Privacy

Last updated October 26, 2026.

Playing without an account

You don’t need an account. The questions and the right answers are kept on our server and given to your browser one question at a time, so each answer you pick is sent to the server to be marked. If you are not signed in, nothing that identifies you or your play is stored on our side: not your choices, not your score, not your time. Each answer adds one to anonymous daily totals, such as how many people answered a question and how many picked each choice (see Anonymous counts), and nothing in those totals says who you are. Your progress for today is also saved in your own browser (local storage) so a refresh doesn’t lose it, and the site doesn’t put it anywhere else. The service that hosts the site (see below) sees the request itself, as it does for every page.

If you create an account

It is optional and free. The sign-in box tells you which of two ways this site uses: a username alone (no password, no email), or your email address(we email you a 6-digit code each time you sign in, and there is no password). Here is everything we keep:

• The username, spelled the way you typed it.
• Your email address, only if you sign in with email. We use it to send you sign-in codes and to recognise you when you come back. We never show it to other players, we don’t use it for marketing, and we only send you the code you asked for.
• When the account was created, and when you last visited and the visit before that, so we can say “last visit” in your greeting.
• Your streak: the current run of days, your best run, and the last day that counted. A day counts once you have finished that day’s quiz while signed in.
• Your results: for each day you finish the quiz while signed in, the date, which quiz, how many answers were right, and how long it took. Your lifetime score is the total of the right answers.
• While you play signed in, a short record of each question: which quiz, when we sent you the question, which choice you made and when. That is how the clock and the score are worked out on the server, so they can’t be edited from the page. The clock counts only the time a question waits for your answer, not the time you spend reading the explanation. These records are cleared the next time you start a quiz on a later day, and when you delete your account.
• Whether your username is on the leaderboards (see below), and how many answers and quizzes you have played signed in from the first question, which is what the all-time board counts.
• Where you stand on a story, if you use “Where do you stand?” on a story that asks the question: which story, which of its choices you picked, and when you first picked it and last changed it. You have one position per story, and you can change or withdraw it whenever you like (withdrawing deletes it). Other readers never see your username or your choice. They see only totals, and only after they have chosen themselves.
• What you write in a discussion, if you post: the text, the story it is on, the date and time, the choice you say you made (if you gave one), the one link you cite (if you gave one), and whether it has been approved, held or taken down. Posts are public and are shown under your username, with how long ago you wrote them. A person reads your first post before it appears. If a post is reported by several readers it is hidden until a person decides. We keep which reader reported which post, and why, so a person can judge it. Nobody else is shown who reported a post or how many reports it has; the reader who made a report sees only that they did. A post taken down is kept out of view, never shown again, and deleted with your account. You can delete any of your own posts at any time and it is erased straight away.
• A sign-in cookie. It holds a random code that keeps you signed in for up to 90 days since your last visit. It is only for sign-in, it is not shared, and we store only a scrambled (hashed) copy of the code.
• A note in your browser that you have signed in here (local storage, not sent anywhere). It lets pages that don’t otherwise need your account, such as the list of stories, show your name without asking the server first. It holds no name or code, and signing out clears it.
• A sign-in code, briefly (email sign-in only). While you type the code in, we keep a scrambled copy of it for up to 10 minutes. It is deleted as soon as it is used, when it runs out, or after five wrong tries.

To slow down people who create accounts in bulk or guess codes, we also count sign-up, sign-in, code, position-change, post, report and link-click requests per hour against a hashed version of the connecting network address (for codes, a hashed version of the email address; for position changes, posts and reports, a code for your account). Those counters are deleted automatically a couple of hours later (they are cleared the next time anyone signs up or signs in). A hashed address is still tied to your connection or mailbox, so please treat it as personal data.

