Privacy & cookie statement

About this website

This website is operated by The Correspondent Media B.V., a Netherlands-based legal entity incorporated in Amsterdam, with its registered address at Barentszplein 7, 1013 NJ, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

The Correspondent B.V. is jointly responsible for - or in legal terms: a joint controller with regard to - the data processed in the context of this website together with De Correspondent B.V., also registered at the same address. If you have any questions about our privacy policy or how we take care of your personal data, you can reach us via hello@thecorrespondent.com.

What happens when I visit your website?

When you visit thecorrespondent.com or any of its subdomains, even when you’re not a member, we automatically collect the following information about you:

• The pages you visit on our website and the date and time of your visit(s);
• Your IP-address (this a number which uniquely identifies your internet connection);
• The website you came from before visiting our website; and
• The links you click on on our website.

We use this information to help us understand how people are using our website, and to make sure our website is secure. We do so because we want to make sure our website operates effectively and securely (in legal terms: we have a legitimate interest to do so). We store all of this data for a period of two years.

This means that when you view an article on our website and you’re not a member, if you later return and visit another article we will be able to see this in our analytics overview.

We perform our analytics using services from Innocraft, Ltd, a privacy friendly analytics service, called Matomo. We pay for the use of this service with money, not with your data. This data is and stays ours and is aggregated. Innocraft is based in New Zealand. You can find Innocraft's privacy policy here.

We also use cookies to track you on our website. You can read more about this below.

When you visit our website after you have logged in as a member, we collect additional data about you.

What happens when I become a member?

When you become a member of The Correspondent - for which we thank you very much! - the following happens to your data. Through the signup form, we collect the following information about you:

• Your first name, last name, email address and password. We use your name to address you personally in our communications (for example, when we send you an email). We also use your name in our invoices. And we publish your name when you react on our platform. We use your email address to communicate with you, to allow you to login and to allow you to restore your password. We use your password to authenticate you. We do all this because we want to perform our agreement with you.
• The country and in some cases the region (e.g. state or province) you live in. We are legally obliged to collect this information to determine which tax laws apply to your membership contribution.
• The contribution amount, whether you pay monthly or annually, the country and in some cases the region (e.g. state or province) you live in, the currency, payment method and payment details. We use this information to process your contribution and send you invoices. We do this because we want to perform our agreement with you.
• The start date of the membership. We use this data to now when your membership can be renewed. We do this because we have an interest in gaining insight into our membership base.
• When you decide to make a donation in addition to your membership contribution, we collect whether the donation is monthly, annually or one off, the amount, the payment method and the payment details. We use this information to process your donation and send you invoices.

We retain all this data for as long as you are a member with us. We’re required to store invoices and payment transactions from your account for seven years after your last contribution to The Correspondent.

In order to process the payment and perform analytics on the payments, we send this information to Stripe, Inc., based in San Francisco. We use Stripe to process payments and to perform analytics. Stripe collects identifying information about the devices that connect to its services. They use this information to operate and improve the services it provides to us, including for fraud detection. You can learn more about Stripe and read its privacy policy here.

The data that Stripe collects and shares with The Correspondent depends on the payment method. In case of paying by..

• .. credit card or debit card, Stripe collects your card number, expiry date, CVC number, the name of the card holder and the zip code in case of a US card. Stripe then provides The Correspondent with the last four digits of your card number, the expiry date, the name of the card holder, the brand and the issuing country.
• .. iDeal or Bancontact, you will be referred to the payment processors website. We forward the payment processor your name, the reference of the payment and the amount to be paid. You can then authorise the transaction, after which we receive an update from the payment processor on whether the transaction succeeded or failed. Stripes then provides The Correspondent the name of the bank, the BIC, the name of the account holder and the bank account number.

What data do you collect when I have become a member?

You can indicate the following preferences as a member (you can change them here):

• Email and notification preferences: Whether you want to receive the daily newsletter and our weekly overview by mail; whether and with what frequency you want to receive notifications on the website; and whether and with what frequency you want to receive a notification by mail on new publications by correspondents you’re following. We use this information to send emails according to your preferences.
• Correspondent preferences: which correspondents you want to follow, and how (through the platform or through newsletters). We use this information to provide you with a reading experience on our platform which is tailored to your preferences.
• Reading preferences: whether the reading time should be displayed, the font size and type, and reading mode. We use this information to ensure you can comfortably use our platform on your devices.
• Account settings: whether you want us to collect your browser and IP-address to secure your devices. We use this to secure your devices.

We also use all of this data to gain insight in the reading preferences of our members (in legal terms: because we have a legitimate interest to do so).

We also collect which articles you’ve read and when you did so (you can find an overview of the articles here). If you indicated you want to store an article, we’ll also add it to your list of stored articles (you can find the list here). We do so to allow you to easily retrieve your reading history. We also do this to gain insight into the reading habits of our members. We store this data for as long as you are a member with us.

What happens when you send me an email?

We send our emails via the platform using MailChimp. MailChimp is a service that allows us to create and send emails to large numbers of people at once. Newsletters sent with MailChimp track when a recipient opened an email or clicked on certain links. MailChimp records each subscriber's email address, IP address, plus the date and time for each open and click. MailChimp uses this data to create reports for The Correspondent about how well a newsletter was read and by whom. You can read the privacy policy of MailChimp here.

