Privacy
Privacy and Security
(Last Updated on Feburary 18, 2026)
A.V. Club helps our readers to discover what’s happening in TV, film, music and more. We are committed to protecting your personal security and privacy, and we appreciate your trust that we will uphold this commitment.
This Privacy Policy applies to all websites and web applications (“Sites”) which link to this policy and are published by Paste Media (Paste Magazine, A.V. Club, Jezebel and Splinter).
If you have any questions about how we use your personal information, please contact us at [email protected].
Information we collect
1) Across our Sites you will be presented with the opportunity to sign up for our Newsletters. For this we collect your email address.
If you would like to unsubscribe from our communications at any time, you may do so in the footer of any of our emails. If you would like us to delete your information entirely, or request the information we store about you, please send us an email at [email protected]. Otherwise, by continuing to interact with our emails, you provide us with permission to manage and use your data as described above.
2) We use cookies and analytics tools across our Sites to collect information about you. This information can be used to improve the performance of the site, make advertising more relevant and enhance your user experience.
If you wish to manage your cookies, please follow the instructions in the “How to manage cookies” section lower on this page.
Would you like to opt-out of first-party tracking?
How we use your personal information
We collect personal information for the following reasons:
For the purpose of advertising – We rely on advertising revenue to support our journalism. We process your information to understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant personalised advertising. We use the information you give us and the information we collect about you to understand what advertisements you have been shown, or clicked on, to bill our advertising partners, and to present you with advertisements that are more relevant to you.
If you decide to turn off personalised advertisements or advertisements tailored to you, you will still see the same number of advertisements but they may be less relevant to you. You may continue to see advertisements that are targeted to you based on other non-personal information, for example, the article that you are reading.
More information about this practice and your choices about not having this information used by these companies is in the “How to manage cookies” section below.
To communicate with you via our newsletters – We want you to get the most out of our Sites. To do so we offer a Newsletter with carefully-curated articles and feature announcements. You are able to change your newsletter preferences through the footer of any of our emails.
To improve our Sites – we use cookies to understand how our customers use our Sites and interact with our communications and journalism. For example, we use technology on our Sites, which records user movements, which pages are most popular, and how navigation options are used. This helps us to identify usability issues and improve the assistance we can provide to users and is also used for aggregated and statistical reporting purposes. We also use cookies to understand what type of device you are using to show you the best version of the site.
Who we share your personal information with
We disclose personal information to our advertising partners, through cookies to collect personal information and serve you with advertisements that we believe are relevant to you and your interests.
We disclose your email address to a service provider we engage to manage our newsletter delivery. We do not rent or sell our email lists to anyone.
We have contracts in place with all advertising partners and service providers. They can only use your personal information under our instruction.
How to manage cookies
If you wish to manage your cookies, then please follow the instructions below. Please remember that if you choose to disable cookies, certain sections of our Sites may not work properly.
We use Google Analytics as our primary analytics tool. If you wish to opt out of having cookies placed on your device for Google Analytics you can do so by using Google’s opt-out browser add-on, which helps make opting out easy and convenient.
On some of our Sites, we work with the Google ad platform. You can opt out of behaviourally targeted advertising through Google at www.google.com/settings/ads
We also allow other third parties to target you based on data you have provided to them, to the extent that you have consented to this. For more information, please visit www.allaboutcookies.org
To opt out of these cookies, please visit:
www.youronlinechoices.eu for EU
www.aboutads.info/choices for US
If you are a resident of the European Union you can click here to review your GDPR Consent preferences (this link will not work outside of the EU).
By opting out of these types of cookies on each browser and device you use, you will stop receiving advertisements that are targeted specifically to you on our Sites; however you will still see the same number of advertisements, which may include contextual advertisements that are not targeted based on your personal information.
You can also manage your cookies via your browser settings. For more information, please visit your browser’s help page.
How long we retain your personal information
We keep your information for no longer than necessary for the purposes for which it is processed. The length of time for which we retain information depends on the purposes for which we collected and use it and/or as required to comply with applicable laws.
Lawful basis for processing
We only process personal information where we have a lawful basis for doing so, such as the following:
User consent – This is where you have given us explicit permission to process personal information for a given purpose. For example, if you subscribe to our newsletters, we ask for your consent before adding your email address to our subscriber list.
Legitimate interest – This is where we have a legitimate interest, as a business, to process personal information. For example, where we are aware of copyright infringements on our Site, it is in our legitimate interests as a business to identify those responsible. We take due care to balance our interests against your right to privacy.
How we protect your data
All communications with our Sites, including submission of your email address for Newsletter subscription, is encrypted using SSL (secure sockets layer).
Contact Us regarding your privacy
If you have any questions or concerns about any aspect of this Privacy Policy, please email us at [email protected].
Mediavine Programmatic Advertising (Ver 1.1)
The Website works with Mediavine to manage third-party interest-based advertising appearing on the Website. Mediavine serves content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use first and third-party cookies. A cookie is a small text file which is sent to your computer or mobile device (referred to in this policy as a “device”) by the web server so that a website can remember some information about your browsing activity on the Website.
First party cookies are created by the website that you are visiting. A third-party cookie is frequently used in behavioral advertising and analytics and is created by a domain other than the website you are visiting. Third-party cookies, tags, pixels, beacons and other similar technologies (collectively, “Tags”) may be placed on the Website to monitor interaction with advertising content and to target and optimize advertising. Each internet browser has functionality so that you can block both first and third-party cookies and clear your browser’s cache. The “help” feature of the menu bar on most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to receive notification of new cookies, how to disable existing cookies and how to clear your browser’s cache. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information at All About Cookies.
Without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of the Website content and features. Please note that rejecting cookies does not mean that you will no longer see ads when you visit our Site. In the event you opt-out, you will still see non-personalized advertisements on the Website.
The Website collects the following data using a cookie when serving personalized ads:
- IP Address
- Operating System type
- Operating System version
- Device Type
- Language of the website
- Web browser type
- Email (in hashed form)
Mediavine Partners (companies listed below with whom Mediavine shares data) may also use this data to link to other end user information the partner has independently collected to deliver targeted advertisements. Mediavine Partners may also separately collect data about end users from other sources, such as advertising IDs or pixels, and link that data to data collected from Mediavine publishers in order to provide interest-based advertising across your online experience, including devices, browsers and apps. This data includes usage data, cookie information, device information, information about interactions between users and advertisements and websites, geolocation data, traffic data, and information about a visitor’s referral source to a particular website. Mediavine Partners may also create unique IDs to create audience segments, which are used to provide targeted advertising.
If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices to opt-in or opt-out of this data collection, please visit National Advertising Initiative opt out page. You may also visit Digital Advertising Alliance website and Network Advertising Initiative website to learn more information about interest-based advertising. You may download the AppChoices app at Digital Advertising Alliance’s AppChoices app to opt out in connection with mobile apps, or use the platform controls on your mobile device to opt out.
For specific information about Mediavine Partners, the data each collects and their data collection and privacy policies, please visit Mediavine Partners.