Anonymous counts

To learn how many people use the site and whether the quiz works for them, the site keeps running totals, for everyone, signed in or not. They are totals only:

• Page views: how many views each kind of page got (the home page, the quiz, a news story, and so on, not the address of the page), which site sent the visitor (only its name, such as “google.com”, never the full link), and how long the page was on screen, added to a count of “under 10 seconds”, “10 to 30 seconds” and so on. A small script on each page sends this when it loads and when you leave or switch away.
• Quiz plays: how many quizzes were started and finished, and for each question how many people saw it, answered it, got it right, and picked each of the four choices. For signed-in players, how many finished with each score.
• Visits from our own Bluesky posts: the link in each post we make on Bluesky ends in a tag that says which kind of post it was (“daily_article” or “daily_quiz”). When a page opens with that tag, the site adds one to that day’s total for that kind of post, and adds one more for each quiz begun or finished during that same visit. Only those two names are ever recognised. The tag is kept in the page’s memory for that visit and nowhere else: no cookie and nothing stored in your browser.
• An estimate of how many different visitors there were each day. Your network address (or, if you are signed in, your account number) is scrambled together with the date using a secret key that stays on the server, and the result is folded into a small fixed-size summary that can estimate how many different visitors there were but cannot list them or tell whether any one of them was there. At the end of the day the summary becomes one number and the scrambled values are deleted. Nothing is kept that can be turned back into an address.

None of these totals has an address, a browser string, a cookie, a username or an email attached, and we set no cookie and store no identifier in your browser for them. The browser’s description of itself is looked at only to leave robots out, and thrown away. If your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track, none of this is counted for you. Only the site’s owner can see the totals, from a page that needs the owner’s signed-in account. The totals themselves are kept; they describe nobody.

Leaderboards

The site shows two public leaderboards, today’s leaders and all-time leaders. They list usernames next to a score, a total time and a count of quizzes, and nothing else about anyone: no email address, no sign-in details, no visit dates. Only quizzes played while signed in from the first question are ranked, because that is the only way the server can mark and time every answer itself.

If you create an account after the leaderboards began, your username is shown by default and you are told so when you create it. Accounts that already existed start hidden. You can show or hide your username at any time with the switch in your player card, and hiding it removes you from the boards straight away (the public lists are kept for up to a minute, so it can take that long to disappear for everyone). We may also hide a username that is abusive or impersonates someone, and if we do, you can’t switch it back on. Because usernames are public, please don’t use your real name, or anything private.

Discussions

Only readers who sign in with an email address can post, so nobody can write under another person’s name. Anyone can read a discussion without an account. What you post is public, so please don’t write anything private, and remember that your username goes with it (and that a post can be quoted or copied by anyone who reads it). Links you add are shown as plain links marked as chosen by the writer; we don’t check what is at the other end. The community rules say what we take down.

Usernames and signing in

If this site signs in with a username alone, there is no password, so anyone who types your username can sign in as you. Don’t treat the account as secret: it only holds a streak and some scores. If it signs in with email, nobody can sign in without a code sent to your mailbox.

Deleting everything

Sign in, open Account in the card at the top of the page, and choose Delete my account. The username, the email address, the streak, the results, the play records, your positions on stories, your posts, the reports you made and the sign-ins are erased immediately, and the username and email address become free for anyone to use.

Links to other sites

Every story links to the articles it is based on. When you follow one of those links, your browser also sends us a short message saying which story it was, the name of the publisher’s site (for example “arstechnica.com”) and which kind of link it was. We add one to a running total for that day, story and publisher, so we can see how many readers the site sends to the people who did the reporting. The total has no address, browser details, cookie or account attached to it, so it can’t say who clicked. It works the same whether or not you are signed in, and the link works even if the message does not get through. The request is counted against the hashed network address, as described above, only to slow down a script. Once you are on the publisher’s site, they handle your visit under their own policies.

Who handles the data

The site and its database are hosted on Cloudflare, which processes the requests that reach the site (including network addresses) to run the service, under its own privacy policy. If you sign in with email, the sign-in code and your email address are also handed to our email delivery service (Resend) so it can send you the message; it handles them under its own privacy policy. Today the site shows no ads and loads no third-party analytics script; the only counting is the anonymous totals described above, kept in our own database. If that changes, this page will say so before it does.

Not for sale, not shared

We don’t sell or share what is in your account. There is nothing in it we would need to.

Questions about your data

You can delete your account yourself at any time (above). For anything else, such as a question about what is kept or a request to remove a post, see the contact page.