Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how CHRONO News Inc. ("CHRONO," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, and shares information when you use our website and related services (the "Service"). By using CHRONO, you agree to the practices described here. If you do not agree, you should not use the Service.

CHRONO is a news product that curates and summarizes publicly reported events into a personal timeline. Some of the content you see, including story summaries, audio briefings, and answers from our assistant, is produced with the help of artificial intelligence. We are transparent about that throughout this policy.

We collect information in a few different ways:

• Account information from Google. When you sign in with Google, we receive the basic profile information Google shares with us, including your name, email address, and profile picture. This is limited to the openid, email, and profile scopes. We use this information to create your account, identify you across sessions, and display your name and photo inside the app.
• Profile details you provide. You can optionally add a display name, date of birth, location, and profile photo to your account. Your location is used to surface Local news for your area. These details are stored with your account and can be edited or removed at any time from your account settings.
• Topics you follow. The topics and categories you follow are stored with your account so we can build and maintain your personal timeline.
• Your language and narration preferences. If you choose the language you read CHRONO in, or a narrator voice and playback speed for audio narration, we store those choices with your account so they follow you from one device to the next. They are optional and can be changed at any time.
• Reports you send us. If you report a story's thumbnail image as inaccurate, we record the story you flagged, the reason you gave, and the account you were signed in with, so our review team can look into it.
• Messages and search queries. When you ask CHRONO a question or run a deep search, the text you submit is processed to generate a response and may be retained to improve the quality of the Service.
• Waitlist and contact submissions. Before you create an account, you may join our waitlist by submitting your email address and, optionally, your X (Twitter) handle. When you contact our support team, we store the name, email, and message you provide so we can respond to you.
• Usage and analytics. We assign your browser an anonymous visitor identifier (stored locally in your browser) and record aggregate, non-identifying usage events such as which features are used, which categories are viewed, and how often the Service is opened. We also log visits for internal analytics. We do not use this information to identify you personally.

CHRONO stores a small amount of information directly in your browser's local storage rather than on our servers. This includes your theme preference (light or dark), your reading and narration language, the set of stories you have already seen, your anonymous visitor identifier, and your CHRONO chat history. You can clear this data at any time through your browser settings, and it will be recreated the next time you visit.

We use the information we collect to:

• Create and manage your account and authenticate you with Google.
• Build and personalize your timeline, including surfacing Local news for your location.
• Generate summaries, audio briefings, and responses to your questions and searches.
• Respond to support requests and waitlist inquiries.
• Understand how the Service is used so we can improve it, fix problems, and develop new features.
• Maintain the security and integrity of the Service.

We do not sell your personal information to anyone, and we do not use it to advertise to you.

CHRONO uses Google Sign-In to authenticate users. When you sign in, Google confirms your identity to us and shares the basic profile information described above. We use that information solely to create and identify your account.

You can revoke CHRONO's access to your Google account at any time from your Google Account security settings. Revoking access will prevent future sign-ins, though your CHRONO account and the information you previously shared will remain until you delete it.

Much of what you see on CHRONO is produced with the help of AI. Story summaries, audio briefings, and answers from our assistant are generated by language models and may occasionally be incomplete, misleading, or inaccurate. We use AI to help summarize and present news from third-party sources, but the underlying reporting comes from publishers and other sources we link to.

When you generate an audio briefing, the text of the summary is sent to a third-party text-to-speech provider to produce the narration. Chat messages and search queries are processed by AI models operated by our third-party providers.

Audio narration is synthesized by that third-party voice provider. The voice you hear is generated rather than recorded: no human reader has been recorded, and no person has endorsed or been impersonated by a CHRONO narration. The narration is an automated rendering of the same summary shown on screen.

If you read CHRONO in a language other than the one a story was written in, the headlines, summaries, and interface text you see are translated by an automated translation service. Translations are produced for convenience and may not capture every nuance of the original; the publisher's original wording remains the authoritative version.

We rely on a limited set of third-party services to operate CHRONO:

• Google for account sign-in, AI models used to generate summaries and responses, and web search used to discover and surface stories.
• ElevenLabs for synthesizing the audio narration of summaries and briefings, including the narrator voices you can choose between. The voice you hear is generated, not a recording of a person.
• Google Cloud Translation for translating headlines, summaries, and interface text into the language you have chosen. Only the text that needs translating is sent.
• Stripe for processing payments when you subscribe to a paid plan or make a donation. Your payment card details are handled by Stripe and are not stored on our servers.
• OpenStreetMap (Nominatim) for converting location names into geographic coordinates so we can show Local news.

Each of these providers processes data according to their own terms and policies. We share only the information necessary to perform the function you requested, for example the text of a summary when you generate an audio narration.

We do not sell or rent your personal information. We share information only as described in this policy: with the third-party providers listed above to deliver the features you request, and when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to comply with a legal obligation, protect our rights, or prevent harm.

Aggregate, anonymized usage data may be shared internally or with partners in a form that does not identify you personally.

We keep your account information for as long as your account is active. You can delete your account at any time from your account settings, which removes your profile details and followed topics. Waitlist and contact submissions are retained until you ask us to remove them. Usage and visit logs are kept in an anonymized or aggregated form and may be retained for analytics.

You have control over your information. You can:

• Edit your profile details or delete your account from your account settings at any time.
• Revoke CHRONO's access to your Google account through your Google Account security settings.
• Clear your browser's local storage to remove your theme preference, seen-story history, visitor identifier, and chat history.
• Request access to, correction of, or deletion of the personal information we hold about you by contacting us at the address below.
• Withdraw consent for any processing that relies on it.

Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights under local privacy laws, such as the right to know what personal information we have collected about you or the right to request that it be deleted.

CHRONO is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16. If you believe we have collected information from a child under 16, please contact us and we will take steps to delete it.

We take reasonable measures to protect your information, but no system is perfectly secure. We cannot guarantee the absolute security of your data, and you share information with us at your own risk.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will revise the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. We encourage you to review this policy periodically. Continued use of CHRONO after a change means you accept the updated policy.

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your information, you can reach us at support@chrono.news. You can also read our Terms of Use.