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Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 16, 2026

This page explains what information The Jolt Journal and the services it uses collect when you read the site, sign up for a newsletter or contact us, and the choices you have. Our Cookie Policy lists the cookies involved.

Personal Information

The Jolt Journal holds personal information only when you give it to us: your email address and chosen topics when you sign up for a newsletter, and your name, email address and message when you write to us through our contact page. We use it only to send what you asked for and to reply to you.

Reading the site does not require an account. As on most websites, though, the advertising and analytics services described below collect information directly from your browser, such as your IP address, the pages you visit, your device and browser, and cookie identifiers.

Third Parties

We do not sell or rent the email addresses or messages you give us. The services named on this page handle information on our behalf or collect it directly from your browser, under their own privacy policies, which we link to below.

Advertising (Google AdSense)

Ads on Jolt Journal are served by Google AdSense. Google, and other advertising companies that buy ad space through Google, use cookies to show ads, to limit how often you see the same ad, to measure ads and to detect fraud.

  • Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your previous visits to this website or other websites.
  • Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visits to this site and/or other sites on the internet. These are known as personalised ads.
  • You can opt out of personalised advertising from Google in Google Ads Settings. You can opt out of many other advertising companies’ use of cookies for personalised ads at aboutads.info, or, in Europe, at Your Online Choices. If you opt out, you will still see ads, but they will be less related to your interests.

Read How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services and Google’s privacy policy.

Ad-blocker messages (Admiral)

We use Admiral, which loads from castlereach.com. It checks whether your browser is blocking ads and counts how often that happens. It can show a message asking you to allow ads on Jolt Journal or to support the site another way, and it keeps a note in your browser of what you chose. Admiral can also request ads from its own advertising partners, such as Amazon’s ad service. See Admiral’s privacy policy.

Affiliate Links (Skimlinks)

Some links on Jolt Journal are affiliate links managed by Skimlinks. When you click one, Skimlinks may set a cookie to credit the referral. If your browser sends Global Privacy Control, Skimlinks does not turn any links on Jolt Journal into affiliate links, and our stories do not load Skimlinks at all. See Skimlinks’ privacy policy.

Analytics (Google Analytics 4)

We use Google Analytics 4 to count visits and see which stories are read. It records the pages you view, how you arrived, your device and browser, and your approximate location, which Google works out from your IP address. It sets cookies whose names begin with _ga. You can stop it with Google’s Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on.

Facebook and Instagram (Meta Pixel)

Our pages load the Meta Pixel, a piece of code from Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram. It tells Meta which page you visited, so Meta can count visits that come from its apps, measure any ads we run there, and show ads to people who have visited Jolt Journal. It sets a cookie named _fbp, and Meta may also recognise you if you are logged in to Facebook or Instagram in the same browser. You can manage how Meta uses this in your Facebook or Instagram ad preferences. See Meta’s privacy policy.

Newsletter (Mailchimp)

When you sign up for a newsletter, your email address and the topics you choose are sent to Mailchimp, a service of Intuit, which keeps our mailing list and sends the emails. Mailchimp first emails you a link to confirm your sign-up. Every newsletter includes a link to unsubscribe. Mailchimp may record whether an email was opened and which links were clicked. We do not keep a separate copy of your address on our website. See Intuit’s privacy statement.

Contact form and comments

Messages sent through our contact page are saved on our website and emailed to our team so that we can reply. Commenting requires an account, and comments are checked for spam by Akismet, a service of Automattic (see Automattic’s privacy policy).

Site delivery and our own counts

Jolt Journal is delivered through Cloudflare, which protects the site from attacks and serves pages quickly; to do that it handles your IP address. Cloudflare Web Analytics counts page loads and how fast pages appear, without cookies. See Cloudflare’s privacy policy.

On some visits our site also sends itself a short note when you leave a page: the kind of page, whether you used a phone or a computer, how far through a story you read and for roughly how long, and which part of the page you clicked to reach another story. It sets no cookie, and we keep only totals, never a record of individual readers.

Your choices

  • You can block or delete cookies in your browser’s settings. The site still works without them, though ads will be less related to your interests.
  • You can turn off personalised ads in Google Ads Settings and at aboutads.info or Your Online Choices.
  • You can stop Google Analytics with Google’s opt-out add-on.
  • If your browser sends Global Privacy Control, Skimlinks does not change any links for you.
  • You can unsubscribe from any newsletter with the link in each email.
  • You can ask us to see, correct or delete the personal information we hold about you through our contact page. Our GDPR Commitment page has more for readers in Europe and the UK.

Security

We take reasonable steps to protect the information we hold. No website or online service can promise perfect security, so please do not send us anything through the contact form that you would not want to risk being exposed.

Changes to this policy

When we add or remove a service that collects information, we update this page and the date at the top.

Disclaimer / Terms of Use

We provide information on an as-is basis. Neither we nor any third parties provide any warranty or guarantee as to the accuracy, timeliness, performance, completeness or suitability of the information and materials found or offered on this website for any particular purpose. You acknowledge that such information and materials may contain inaccuracies or errors and we expressly exclude liability for any such inaccuracies or errors to the fullest extent permitted by law.

The content of the pages of this website is for your general information and use only. It is subject to change without notice.

Your use of any information or materials on this website is entirely at your own risk, for which we shall not be liable. It shall be your own responsibility to ensure that any products, services or information available through this website meet your specific requirements.

This website contains material which is owned by or licensed to us. This material includes, but is not limited to, the design, layout, look, appearance, photos and graphics. Reproduction is prohibited other than in accordance with the copyright notice, which forms part of these terms and conditions.

From time to time this website may also include links to other websites. These links are provided for your convenience to provide further information. They do not signify that we endorse the website(s). We have no responsibility for the content of the linked website(s).