1. Operator Identity
Russian Reading operates this website and is responsible for the processing of personal data described in this Privacy Policy.
2. What Information We Collect
We collect the following information:
- Email Address: For account sign-in through Better Auth
- Subscription Data: Subscription status, Polar customer ID, and related data for premium access management
- Reading Activity: Versioned narration bookmarks, explicit reading marks, Saved language references and practice timing, deliberate sessions, revisit plans, saved timezone, daily activity and optional private difficulty assessments. Detailed observation records contain compact sentence/token references, played intervals, help opens and validated dictionary identities; these describe activity, not understanding. Signed-in records are synchronized to Cloudflare D1. Guests keep progress and reading marks on their device. Saved language and detailed learning records require an account.
- Detailed observations can be switched off or cleared in Your learning without deleting saved items or earlier reading marks. Account export includes retained learning records. Checked practice stores its result and source-bound rule, without retaining your typed answer. Optional product measurement uses your analytics choice separately from these private learning tools; private answers and word histories are not sent to third-party analytics.
- Newsletter interest is optional and separate from an account. Updates need dedicated confirmation; account email verification does not subscribe you. Guest interest expires after 30 days without completion. Withdrawal takes effect locally immediately. A pseudonymous suppression fingerprint may remain for up to one year after withdrawal or deletion to prevent stale deliveries.
- Story ratings are public aggregates. Written reviews stay private until moderated; featured testimonials need separate, revocable permission. Issue reports and optional reply addresses stay private, are available through a private receipt or the protected support queue, and expire after 90 days. Optional diagnostics exclude query strings, credentials, private answers, screenshots and browsing history.
- Favorites: Stories you save to your shelf (synchronized to Cloudflare D1 for your signed-in account)
- User Preferences: Audio volume, filter settings, and language preferences (stored locally)
- Usage and Performance Data: Cloudflare provides aggregated Worker request and performance metrics. The production Worker keeps request-level invocation logs disabled. It records a performance trace for about 1% of requests, kept by Cloudflare for seven days: timing, the requested page path without its query string, the response status, and the database and storage operations involved, including SQL statement text but not its values. Traces do not include cookies, header values, request bodies or story text. If you allow browser analytics, Google Analytics and Cloudflare Web Analytics may collect page and performance data on selected public pages.
3. How We Use Your Information
We use the collected information for the following purposes:
- Providing access to premium content and managing subscriptions
- Saving your progress, reading marks, selected phrases, review timing and settings to support reading and optional return practice. Saved language offers a text download of currently accessible source material, without protected audio links. Account settings also offer a JSON download of your profile and owned learning records, including historical playback bookmarks and phrase review dates. It does not include story text, recordings, passwords, or authentication sessions. Contact us if you need help with a complete export.
- Processing payments through Polar
- Communicating with you about your account or subscription
- Operating, securing, and troubleshooting the website
4. Data Storage and Retention
Your data is stored as follows:
- Account and subscription records: Stored in Cloudflare D1
- Local Data: Progress, reading marks and settings are stored in your browser's localStorage. A selected phrase awaiting sign-in is held in sessionStorage for up to ten minutes; it does not merge another account's collection.
- Payment Data: Processed through Polar; we do not store your credit card details
Account information is retained while your account remains active. If you delete your account, we will delete or anonymize personal data unless we are required to retain it for legal, tax, accounting, or security purposes.
Friend-month rewards currently await supported card verification and are not activated. If activated, a trusted payment-provider check must confirm that a card has not been used for any previous paid membership or another gift before a free month begins. RussianReading stores a keyed one-way card-use record and proof digest, without card numbers, brand or last-four details, raw fingerprints or an account identifier in that record. The record survives account deletion while the campaign operates to prevent repeated gifts. Permanent campaign retirement disables further gifts after uncertain checkouts are settled; scheduled cleanup then removes these records in batches. Owned gift and redemption records are removed with the relevant account; confirmed failed or expired redemption records are removed after 30 days. Gift codes are hashed in D1 and are excluded from account exports and application logs.