For our transactional emails (e.g. password forget or other membership related emails) we are using both SendGrid and Postmark. These services help us to deliver these kind of emails to our members. Both SendGrid and Postmark track when a recipient opened an email or clicked on certain links. This data is used to create reports about the deliverability and spam reputation of our emails. You can read the privacy policy of SendGrid here. Postmark is a service of Wildbit, LLC. Wildbit is based in Pennsylvania, United States of America. You can find their privacy policy here.

Do you share my information with the Dutch-language platform De Correspondent when I become a member?

The websites of our English-language platform The Correspondent and our Dutch-language platform De Correspondent are running on the same IT-infrastructure, operated by De Correspondent B.V., a Dutch legal entity which forms part of the same group as The Correspondent B.V.. A select group of people at The Correspondent as well as De Correspondent can access the data collected when you visit the website of The Correspondent.

The data on members of The Correspondent and members of De Correspondent is hosted by De Correspondent B.V. and accessible by both The Correspondent and De Correspondent. This means that if you become a member of The Correspondent, we will share your data with our Dutch language platform De Correspondent (and vice versa).

The Correspondent B.V. is a joint controller with regard to the data together processed in the course of offering its technology together with De Correspondent B.V.. If you have any questions or requests regarding your privacy (such as a request to access your data, see below), please contact us at hello@thecorrespondent.com.

What happens when I gift someone a membership?

When you gift someone a membership, we will collect the first and last name of the recipient, the amount of the gift and under what name you want to provide the gift. If you indicate you want to have us email the gift certificate to a recipient, we will also collect the email address of the recipient. We do so in order to prepare and send the gift certificate. We will further inform you when the recipient used the gift. We do so to keep you updated on your gift. We do this to perform our agreement with you. We store this data for a period of two years.

Which cookies do you use on this website?

First things first: a "cookie" is a small piece of data that a website can send to your browser, which is then stored on the device you are using to visit that website. It can be used to track you on one website and sometimes across multiple websites.

We use the following cookies:

The Correspondent

• session
  Expires in 6 months. We use this cookie to keep you logged in on our platform.
• cookies-cleaned
  Expires in a month. We use this cookie to store whether we've cleaned previous cookies. We like to clean up after ourselves.

Stripe

• nsr
  Expires after browser session ends. We use this cookie for payment processing via Stripe.
• __stripe_mid
  Expires in 1 year. We use this cookie for payment processing via Stripe.
• __strip_sid
  Expires in 30 minutes. We use this cookie for payment processing via Stripe.
• Stripe (scripts)
  Stripe uses these scripts on our payment page to process payments.

YouTube

• IDE
  Expires in 13 months. When you choose to play the video, YouTube places this cookie. You can read the privacy policy of YouTube here.
• PREF
  Expires in 8 months. When you choose to play the video, YouTube places this cookie.
• VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
  Expires in 6 months. When you choose to play the video, YouTube places this cookie.
• GPS
  Expires in 1 day. When you choose to play the video, YouTube places this cookie.
• YSC
  Expires after browser session ends. When you choose to play the video, YouTube places this cookie.

Vimeo

• _abexps
  Expires in 1 year. When you choose to play the video, Vimeo places this cookie. You can read the privacy policy of Vimeo here.
• player
  Expires in 1 year. When you choose to play the video, Vimeo places this cookie.
• vuid
  Expires in 1 year. When you choose to play the video, Vimeo places this cookie.

Soundcloud

• sc_anonymous_id
  Expires in 363 days. We use soundcloud to embed audio in our platform. When you choose to play the audio, Soundcloud places this cookie. You can read the privacy policy of Soundcloud here.

TED

• _gat
  Expires in 1 minute. When you choose to play the video, TED places this cookie. You can read the privacy policy of TED here.
• _ga
  Expires directly. When you choose to play the video, TED places this cookie.
• _gid
  Expires in 1 day. When you choose to play the video, TED places this cookie.
• muxData
  Doesn't expire. When you choose to play the video, TED places this cookie.

In addition, we serve the following cookies:

Matomo / Piwik / Innocraft

• _pk_id.1.xxxx
  Expires in 393 days. We use these scripts for analytics purposes, e.g. to gain insight into the visits on our website.
• _pk_ses.1.xxxx
  Expires in 30 minutes. We use these scripts for analytics purposes, e.g. to gain insight into the visits on our website.
• Piwik / Matomo (scripts)
  We use these scripts for analytics purposes, e.g. to gain insight into the visits on our website.

How do you protect my data?

We take protecting your data seriously, and put a number of technical and organizational measures in place to keep your data secure. For instance, we keep our servers up-to-date and only send personal details through secured (SSL/TLS) connections.

Do you share my information with others?

We share your data with parties we work together with on this platform. These are the payment processors and analytics provider mentioned above.

Where do you store my data?

Our IT-infrastructure is in the United States and this is also the location where your data is stored. To make sure we don’t end up with people having an account at The Correspondent as well as a separate account under the same email address at our Dutch sister company De Correspondent, we also store all of the email addresses of The Correspondent in Germany, the location of our IT-infrastructure of De Correspondent.

What are my rights?

You have the right to request access to the data we have about you. You also have a right to correct or delete your data, restrict the processing, or object to the processing. You also have the right to transfer your data in some cases (so-called data portability). If you have a request, please send it to hello@thecorrespondent.com and we’ll get back to you quickly. Lastly, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority regulating data protection in Europe. The Dutch supervisory authority is the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens. You can submit a complaint here.

A note about children’s personal data

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13. If you believe that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, please contact us at hello@thecorrespondent.com. If we become aware that a child under 13 has given us personal information, we will delete it.