Privacy and site statistics
We count page views so we know which stories people read. We do it on our own site, without advertising trackers, and we set no cookies that follow you.
Last updated October 29, 2026.
Who runs the site
The Utah Ledger is published by Paul Ivinskas. The site is hosted on Cloudflare, which handles the requests your browser makes and, like any host, sees your network address while it delivers pages. The visit counts described below are kept in a Redis database from Upstash.
What we count
For each page view: the page, the site that sent you (for example a search engine), whether you're on a phone, tablet or computer, the broad type of browser and system (for example “Safari” and “iOS”), the hour of day, and your approximate city, state and country as reported by Cloudflare. We count daily visitors with a code made from your network address and browser details plus the date and a private key, so the code changes every day and we can't tell that two visits on different days came from the same person. We don't store IP addresses or browser fingerprints in our statistics.
We also count a few actions on a page, by page only: how long a page stays open in a visible tab, how far down an article you scroll, and clicks on stories, sources, links to other sites, downloads, filters, searches and the newsletter form. We never record what you type into a search box.
For the owner-only recent-visits list, we retain up to the latest 50 counted public page paths and their server receipt times, for no more than seven days. New rows also attach approximate city and state/region (with country code), when available, and a coarse source label such as Google, Other referring site, or Direct / unknown. Location can reflect a VPN, mobile network or proxy, and a missing referrer does not prove a direct visit. Query strings and fragments are removed from page paths; full referrer URLs and campaign text are not retained. These rows contain no visitor or session identifier, IP address or precise coordinates, and do not link visits into a person's browsing history. Existing opt-outs apply to this list too.
Cookies and your browser's storage
The only cookie readers can get is the one below that remembers you switched counting off. Your browser's own storage also keeps a few choices on your device only, and we never receive them: light or dark theme, the city you pick under “Choose your city” or “My city,” and the list page you came from, so Back works as expected. Clear your browser's site data to remove them.
Your location
The homepage “Near you” row asks our server for your approximate location, based on your network address, to link the three closest city pages. That lookup is answered and forgotten: it is not stored or logged by this feature, and nothing is returned if you appear to be outside Utah. If you pick a city instead, that choice stays on your device.
Messages and email
If you write to us through the contact form, we keep your message, and your name and email if you give them, so we can read and answer it. The most recent 500 messages are kept on a private dashboard, and the publisher may also get a copy by email. To limit spam, we count messages per hour using a scrambled version of your network address, not the address itself. We don't publish your message or share it.
The newsletter signup sends your email address to Buttondown, which handles the confirmation email and unsubscribing. Until signups open, the form says so and stores nothing.
Other sites and embeds
The “preferred source” prompt under stories does nothing until you tap it. Only then does the page load Google's button script, and Google's own privacy policy covers that. A few pages let you load third-party content, such as a city's official project map, or show embedded YouTube videos (from YouTube's no-cookie domain) and Instagram posts on team pages; those providers can see your visit once the content loads. Photos on the site are stored on our own servers rather than loaded from other sites. Links to other sites are covered by their own policies.
We use Google Search Console to see how our pages appear in Google Search. It reports search data about the site, not about individual readers.
Photos and images
We take care with images of people. Some stories use an AI-generated illustration, always labeled “AI illustration,” and we don't use generated images on crime, crash or death stories. We don't publish home addresses.
What we don't count
Search engine crawlers and other automated visits, and anyone whose browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control.