Privacy Policy

Effective Date: January 1, 2025
Last Updated: September 1, 2026

Introduction

Good Citizen Syndicate respects the privacy of our readers, viewers, creators, contributors, sources, event participants, business partners, and members of the communities we cover.

This Privacy Policy explains how Good Citizen Syndicate may collect, use, store, disclose, and protect information when you visit our websites, interact with our content, subscribe to communications, submit information or documents, attend or register for events, apply to work or create with us, communicate with our team, or otherwise use services operated by Good Citizen Syndicate.

Because Good Citizen Syndicate operates across journalism, investigations, creator-led programming, podcasts, video, business content, events, community projects, and other forms of media, the information we receive and the reasons we receive it may vary depending on how you interact with us.

This Privacy Policy applies to services controlled by Good Citizen Syndicate unless a particular service states that a different policy applies.

Information We May Collect

Depending on how you interact with Good Citizen Syndicate, we may collect the following categories of information:

• Contact information, such as your name, email address, telephone number, organization, or mailing information when voluntarily provided.
• Newsletter and subscription information, including email addresses, communication preferences, and engagement with messages we send.
• Account information, if we offer user accounts, memberships, subscriptions, creator portals, or other authenticated services.
• Tips, story submissions, and source information, including messages, documents, photographs, video, audio, correspondence, contact information, and other material voluntarily provided to our journalists or creators.
• Creator, contributor, employment, or partnership information, including applications, biographies, portfolios, social profiles, professional information, and communications.
• Event information, including registrations, event submissions, attendance information, or information supplied by organizers.
• User-generated content, such as comments, submissions, messages, photographs, videos, reviews, or other material you choose to provide.
• Transaction information, if you purchase tickets, merchandise, memberships, services, or other products through Good Citizen Syndicate.
• Device and technical information, which may include IP address, browser type, operating system, device identifiers, approximate location derived from an IP address, referring pages, and technical logs.
• Website and content usage information, such as pages viewed, videos watched, links clicked, time spent on content, searches, traffic sources, and interactions with our services.
• Cookie and similar technology information, including information collected through cookies, pixels, tags, local storage, analytics tools, advertising technology, and similar systems.
• Social media and third-party platform information, when you interact with Good Citizen Syndicate through platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, X, TikTok, podcast services, or other third-party services.

We may also receive information from public records, publicly available sources, government agencies, court records, businesses, sources, data providers, social platforms, other journalists, creators, and third parties as part of our journalistic and research activities.

How We Use Information

Good Citizen Syndicate may use information to operate, improve, secure, and grow our services; publish and distribute journalism and other content; communicate with readers, viewers, creators, sources, partners, and event participants; respond to inquiries, tips, and submissions; research and investigate matters of public interest; administer newsletters and other communications; personalize or improve the user experience; understand audience engagement and website performance; administer events, contests, memberships, applications, or programs; detect fraud, abuse, security threats, or technical problems; comply with applicable legal obligations; protect our rights and the rights of others; and support advertising, sponsorship, and other legitimate business activities.

Information collected for journalistic purposes may also be used in connection with reporting, verification, investigation, source development, editorial decision-making, fact-checking, documentation, and publication.

Journalism, Sources, and Confidential Information

Protecting sources is an important part of independent journalism.

Good Citizen Syndicate may receive information from people who request confidentiality, anonymity, background treatment, or other source protections.

We take source confidentiality seriously and may use reasonable legal, editorial, operational, and technical measures to protect sensitive source information when appropriate.

However, submitting information to Good Citizen Syndicate does not automatically create a confidential-source relationship, attorney-client relationship, or legally privileged communication.

A person who requires confidentiality should make that request clearly when communicating with us and, where available, use a designated secure tip or source-contact method rather than an ordinary website form, social media direct message, or general email account.

The legal protections available to journalists and confidential sources can vary depending on the jurisdiction, circumstances, nature of the information, and applicable law.

Good Citizen Syndicate may challenge requests for confidential journalistic information or source identities when we believe doing so is appropriate and legally available. However, we cannot promise that information will never be subject to lawful legal process or that confidentiality can be guaranteed under every circumstance.

We will not voluntarily disclose the identity of a confidential source merely for commercial convenience.

Tips, Documents, Photos, Video, and Other Submissions

Good Citizen Syndicate may provide ways for members of the public to send tips, documents, photographs, recordings, video, data, or other information.

Unless otherwise stated, transmitting material does not guarantee that we will investigate, publish, respond to, return, preserve, or maintain the confidentiality of the submission.

