Privacy policy

You can read every page of this site without an account, and nothing you read is tied to you. We do not sell anything about you. Google measures visits and shows the ads on this site, using its own cookies; signing in, the assistant and following are the only things that keep anything under your name, and you can delete it.

Reading needs no account and asks for nothing. Like every website, each page you open is a request our hosting provider receives — with your IP address, your browser type and the page asked for — which it logs for a limited time to keep the site running and secure.

• Your ZIP code or street address, if you look up your representatives. A ZIP code is matched against the Census Bureau's ZIP-to-district map we keep ourselves. A street address, asked only when a ZIP code crosses a district line, is sent to the U.S. Census Bureau's geocoder to find the district, and is not stored or logged by us.
• Busy-visitor limits use a scrambled key, not your IP. To stop one visitor flooding the address lookup, we count requests against a one-way scramble of the IP address that is held in memory and never written down.

A cookie is a small file a website asks your browser to keep. This site sets one of its own, only once you sign in. Your browser also keeps a few of your choices so the site remembers them. Google's analytics and ads set cookies of their own, described below.

• __session — keeps you signed in for up to 14 days. Set only when you sign in, removed when you sign out.
• Sign-in state — the Google sign-in keeps who you are in your browser's storage, so the site knows you on your next visit.
• Your theme — light, dark or automatic.
• Your ZIP code, if you enter one on a vote page, so the next vote page can show how your members voted.
• This tab's conversation — the assistant keeps the conversation you are in for as long as the tab is open, so going back does not lose it.
• Google Analytics and Google's ads set their own cookies; see the next two sections.

You can clear any of these in your browser's settings. The site works without them; you will only be signed out and asked again for your choices.

We count visits with Google Analytics: which pages are read, roughly where from, on what kind of device, and how visitors arrive. It tells us what is useful and what is not; it is never joined to your account, your conversations or what you follow.

• In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland analytics sets no cookie, and sends only counts that carry no identifier.
• Elsewhere it sets Google's analytics cookies. You can opt out of Google Analytics on every site with Google's opt-out browser add-on.
• How Google uses the data: How Google uses information from sites that use its services.

The site shows ads served by Google AdSense, which is how it pays for itself. We do not choose the individual ads, and an ad is not a statement by this site about any person, party or bill.

• Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your earlier visits to this site or to other websites. Google's advertising cookies let it and its partners show you ads based on your visits to this site and to other sites on the internet.
• You can turn off personalised ads in Google's Ads Settings. You can also opt out of other vendors' cookies for personalised ads at aboutads.info or, in Europe, youronlinechoices.eu.
• In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland Google asks for your agreement before showing personalised ads, and you can change your answer from the link it shows.
• Advertisers get nothing from us. No advertiser is given your conversations, what you follow, your sign-in id or anything else this site keeps. What Google's ad cookies learn, Google learns directly; see how Google uses cookies in advertising.

Signing in uses your Google account, and is needed only for the assistant and for following members, bills and questions. The site holds no password and no profile of its own: what is kept is a sign-in id, and filed under it your conversations, what you follow and how often you want to hear about it.

• Google tells the sign-in service your name, email address and picture. Our own database never stores your name or email; it stores the sign-in id.
• Your conversations with the assistant are kept so you can come back to them. The AI service that writes answers receives your question, the earlier turns of that conversation and the site's public data — not your name, email or sign-in id. We read conversations, especially answers marked unhelpful, to fix what the assistant gets wrong, and for nothing else. Anything you type is kept as you typed it, so leave out what you would not want stored.
• A shared conversation is public to anyone with its link, as it stood when you shared it, until you press "Stop sharing". We count how often a shared link is opened, not who opened it.
• What you follow, and when you last looked, is kept so your home page and your emails can tell you what is new.
• Alert emails go to your Google address, looked up when we send. We ask Google for it at the moment a digest goes out and hand it, with the email, to our email delivery service, which sends it and does nothing else with it. Every email has a link that stops them, no sign-in needed.
• Apps you connect to this site are answered and not stored.

"Send Feedback" and "Report a problem with this" store what you write in our own database, with the page you were on, your browser type, what you were reporting, your sign-in id if you are signed in, and your email only if you choose to give it. Email to support@congressforvoters.com is kept in our mailbox.

We do not sell, rent or trade personal information. The only others who handle any of it are the services the site runs on, each for its own part and nothing more:

• Google — hosting, the database and file storage, sign-in, analytics and ads.
• Our email delivery service — the alert emails you ask for.
• The AI service that writes answers — your question and its conversation, as above.
• The U.S. Census Bureau — a street address, if you look one up.

We would disclose information if the law required it, and we would tell you if we were allowed to.

Everything kept under your sign-in id can be removed. Most of it you can remove yourself; for the rest, write to us.

• A conversation — delete it from the Ask page, and it is gone with everything it showed.
• What you follow, and the emails — change or stop them on your profile, or with the link in any email.
• Everything else — write to support@congressforvoters.com from the Google address you sign in with and ask for your data to be deleted, or for a copy of it. We will delete the conversations, follows, feedback and sign-in record tied to it, and confirm when it is done.
• Analytics and ad cookies — use the opt-outs above, or clear your browser's cookies.

This site is written for voters, and is not meant for children under 13. We do not knowingly keep anything about a child under 13; if you believe we have, write to support@congressforvoters.com and we will delete it.

When what the site keeps changes, this page changes with it, and the date at the top says when it last did.

Write to support@congressforvoters.com, or see the contact page.