Privacy Policy

📖 Who We Are

SmallTalk (smalltalk.news) is an independent children’s news platform delivering real, age-appropriate news to young readers ages 5–13+. SmallTalk is student-run and operated with parental oversight.

🚫 What We Don’t Collect

SmallTalk does not:

• Require accounts or logins of any kind
• Collect names, email addresses, or personal information from visitors
• Display advertisements
• Sell or share data with third parties for marketing
• Use tracking pixels or behavioral advertising tools
• Knowingly collect personal information from children under 13

💾 Cookies & Local Storage

SmallTalk uses your browser’s local storage — not cookies — to remember small things on your device only, such as:

• Which age group you selected
• Your daily reading challenge progress
• Your trophy counter

This information never leaves your device and is never sent to our servers. It resets daily and can be cleared anytime by clearing your browser’s site data.

WordPress, our website platform, may set standard functional cookies required for the site to work. These contain no personal information.

🔗 Third-Party Services

SmallTalk uses the following services to operate:

• Hostinger — web hosting. May log standard server data (e.g. IP addresses) for security. View policy →
• WordPress — website platform. View policy →
• Google Search Console — monitors search performance only. Does not collect visitor personal data. View policy →
• OpenStreetMap / Leaflet.js — powers our World Map feature. View policy →
• Nominatim — geocodes location tags on our map. No personal data is included in these requests.

👧 Children’s Privacy (COPPA)

SmallTalk is designed for children and takes their privacy seriously. We comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

• We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13
• No registration or personal information is required to use SmallTalk
• No behavioral tracking or targeted advertising is used

If you believe your child has provided personal information to SmallTalk, contact us immediately at smalltalknewsforkids@gmail.com and we will address it promptly.

🌐 External Links

Some articles may link to external websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those sites and encourage parents to review their privacy policies.

📝 Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Changes will be posted here with an updated date. We encourage parents to review this policy periodically.