Please do not send highly sensitive information through ordinary website forms or social media channels if disclosure of that information could place you or another person at significant risk.

Where Good Citizen Syndicate provides a designated method for sensitive or confidential source communications, users should follow the instructions associated with that channel.

Information submitted as a news tip may be reviewed by relevant members of our editorial, investigative, legal, technical, or production teams as necessary to evaluate or pursue the information.

Cookies and Similar Technologies

Good Citizen Syndicate and service providers acting on our behalf may use cookies, pixels, tags, local storage, software development kits, and similar technologies.

These technologies may be used to keep the website functioning, remember preferences, measure traffic and audience engagement, understand how visitors use our services, improve performance, prevent abuse, measure campaigns, support advertising, and provide or measure content.

Cookies may be temporary or remain on a device for a longer period. The FTC notes that cookies and similar technologies can be used to recognize devices, remember preferences, analyze site activity, and support advertising.

Most browsers allow users to delete, block, or limit cookies. Disabling certain technologies may affect the functionality of parts of our services.

Where required by applicable law, we may provide additional controls for certain cookies or advertising technologies.

Analytics

Good Citizen Syndicate may use third-party analytics providers to understand how our websites, applications, newsletters, video, and other content are used.

Analytics providers may collect technical and usage information such as device information, approximate location, traffic sources, pages viewed, interactions, and engagement metrics.

We use this information to understand our audience, improve our services, identify technical problems, and make editorial and business decisions.

Advertising and Sponsorship Technology

Good Citizen Syndicate may display advertisements, sponsorships, affiliate links, or branded content.

Advertising and technology partners may use cookies, pixels, or similar technologies to measure advertising performance, limit repetitive advertisements, understand engagement, or provide advertising based on contextual or other permitted information.

Depending on the technology used and the laws applicable to a particular user, certain advertising activities may be considered targeted advertising, sharing, or another regulated form of data processing.

Where required by applicable law, users may be provided with relevant opt-out or consent mechanisms.

Our acceptance of advertising or sponsorship does not give an advertiser access to confidential journalistic source information.

Embedded Content and Third-Party Platforms

Good Citizen Syndicate may embed or link to content from third-party services, including video players, podcasts, social media posts, maps, event services, payment systems, forms, and other interactive features.

When you interact with embedded third-party content, the third-party provider may collect information about that interaction according to its own privacy policy.

Good Citizen Syndicate does not control the privacy practices of external platforms and encourages users to review the policies of services they use.

Newsletters and Communications

If you subscribe to a newsletter, alert, podcast notification, marketing communication, or similar service, we may use your contact information to provide those communications and understand engagement with them.

You may generally unsubscribe from promotional email communications by using the unsubscribe mechanism included in the message.

We may still send administrative or transactional communications when necessary in connection with an account, purchase, submission, event, legal matter, or service you requested.

Events

If you register for, attend, sponsor, submit, or otherwise participate in an event associated with Good Citizen Syndicate, we may collect information necessary to administer the event.

Events may take place in public settings where photography, audio recording, video recording, livestreaming, or journalistic coverage occurs.

Where appropriate, additional notices or terms may apply to particular events.

Payments and Transactions

If Good Citizen Syndicate offers paid memberships, tickets, merchandise, services, subscriptions, donations, or other transactions, payments may be processed by third-party payment processors.

Good Citizen Syndicate generally does not need to directly store complete payment-card information when a third-party processor handles the transaction.

Payment providers process information according to their own privacy and security practices.

Artificial Intelligence and Technology Providers

Good Citizen Syndicate may use artificial intelligence, machine learning, transcription systems, document-analysis tools, search technology, editing software, or other technology-assisted services as part of our journalism, production, research, administrative, or business workflows.

Use of third-party technology may involve processing information by service providers.

Good Citizen Syndicate will seek to use appropriate judgment when handling sensitive or confidential journalistic information and will not treat automated output as a substitute for responsible source handling, verification, security practices, or human editorial judgment.

How We May Share Information

Good Citizen Syndicate may disclose information to service providers and contractors that help operate our websites, hosting, analytics, email systems, content delivery, security, payment processing, event systems, production tools, advertising, or other business functions.

We may also disclose information:

• with your consent or at your direction;
• when reasonably necessary to investigate or prevent fraud, abuse, security threats, or unlawful conduct;
• to protect the rights, safety, property, or interests of Good Citizen Syndicate, our users, journalists, creators, sources, or others;
• when required by applicable law, valid legal process, or lawful governmental demand;
• in connection with a merger, acquisition, reorganization, financing, sale of assets, or similar business transaction;
• when information has been made public by the user or is published as part of our journalistic or creator content.

