Privacy Policy

This policy explains how MJTales handles information when you read, write, or subscribe on this site. It covers the public site, reader accounts, the writing and editorial workspaces, the Compendium, and MJTales emails.

• Account details. Your name, email address, username, and a password when you create an account. We store your password only in a form that cannot be read back.
• Profile details. Anything you choose to add, such as a profile photo, a pen name or bio (for writers and editors), and optional gender and date of birth. Gender and date of birth are never shown publicly.
• Your writing. Drafts, stories, images you upload for them, submissions, and the notes exchanged during editorial review.
• Your activity as a reader. Comments, reactions, bookmarks, writers you follow, reading progress, reading preferences, and notifications.
• Compendium applications. If you apply to write for the Compendium: the name, pen name, city, bio, portfolio link, writing sample, and pitch you submit.
• Newsletter. Your email address, and whether you have confirmed or unsubscribed.

• Request information. Like any website, our servers and network providers receive your IP address, browser and device details, and the pages you request. We use this to deliver the site, keep it secure, prevent abuse (for example, to limit repeated newsletter sign-ups), and fix errors.
• Story views. To count story views fairly, we set a first-party cookie holding a random identifier for your browser. It is not linked to your name or email address.
• Usage and advertising data. Google Analytics and Google AdSense collect information about your visit, as described below.

• To run your account, sign you in, and keep you signed in.
• To publish, review, and show stories, profiles, and comments.
• To send the emails you ask for, such as newsletter confirmations, newsletters, and Compendium application updates.
• To understand how the site is used, and to improve its performance and reliability.
• To show advertising on eligible public pages.
• To protect MJTales, its readers, and its writers from abuse.

Stories are public only once they are published. Drafts and stories under editorial review are visible to you and to the MJTales team reviewing them, not to other readers.

Published stories, writer profiles (name or pen name, bio, and photo), and comments on published stories can be seen by anyone who visits the site.

MJTales sets a small number of its own cookies:

• a session cookie that keeps you signed in;
• cookies that remember your reading display settings;
• the story-view cookie described above;
• short-lived cookies that carry a newsletter confirm or unsubscribe link from the email to the page.

Google Analytics and Google AdSense may also set or read cookies, as described below. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. If you block the session cookie, you will not be able to stay signed in.

MJTales uses Google Analytics to understand how the site is used and how it performs. Google Analytics uses cookies and similar technologies to collect information such as the pages you view, how you interact with them, your approximate location, and your browser and device type. We receive aggregated reports, not your name or email address.

Google processes this information under its own policies. Learn more in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services.

MJTales uses, or may use, Google AdSense to show ads on eligible public content pages: the home page, stories, writer profiles, categories, and explore. Sign-in pages, account pages, the writing and editorial workspaces, newsletter pages, the Compendium, and this page are intentionally excluded.

Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this site or other websites. Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve, measure, and, where permitted, personalize ads based on your visits to this and other sites.

Whether ads are personalized depends on your region, your consent choices, and your settings. You can opt out of personalized advertising in Google Ads Settings, or opt out of some third-party vendors’ use of cookies for personalized advertising at www.aboutads.info.

In regions where the law requires consent, such as the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, MJTales may show a consent or privacy message before advertising cookies or similar processing are used. You can review or change your choices through that message where it is offered.

If you subscribe, we use your email address to confirm your subscription, send newsletters, and honor your unsubscribe. Every newsletter includes an unsubscribe link. We also receive delivery information from our email provider, such as bounces and spam complaints, and stop sending to addresses that cannot receive email.

We share information only with providers that help us run MJTales, and only as needed for their service:

• Google — Analytics and AdSense.
• Resend — sending MJTales emails.
• Sentry — error reporting, configured not to collect account details or cookies.
• Cloudflare and Cloudinary — storing and delivering images.
• Hosting and network providers — running the site and delivering it to you.

We do not sell your personal information. We may also disclose information when the law requires it, or to protect the rights and safety of MJTales and its users.

Our service providers may process information in countries other than the one you live in, which may have different data protection rules.

We use reasonable technical and organizational safeguards to protect your information, such as encrypted connections and access limited to the people who need it. No online service can guarantee absolute security.

We keep information for as long as we need it for the purposes in this policy: for example, while your account exists, while a story is published, or while you are subscribed. We may keep some information longer where the law requires it, to resolve disputes, or to prevent abuse.

• Review and update your profile and reading preferences from your account.
• Unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time with the link in any newsletter.
• Manage advertising and privacy choices through the consent message, where offered, and through Google Ads Settings.
• Block or delete cookies in your browser.

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or object to the use of your personal information. To make a request or ask a question, contact MJTales through its official contact channels. We may need to confirm your identity before acting on a request, and we will respond as applicable law requires.

MJTales is not directed at young children. If you believe a child has given us personal information without appropriate permission, please contact us so we can review and remove it where appropriate.

We may update this policy as MJTales changes. When we do, we will change the “Last updated” date at the top of this page, and for significant changes we may give additional notice on the site.