Privacy policy

1. Personal information we process and why

• Reports and inquiries: If you send the report and correction form on the Site or send a report or inquiry by email, we receive your email address, your name and the content of your request (request type, article URL and reason), and use them to handle your request and to send you a confirmation and the outcome. Forms sent on the Site are forwarded to the operator's mailbox and are not stored on the Site. When you send the form, Cloudflare Turnstile checks browser and device information to prevent automated submissions, and to prevent abuse we store keyed cryptographic hashes (HMAC-SHA-256) of your IP address and email address together with the reference number, time of receipt and processing status.
• Automatically collected information: In providing the Site, your IP address, browser and device information, and access time are processed on the hosting provider's servers. This information is used to deliver pages and for security (blocking abnormal access).
• View and recommendation counts: To count views by the same user on the same day (the date changes at 15:00 UTC) and recommendations of the same article only once, we use a value produced by hashing your IP address with a secret key (HMAC-SHA-256). The hash used to check views is not stored; it stays in the Cloudflare cache only until the next 15:00 UTC. When you recommend an article, the hash is stored with the article ID and the time of the recommendation. View and recommendation records do not store the IP address itself.
• Request logs: Records of handling view and recommendation requests (request URL, IP address, browser information, country, access time and result) are kept in the hosting provider's logging service (Cloudflare Workers Logs and Workers Traces). They are used only to investigate errors.
• Summary audio: Summary audio is created in advance from the article title and key points when the article is produced. When you select Listen, your browser downloads the audio file from Cloudflare, and none of your information is sent to the service that creates the audio.
• Visit statistics: Through Google Analytics, installed with Google Tag Manager, we collect the address of the pages you visit and the referring page, usage such as page views, scrolling, outbound link clicks, site search terms and file downloads, browser and device information, and an approximate location (country and city) estimated from your IP address, to review visit statistics. Google Analytics uses cookies to distinguish visitors and does not store IP addresses.
• Visit statistics (Naver): Through Naver Analytics, we collect the address of the pages you visit and the referring page, browser and device information, and your IP address, to review search referrals and visit statistics. Naver Analytics uses a cookie that records the time of your last visit.
• Advertising: The Site shows ads through Google AdSense. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this Site or other websites. You can turn off personalized ads in Google My Ad Center (https://myadcenter.google.com).

The Site has no sign-up or payment features and does not process personal information for any purpose other than the above. Comments are provided through 108talk, which is run by a separate business, and information about comments is processed by 108talk, not by the Site (Section 5).

2. Retention period

• Reports and inquiries: kept for one year from the day handling is completed, then destroyed. If a law requires retention, they are kept for that period.
• Form receipt records (reference number, hashes, time of receipt and processing status): kept for one year from receipt to prevent abuse, then destroyed.
• Automatically collected information: deleted after processing under the hosting provider's retention policy.
• View-check hashes: not stored; kept in the cache only until the first 15:00 UTC after the view. Only per-article view totals remain.
• Recommendation records (hash and time of recommendation): kept while the article is published to prevent duplicate recommendations by the same user, and destroyed when the article is deleted.
• Request logs: kept for 7 days from the time of recording under the hosting provider's retention policy, then deleted automatically.
• Visit statistics (Google Analytics): event-level data is kept for 2 months from collection and then deleted automatically; only aggregate figures remain in reports. The cookies that distinguish visitors are stored in your browser for up to 2 years.
• Visit statistics (Naver Analytics): follows NAVER's privacy policy. The cookie that records the time of your last visit (wcs_bt) is stored in your browser with an expiry date set far in the future, and is deleted when you clear this Site's cookies in your browser.
• Advertising information (Google AdSense): follows Google's privacy policy.

3. Provision to third parties

The Site does not provide personal information to third parties except where the law provides a basis for it.

4. Outsourcing and cross-border transfer

The Site uses the services of the following provider to deliver the website and article images and audio files, for security, for counting views and recommendations and for investigating errors.

• Recipient: Cloudflare, Inc. (United States), privacy@cloudflare.com
• Purpose: delivering the website and article images and audio files; security; counting views and recommendations (recommendation records are stored in the Cloudflare D1 Asia-Pacific region); keeping request logs to investigate errors; preventing automated submissions of the report and correction form (Turnstile), forwarding the form to the operator and sending confirmation emails (Email Service); keeping form receipt records (Cloudflare D1)
• Items transferred: IP address, browser and device information, access time, hashed IP value, time of recommendation, request logs (request URL, country, result), the email address, name and request written in the form, form receipt records (reference number, hashes, time of receipt, processing status)
• Timing and method: transmitted over the network when you access the Site, view, recommend or play an article, or send the form
• Retention: view-check hashes, recommendation records, request logs and form receipt records follow the periods in Section 2; other information follows Cloudflare's privacy policy

For visit statistics and advertising, the Site uses the services of the following provider.