Journalistic source information is subject to the additional considerations described in the Journalism, Sources, and Confidential Information section above.

Public Information

Anything you intentionally submit for public display may become publicly accessible.

Examples may include comments, public creator profiles, event listings, letters, guest contributions, photographs, videos, usernames, or other material intended for publication.

Once information has been publicly distributed, copied, indexed, archived, reposted, or shared by third parties, Good Citizen Syndicate may not be able to fully remove every copy from the internet.

Data Security

Good Citizen Syndicate uses reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards intended to protect information against unauthorized access, loss, misuse, alteration, or disclosure.

However, no website, transmission method, communications platform, database, or storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

Users should exercise appropriate care when transmitting sensitive information online.

Data Retention

Good Citizen Syndicate may retain information for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, including editorial, journalistic, operational, security, legal, historical, archival, financial, or business purposes.

Retention periods may differ depending on the type of information.

Certain journalistic records, published materials, research files, source materials, public records, or archival information may be retained for extended periods when preservation serves legitimate editorial, historical, legal, or public-interest purposes.

When information is no longer reasonably required, it may be deleted, anonymized, or retained in a form that no longer identifies an individual, subject to applicable law and legitimate journalistic needs.

Your Privacy Rights

Depending on where you live and which laws apply to Good Citizen Syndicate, you may have rights concerning certain personal information, including the ability to request access, correction, deletion, or a portable copy of personal information, or to opt out of certain forms of targeted advertising, sale, sharing, profiling, or processing of sensitive information.

For example, Florida’s Digital Bill of Rights includes privacy-notice requirements and, for covered businesses and consumers, rights relating to access, correction, deletion, portability, targeted advertising, sale of personal data, and certain sensitive-data processing. Whether those provisions apply depends on statutory definitions and applicability requirements.

Good Citizen Syndicate will respond to valid privacy requests as required by applicable law.

Certain information may be exempt from a request or may need to be retained for legal, security, journalistic, archival, contractual, fraud-prevention, or other legitimate purposes.

To submit a privacy request, use the privacy or contact information provided on our website.

We may need to verify your identity before fulfilling certain requests.

Advertising Privacy Choices

Depending on applicable law and the advertising technology in use, users may have the right to opt out of certain targeted or cross-context behavioral advertising practices.

Where legally required and technically supported, Good Citizen Syndicate may provide a privacy preference mechanism or respond to recognized browser-based privacy signals.

Browser settings and advertising-industry opt-out tools may also provide additional controls.

Children’s Privacy

Good Citizen Syndicate’s general services are not directed toward children under 13, and we do not knowingly seek to collect personal information online from children under 13 without appropriate authorization.

Federal COPPA requirements can apply when an online service directed to children under 13, or one with actual knowledge it is collecting information from such children, collects personal information including certain persistent identifiers.

If we learn that personal information from a child has been collected in circumstances requiring parental consent without the required consent, we may take appropriate steps to remove the information.

Parents or guardians who believe a child has provided personal information inappropriately should contact us.

Links to Other Websites

Our reporting and content may contain links to external websites, public records, government portals, social media services, businesses, sources, sponsors, or other third parties.

Good Citizen Syndicate is not responsible for the privacy, security, data collection, or other practices of third-party services.

A link does not necessarily constitute endorsement.

Business Transfers

If Good Citizen Syndicate or a portion of its operations is reorganized, merged, acquired, financed, sold, or otherwise transferred, information associated with the affected operations may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to applicable law and appropriate protections.

International Visitors

Good Citizen Syndicate may be accessed from locations outside the United States.

If you access our services from another country, information may be processed or stored in the United States or other jurisdictions in which our service providers operate.

Privacy protections and data-processing laws may differ between jurisdictions.

Where applicable law requires additional protections, we will seek to comply with those obligations.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

Good Citizen Syndicate may update this Privacy Policy as our services, technology, business practices, journalistic operations, or legal obligations change.

When we make material revisions, we may update the Last Updated date and, when appropriate, provide additional notice.

The version published on our website is the current version.

Contact Us

For privacy questions, requests concerning personal information, or concerns about this Privacy Policy, please contact Good Citizen Syndicate through the privacy or contact information provided on our website.

Questions relating specifically to confidential sources or sensitive journalistic information should be directed through any designated source or secure-tip channel provided by Good Citizen Syndicate.

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