personal data is used to run your account, to bill you if you subscribe, to order the Alpha’s output around your interests, to keep the site secure, and to measure whether the writing earns its readers’ attention. ARCANE does not build an advertising profile of you, and what it holds is not combined with data bought from anyone else.

7. Retention, access and deletion

Account data is kept while the account exists. You can see your identity and plan on the settings page and change your interests from onboarding at any time. You can delete your account yourself at any time, on the settings page or in the ARCANE iPhone app (Account, then Delete account): after you confirm with your password, the account, its reading history and interests, the stories you follow, your Alpha conversations and any holdings you entered are deleted at once. A website subscription must first be cancelled under Plan and billing. Apple subscription renewal is managed separately as described in section 3. Only records we must keep for tax or fraud purposes remain, and only for as long as the law requires. To receive a copy of the data held about you, write to the contact address below from the email on your account.

The reading records in section 1 are deleted after 90 days, and a browser’s random identifier is deleted 400 days after its last visit. Daily totals, which describe no one, are kept. Clearing your browser’s cookies removes the identifier at once.

8. Children

The site is for adult readers. ARCANE does not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18; if you believe it has, write to us and the account will be removed.

9. Changes

When this policy changes, the effective date above changes with it. A change that expands what is collected or how it is used is announced to account holders before it takes effect.

10. Contact

Privacy requests go to [email protected].