• Recipient: Google LLC (United States), privacy inquiries at https://support.google.com/policies/contact/general_privacy_form
• Purpose: visit statistics (Google Analytics), ad serving (Google AdSense), managing the tag that loads the visit statistics tool (Google Tag Manager), and consent management for visitors from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland (Google consent management message)
• Items transferred: cookie identifiers, IP address, browser and device information, the address of the page visited and the referring page, page usage (views, scrolling, link clicks, site search terms, file downloads), ad impressions and clicks, consent choices
• Timing and method: transmitted over the network when you open a page on the Site or interact with it
• Retention: Google Analytics event data follows the period in Section 2; other information follows Google's privacy policy. How Google processes this information is described at https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites

For visit statistics, the Site also uses the service of the following provider in Korea.

• Processor: NAVER Corp. (Republic of Korea)
• Task: visit statistics (Naver Analytics)
• Items processed: the last-visit time cookie (wcs_bt), IP address, browser and device information, the address of the page visited and the referring page
• Retention: follows NAVER's privacy policy (https://policy.naver.com/policy/privacy.html)

If you do not want your information transferred abroad, you can stop using the Site. You can refuse visit statistics and personalized ads as described in Section 6.

5. External comment service

Comments and chat on the Site are provided through 108talk, an external service run by a separate business. The comment button and comment window are loaded from 108talk's servers. The Site does not receive or store the information sent to 108talk in this process; 108talk processes it under its own terms of service and privacy policy.

• Service provider: 108talk (https://108talk.com)
• When you open a page: to show the comment button and comment count, your browser connects to 108talk's server (api.108talk.com) and sends your IP address, browser information and the address of the page you are viewing. This connection happens even if you do not write a comment.
• When you open the comment window: the page address, page title and display language are sent.
• When you write a comment or chat message: the name and password you enter, your text and any photos you upload, a browser identifier created by the comment window and your IP address are sent. Your name and the first part of your IP address are shown with your post.
• Editing, deletion and your rights: you can edit or delete a comment with the password you set when writing it. Requests to access, correct, delete or suspend the processing of information handled by 108talk should be made to 108talk.

If you block api.108talk.com with your browser's content blocking feature or an extension, your browser does not connect to 108talk's server. Only the comments disappear, and articles remain readable.

6. Cookies and browser storage

The Site uses Google Analytics cookies (_ga and cookies beginning with _ga_) for visit statistics, and these cookies are stored in your browser for up to 2 years. Naver Analytics uses a cookie that records the time of your last visit (wcs_bt) and this Site's local storage for visit statistics. Google may set or read cookies for advertising. The Site sets no other cookies of its own. Your choices of display mode (light or dark) and article text size are stored only in your browser's local storage (localStorage) and are not sent to the Site. They are deleted when you clear site data in your browser settings.

When you open the comment window, the 108talk script saves the comment window's language in the Site's local storage. Under 108talk's policies, the comment window keeps a browser identifier and settings in 108talk's browser storage, and if you set it to remember your name and password on this browser, it saves them there as well.

The hosting provider may also set essential cookies for security. You can refuse cookies in your browser settings, for example under Settings > Privacy and security > Third-party cookies in Chrome or Settings > Privacy in Safari. Google Analytics and Naver Analytics cookies are stored under this Site's address, so blocking third-party cookies alone does not block them. You can refuse visit statistics by blocking this Site's cookies in your browser or by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on (https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout), and you can turn off personalized ads in Google My Ad Center (https://myadcenter.google.com). If you refuse cookies, articles remain readable, but some security checks may not work.

Visitors from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland are first asked for consent to cookies and the use of personal data through Google's consent management message, which also offers a Do not consent option. Before you consent, or if you do not consent, Google Analytics and advertising do not store or read cookies, and Google Analytics sends only minimal signals such as page views without cookies. The consent message stores a cookie to remember your choice, and you can change or withdraw your choice at any time through the privacy and cookie settings link on the Site. For visitors whose browser time zone is in Europe, Naver Analytics is loaded only after you consent to storing information on your device and to measurement in the consent message.

7. Destruction

Personal information is destroyed without delay when its retention period ends or the purpose of processing has been achieved. Electronic files are deleted in a way that cannot be recovered.

8. Your rights and how to exercise them

You may request access to, correction or deletion of, or suspension of the processing of your personal information at any time. Send your request by email to the privacy officer below and we will act on it without delay. Information about comments, however, is processed by 108talk, so requests about it should be made to 108talk as described in Section 5.

9. Security measures

Report and inquiry information is managed only in accounts with restricted access and is viewed by the minimum number of people necessary. View and recommendation counts use only a value hashed with a secret key instead of the IP address, and the secret key is kept in a secrets management system separate from the code repository. Request logs can be viewed only by operators with access to the hosting provider account.

10. Privacy officer

• Officer: AIPOST operator
• Contact: contact@aipost.kr

11. Remedies for infringement

If you need advice on or the resolution of a dispute about the infringement of personal information, you can ask the competent authorities for help in accordance with the systems and laws of each country.