ShortNews Privacy Policy

Effective August 12, 2026

ShortNews processing stays off until the user chooses Enable previews, keeps Show previews on, and allows the active site. On Firefox for Android, preview work begins only when the user deliberately long-presses an eligible public article link or requests a current-page summary.

Information used for previews:
ShortNews may use the selected article URL, publisher domain, headline, subtitle, nearby story context, relevant public publisher article text, and visible article text from the active tab when the user explicitly requests a current-page summary and ordinary publisher retrieval is insufficient.

ShortNews may also use limited operational information needed for reliability, security, abuse prevention, and user-submitted feedback. If the user posts in a shared article conversation, ShortNews sends the comment text, article link, and timestamp to the ShortNews service so other ShortNews users viewing the same normalized article link can see it.

ShortNews does not send publisher cookies, page HTML, unrelated browsing history, or account details. This Firefox build uses anonymous ShortNews access and does not include Google sign-in.

Purpose and recipients:
Information is used to retrieve and summarize the article selected by the user, display the preview card, show shared article conversations, record feedback the user submits, maintain reliability, and prevent abuse. The ShortNews service and its cloud hosting provider process the request. An AI service provider receives the article content needed to generate an AI summary when a suitable reusable summary is unavailable. Publishers or link providers may receive credential-free requests needed to resolve or retrieve the selected public article.

ShortNews does not sell user data, create advertising profiles, or use data for personalized advertising.

Storage and retention:
Consent, settings, saved cards, conversation read markers, anonymous service access information, and a random non-personal installation identifier are stored in Firefox extension storage. Generated link-preview summaries may be retained in the browser for about ten minutes and by the ShortNews service for no more than two hours. Raw article text is not retained in that reusable summary cache. Explicit current-page summaries are kept only in current-tab caches for about five minutes and are excluded from reusable service caching. Saved cards remain until the user removes them or uninstalls the extension. Article comments are bounded to the latest 50 comments per article thread and may be retained by the ShortNews service for up to 30 days.

User controls:
The user can turn off Show previews to close the active card, prevent new ShortNews processing, clear current-tab summary data, and cancel browser-side requests where possible. The user can turn off Allow on this site to clear the site allowance in that tab. The user can remove saved cards individually. Written feedback is sent only when the user presses Send. Removing the extension clears extension-local information according to Firefox extension-storage behavior.

Security:
ShortNews uses encrypted HTTPS connections, credential-free publisher retrieval, and access limited to supported public destinations. Private pages, local pages, login flows, downloads, signed temporary links, and unsafe redirects are blocked intentionally.

Full privacy policy:
https://github.com/goku1248/ShortNews/blob/main/PRIVACY.md