5. International Data Transfers
Your information may be processed in countries other than your own. Where required by law, we rely on appropriate safeguards for international data transfers.
6. Cookies and Local Storage
Privacy choices
Analytics are off by default and stay off until you explicitly allow them. You can change or withdraw a saved choice through Privacy choices in the footer. When JavaScript is available, that link opens the consent controls; this section explains the choices if the controls are unavailable.
We use your browser's local storage to support:
- A local cache of reading progress for offline continuity
- Queued progress changes while a signed-in device is offline
- Audio, filter and Reader display preferences
Local caches can be deleted at any time through your browser settings. Signed-in progress, reading marks, favorites, saved-phrase references and review timing are stored in Cloudflare D1 and are removed through account deletion, subject to legally required retention.
Better Auth uses secure, HTTP-only session cookies to keep you signed in.
If you allow analytics, Google Analytics uses first-party analytics cookies to measure page visits and engagement.
Your analytics choice is stored in localStorage. If you allow analytics, Cloudflare Web Analytics initializes only on selected public editorial pages. Google Analytics measures successfully opened stories using the public story slug and focused, visible seconds. Fixed events can also count narration starts, explicit reading actions, practice opening, answer reveals, phrase saves and next-story clicks on eligible public pages. They contain no answers, phrase text, account identifiers or personal review history. These events measure actions, not comprehension or mastery. Both providers stay off on account, billing and saved-phrase review pages, and on pages opened with filters, search terms or links to a sentence or section. Unfiltered Stories and public reading-path links can be measured; sent page locations omit query details.
7. Third-Party Services
We use the following third-party services:
- Cloudflare: The Service is hosted on Cloudflare Workers. Account, progress, reading marks, saved stories, phrase references and review timing are stored in Cloudflare D1; media files are served from Cloudflare R2. Production Worker invocation logs are disabled; Cloudflare keeps sampled request traces (about 1% of requests, for seven days, without query strings, cookies, header values or request bodies) alongside aggregate Worker metrics. D1 Query Insights separately captures SQL query text for performance reporting, but not bound parameter values. If you allow analytics, Cloudflare Web Analytics measures page and performance data on selected public pages.
- Google Analytics: If you allow analytics, Google Analytics measures page visits, fixed learning-action counts on eligible public pages, and focused, visible time on successfully opened stories. Google advertising signals and ad personalization are disabled.
- Polar: We use Polar for payment processing and subscription management. Your payment information is processed by Polar for these purposes.
- Google and Apple: If Google or Apple sign-in is offered and you choose it, that provider processes information needed to complete sign-in under its own privacy policy.
These services have their own privacy policies, which we encourage you to review. For information about Google Analytics, see How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services.
How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services
8. Your GDPR Rights
Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you have the following rights:
- Right to Access: You can request a copy of all data we hold about you
- Right to Rectification: You can request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data
- Right to Erasure: You can request deletion of your personal data ("right to be forgotten")
- Right to Data Portability: You can request your data in a structured, machine-readable format
- Right to Object: You can object to the processing of your data
9. Account Deletion
You can start self-service account deletion from your Account page after confirming this action with your current password or a code sent to your verified account email. The workflow removes your profile, synchronized progress, reading marks, favorites, saved-phrase references and review timing, cancels renewable billing when supported, and then removes the authentication identity. Certain records may be retained or anonymized where required by law, such as billing or security records. If self-service deletion is unavailable, use the contact form.
10. Security
We take reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect personal data from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction.
11. How to Exercise Your Rights
To exercise any of the above rights, please use our contact form:
Please include "GDPR Request" in the subject line and include the following information:
- Your email address associated with your account
- Which right you wish to exercise (access, deletion, etc.)
We will respond to your request within the timeframe required by applicable law.
12. Contact Information
If you have questions about this privacy policy or how we handle your personal data, please use our contact form: