Who we are
XCEPTIONAL Teen Magazine is published by XCEPTIONAL Media LLC in the United States, for teen readers in the USA and Nigeria. In this policy, “we” means XCEPTIONAL Media LLC. You can reach us using the email address on our Contact page.
You can read without an account
Every story is free to read without signing up. We only ask for personal details if you choose to create an account, so you can save stories, comment or get our newsletter.
What we collect, and why
When you create an account: your email address, a password (stored scrambled, so nobody can read it), a display name, the country you live in (USA or Nigeria) and your birth month and year. We ask for your age to follow the law for teen readers. We never ask for your full date of birth, phone number, address or school.
If you live in Nigeria and are under 18: your parent or guardian’s email address, and the dates we asked for and received their approval.
When you use your account: the stories you save, the comments you post, any reports you make about other comments, and our editors’ decisions about comments.
If you get our newsletter: your email address, when and where you signed up, and when you confirmed or unsubscribed.
To keep the site safe and working: a cookie that keeps you signed in, a cookie that remembers your edition (USA or Nigeria), your light or dark mode choice, and whether you’ve already seen our welcome popup. Those last two stay on your device. To stop spam and abuse, we check that sign-ups come from a person, and we count attempts using a scrambled code made from your connection, never your actual internet address.
Visitor counts: we count visits to pages to see which stories people read. This uses no cookies and doesn’t identify you.
The first time you visit, we use your general location (your country) to choose which edition to show you. We don’t store it.
Children and teens
- You must be 13 or older to create an account. If someone tells us they’re younger, we don’t create the account and we don’t keep any of their details.
- In Nigeria, readers under 18 need a parent or guardian’s approval before they can comment or get the newsletter. Until then, they can read and save stories. If nobody approves within 14 days, the account is deleted.
- Nobody has a public profile. Other readers only ever see your display name, and only next to comments our editors have approved.
- Every comment is checked by an editor before it appears, and comments can’t include phone numbers, email addresses or links.
Who else handles your information
We don’t sell your information or use advertising trackers. Some pages show banners from our sponsors, clearly labelled “Advertisement”. We only count how many times each banner is seen and tapped, without cookies and without knowing who you are. These companies run parts of the website for us and only use your information to provide their service:
- Vercel (USA): hosts the website, counts visits and checks for bots.
- Neon (USA): stores the website’s database.
- Resend (USA): sends our emails, such as confirmations and the newsletter.
Your information is stored in the United States. We may share information if the law requires it, or to protect someone’s safety.
How long we keep it
- Accounts whose email address is never confirmed are deleted after 14 days.
- Newsletter sign-ups that are never confirmed are deleted after 14 days.
- When you delete your account, we delete it straight away, together with your saved stories, your comments and your newsletter subscription.
- Records of emails we sent are deleted after 90 days.
- Otherwise we keep your account until you delete it.
Your choices and rights
- See and change your display name and password on your account page.
- Delete your account at any time from your account page.
- Unsubscribe from the newsletter with one click in any newsletter, or from your account page.
- Ask us for a copy of your information, or to correct or delete it, using the email on our Contact page. Parents and guardians can contact us about their teen’s account in the same way.
If you’re in Nigeria, you can also complain to the Nigeria Data Protection Commission. If you’re in the USA, you can contact the Federal Trade Commission.
Changes
If we change this policy, we’ll update this page and the date it was last changed. If the change is important, we’ll tell account holders by email.