Privacy Policy

Last updated August 24, 2026.

The Ashland Free Press is a small newspaper, not a data business. This page says what we collect about you, which is not much, and what we do with it, which is less. It is written in English rather than legalese because we expect to be held to it.

What we collect

Reading. When you read the paper, our web server and its content delivery network (Cloudflare) record the ordinary technical residue of a web request: your IP address, browser type, the pages you asked for, and when. These logs exist to keep the site running and to keep abuse off it. We do not use them to identify readers, and we would not know how to monetize them if we wanted to, which we do not.

Measurement, and why there are two of them. This site loads two counters, which is two more than we would like, and they answer different questions.

Google Analytics tells us about the paper: how many people came, which articles are being read, whether anyone reaches the end of four thousand words about a bike trail. Which pieces find readers is the sort of thing that decides what gets covered next. Google sets cookies to do it and processes the data under its own privacy policy.

Meta’s pixel tells us about the ads. The paper buys small advertisements on Facebook, because that is where this town argues and a new paper has to be found somehow, and the pixel is the only way to know whether any of that money brings a single reader here. Without it we would be buying ads and guessing. It records a page view and hands it to Meta, which processes it under its own terms.

What both give us is counts. We see how many, from where, reading what — never who. We do not know your name, we build no profiles, we upload nothing about you to anybody, and we would not know how to sell it if we wanted to, which we do not.

What we will not pretend is that Google and Meta are as incurious as we are. Their servers see the ordinary residue of your request, and Meta in particular is in the business of recognizing people across the web whether or not a newspaper asks it to. That is a fair reason to block both, and blocking them costs you nothing here: the paper works exactly the same, every word of it stays free, and we cheer you on.

Writing to us. If you use the contact or submission forms or email [email protected], we keep what you send — that is the point of sending it. Submissions are kept so we can publish, edit, or decline them; corrections and tips are kept as part of the reporting record. We do not add you to any list. We do not have a newsletter. If we ever start one, it will be opt-in and this page will change first.

What we do not do

We do not sell, rent, trade, or share personal information with anyone, except when the law genuinely compels it — and see the next section for how we think about that. We sell no advertising on this site and never have; nothing you read here was paid for by anyone hoping to sell you something. We do buy the occasional small ad on Facebook, which is what the pixel described above measures — the traffic runs toward us, not away. We run no social media buttons that phone home, and we do not buy data about you to “enrich” anything. Until August 2026 this section said we ran no tracking pixels at all. We changed the practice, so we changed the sentence; a paper that reads other people’s paperwork for a living does not get to leave its own out of date.

Sources

This is the part of the policy we consider load-bearing, and it repeats what our About page says: a person who talks to this paper on condition of anonymity stays anonymous — in print, in our files, and under pressure. We do not name sources to officials, to lawyers, or to anyone else, and we would sooner retire a story than surrender the person who brought it. If you have something the public should know, say what protection you need before you say anything else, and consider using means of contact you trust. The technical residue described above applies to this website like any other; truly sensitive material should not travel through a contact form.

Cookies

Google Analytics and the Meta pixel set cookies, both described above, and both are safe to block. The site itself sets none that track you. Our content delivery network may set cookies strictly for security and load balancing.

Children

The paper is written for general audiences and collects no information from anyone, children included, beyond what is described above.

Changes

If this policy changes, the change appears here with a new date at the top, and material changes get noted the way we note corrections — plainly. Questions to [email protected].