Privacy Policy.

Who we are

Pique Media, Inc. (“Pique,” “we,” “us”) publishes AI-native local journalism for communities across the United States. This policy covers our websites and applications and the services available through them (together, the “Services”).

Questions, requests, or concerns: privacy@piquemedia.co.

Two kinds of information

Because we are a news organization, we handle two fundamentally different kinds of information, and this policy treats them differently.

Product data is information about you as a reader and user of the Services — your account, your comments, your preferences, how you use the product and how it performs on your device. It is governed fully by this policy, including the rights described in section 10.

Newsgathering material is information gathered in the course of journalism — tips, interviews, source communications, and reporting records. It is protected editorial work product. State privacy laws, including the California Consumer Privacy Act and the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act, exempt journalistic activity from their scope, and we rely on those exemptions where they apply. That is not a loophole we use against you: the point is that data-access mechanisms cannot be used to identify who has been sending us tips or speaking with our journalists. Our commitments about newsgathering material are in section 6.

What we collect

Account information. If you create an account, we collect your name, email address, and sign-in credentials through our authentication provider. Reading Pique does not require an account; accounts exist for participation — commenting, following coverage, and features you enable.

Content you submit. Comments you post (shown with the display name associated with them), reports you make about content or conduct, tips you send, and messages you exchange with our newsroom.

Preferences. Choices you make in the product — the communities you read, topics you follow, interface settings, people you block, and any notifications or personalized features you turn on.

Location. You can always choose your community manually. If you grant location permission on your device or browser, we also use your location to surface the coverage and features nearest you.

Usage and device data. How you use the Services — what you read and engage with — along with performance measurements and the basic technical information any web request carries (browser type, approximate region derived from request routing, device class). We do not build cross-site profiles of your activity on other websites.

What we deliberately do not collect: your contacts, biometric data, or information purchased from data brokers.

How we use it

We use product data to:

• provide and improve the Services and understand what coverage matters to each community;
• personalize what you see — and make coverage, features, and any advertising or sponsorship on the Services more relevant — based on how you use Pique;
• operate community features, process reports, moderate comments, and enforce our Terms of Service;
• respond when you contact us or send a tip;
• deliver features you have turned on, in the way you configured them;
• keep the Services secure and prevent abuse; and
• meet our legal obligations.

We do not make automated decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects.

AI, honestly

AI is part of how this newsroom works, so we hold ourselves to specific commitments rather than a vague disclosure.

• No training on personally identifiable information. Personally identifiable information is never used to train AI models, by us or by our providers, and our provider agreements prohibit it.
• AI helps us understand. We may process content and activity on the Services — comments, tips, reading and engagement patterns — through AI systems to summarize, moderate, route, and understand what our communities care about.

Our methodology page explains the editorial role of AI in our journalism.

Tips and newsgathering

If you submit a tip through the Services, that tip — and any follow-up communication around it — is confidential newsgathering material, and so is your identity as its submitter.

• We never publish your identity without your explicit consent.
• We never sell newsgathering material or use it for any commercial purpose beyond the journalism itself.
• We disclose tipster- or source-identifying information only if compelled by valid legal process. Where the law allows, we will notify you before complying and will challenge demands we believe are overbroad or improper.
• The same protections apply if our journalists (or clearly identified AI agents acting on a journalist's brief) interview you: we ask for your consent before the substantive conversation begins, keep a record of it, and retain interview records for verification and accountability under the same confidentiality.

When we share

We share personal information with service providers who run infrastructure for us — hosting, analytics, database, authentication, messaging, and AI processing — each bound by contract to use it only to provide their service to us. Beyond that:

• We do not sell personal information.
• Any advertising or sponsorship on the Services is driven by your activity on Pique, not by tracking you across other websites. If we ever share personal information with advertising partners in a way the law treats as “sharing,” we will say so here first and provide the opt-outs the law requires.
• We disclose personal information when the law genuinely requires it, subject to the newsgathering protections in section 6.
• If Pique is ever acquired or reorganized, personal information transfers as part of that transaction, subject to this policy as it stands at the time.

Cookies

Today the Services use functional cookies — session cookies from our authentication provider that keep you signed in and keep the site secure — alongside privacy-focused analytics that do not track you across other websites. If we introduce advertising or other tools that use additional cookies, we will update this section and provide any choices the law requires. We honor Global Privacy Control signals where the law gives them effect.

How long we keep things

Account data is kept while your account is active. If you remove an individual comment while keeping your account, it is no longer displayed, but we may retain a limited record for moderation and accountability. If you delete your account, we delete the comments and other product data associated with it within a reasonable period, except information we are legally required to retain. Deleted data may remain temporarily in protected backups until they are overwritten through our ordinary backup cycle.

Newsgathering material is retained as part of the journalistic archive — that permanence is what makes our reporting auditable — under the confidentiality commitments above.

Your rights

California residents have rights under the CCPA/CPRA and Texas residents under the TDPSA: to know what personal information we hold, to access and correct it, to delete it, to receive a portable copy, and to be free from discrimination for exercising those rights. We do not sell personal information; if we ever share it for targeted advertising as those laws define it, we will provide the required opt-out here. Residents of other states have whatever rights their state's law provides, and anyone may write to us — we review every request in good faith.

To exercise your rights, email privacy@piquemedia.co. We will verify the request is really from you (or your authorized agent), respond within 45 days, and explain ourselves if we decline. If you disagree with our decision, reply and ask for an appeal; a person who was not involved in the original decision will review it, and Texas residents who remain unsatisfied may contact the Texas Attorney General.

One limit, stated plainly: these mechanisms apply to product data. They cannot be used to obtain or delete newsgathering material, including material that identifies tipsters or sources — see section 2.

Children

The Services are not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13, and accounts are not available to them. If you believe a child has provided us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

Security

Personal information is encrypted in transit, access inside the newsroom is limited to people who need it, and sensitive systems keep audit trails — the same provenance discipline we apply to our journalism. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach ever puts your information at meaningful risk, we will tell you promptly and plainly.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy, we will update the effective date at the top and, for material changes, say so prominently on the Services before the change takes effect.

Contact

Pique Media, Inc. · privacy@piquemedia.co