Phrasal Verb News · Everything English with John · Last updated: September 26, 2026
This Privacy Policy explains how the Phrasal Verb News mobile app ("the app"), published by Everything English with John ("we", "us"), handles information. We have designed the app to collect as little data as possible.
To remember which stories you have read, your answers to the quizzes, which stories you unlocked by watching a video this month, the stories, words and phrasal verbs you have saved, and your preferences (such as light or dark mode, your translation language, and the optional first name you can type in during setup so the app can greet you), the app saves this information locally on your device using standard on-device storage. The name is optional, is used only on screen, and you can leave it blank or clear it at any time. The app also keeps a copy of recently downloaded stories on your device so they load quickly and can be read offline. This data stays on your device, is never sent to us or to any server, and is removed when you uninstall the app. We cannot see it.
The newest stories in the app (currently the three newest) are free for everyone, and free readers can unlock a small number of other stories each month by watching a short video ad. Every other story, and the narration, needs a paid subscription. A subscription also removes all ads. Older versions of the app (before version 2.1 on Android and 1.8 on iPhone and iPad) worked differently: they allowed a set number of free stories each calendar month and showed no third-party ads. Subscriptions are sold and billed by Apple on iPhone and iPad, and by Google on Android. You pay them, not us. We never see or receive your card number, your billing address, or any other payment details, because that part happens inside the App Store or Google Play under their own privacy policies.
So that the app knows whether your subscription is active, we use RevenueCat, a subscription service that works for us as a processor. When you subscribe, restore a purchase, or open the app, RevenueCat receives:
RevenueCat sends back one simple answer: subscribed or not subscribed. We use it for nothing else. It is not used to build a profile of you, to advertise to you, or to see which stories you read. For their side of it, see the RevenueCat Privacy Policy.
RevenueCat keeps that subscription record for as long as the app is in the stores, so that "Restore purchases" still works when you change phones. On your own device, the app stores only a yes or no flag for whether the subscription is active.
Subscriptions renew automatically until you cancel them. You cancel in your own store account, not in the app:
Deleting the app does not cancel a subscription. If you would also like the subscription record deleted, email us at the address at the bottom of this page and we will have it removed from RevenueCat. Apple and Google keep their own billing records under their own policies, and we cannot delete those for you.
If you are not a subscriber, the app shows ads provided by Google AdMob, a service of Google: a banner while you read a story, and, only if you choose it, a short video you can watch to unlock a story. Subscribers never see these ads, and the ad service is not used for them at all.
We have set every ad request to non-personalized. That means Google does not choose ads based on your interests, your past behavior or your activity in other apps and websites. Ads are chosen from general information such as the content of the app and your approximate location (country or region, worked out from your internet address). On iPhone and iPad the app never asks for permission to track you, so Apple's advertising identifier is not available to it.
To show ads, count them, limit how often the same ad appears, and prevent fraud, Google's software in the app collects technical information from your device, such as your internet address, the device model and operating system, the app version, information about the ads shown and tapped, and diagnostic data if something fails. On Android this can include the device's advertising ID, which you can reset or delete at any time in your device settings. Google handles this information under its own policy; see How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services and the Google Privacy Policy. We do not receive any of it about you personally; we only see totals, such as how many ads were shown.
European Economic Area, United Kingdom and Switzerland: if you are in one of these regions, the app asks for your consent through Google's consent message before any ads are requested, and you can change your choice at any time from More, then Ad privacy choices in the app.
The articles, images, quizzes, translations and audio recordings are not built into the app. They are published by us as a public content library and downloaded by the app when you open it, which is how new stories appear without you having to update the app. Those files are hosted on Cloudflare (Cloudflare R2 storage), and story images may be resized for your screen by an image delivery service, wsrv.nl. Story videos are not embedded in the app: tapping a video link opens YouTube in your browser, where YouTube's own policy applies.
These are ordinary requests for public files, and they carry no information about you: no account, no identifier, no record of what you read. As with opening any web page, the companies providing that hosting may log standard technical details such as the IP address making the request, under their own policies. For details, see the Cloudflare Privacy Policy and the wsrv.nl Privacy Policy.
Each story lists the news outlets it was based on, and the app also links to sites we operate or partner with (for example our website, our YouTube channel, a lesson-booking page, an italki referral link and a support page). If you tap one, you leave the app and the destination site's own privacy policy applies. We do not pass your personal information to those sites; tapping a link simply opens it in your browser.
Stories are written by us as English learning material, based on reporting from established news organizations, and every story lists its sources so you can read the original coverage. The app is a learning tool, not a news service, and we do not personalize what you see based on your behavior, because we do not track it.
The app is intended for a general audience of English learners aged 13 and over. It is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. The app has no accounts, and the only information that leaves your device is the subscription information described above, which does not identify anyone by name, and the technical information Google's ad software uses for non-subscribers, described above. Ads are non-personalized and limited to content suitable for teenagers. The app has no social or messaging features. It does offer a paid subscription, but the purchase is made and paid for inside the App Store or Google Play, so the store account holder controls whether any purchase can happen at all.
If you are not a subscriber, the app also shows a small card in some places suggesting one of our own apps or our YouTube channel. These cards are not adverts sold to anyone else, and there is no advertising network, no advertising identifier and no tracking behind them. The card is chosen by the app on your device, and tapping it simply opens a link. We are told nothing about who saw it or who tapped it beyond the anonymous counts described below, which carry no identifier. Subscribers do not see these cards at all.
So that we can see how the app is actually used, the app sends a short message when one of a fixed list of things happens, such as: the app is opened, a story is opened, the subscribe screen is shown, a subscribe button is tapped, a subscription is bought, a narration clip is played, and an ad is shown. Each message contains the name of the event, a fixed label such as whether the story was a free one, whether you are on Android, iPhone or the web, and the app's version number. Our server also records the country the request came from, which it works out from the internet connection itself. Nothing else is sent, and your internet address is not stored.
There is no identifier in any of this. No account, no device identifier, no advertising identifier, no session identifier and no cookie. That is a deliberate design choice, and it means the counts add up to totals only. We cannot follow one person from one event to the next, we cannot tell whether two events came from the same phone, and we cannot pick out anything you have read. We use these totals to answer questions such as how many readers tap a locked story, and whether the number of free stories is right.
We never sell your personal information. The companies that receive information from the app are RevenueCat, which receives only the subscription information described above so the app knows whether to unlock, and, for readers who are not subscribers, Google, which receives the technical information its ad software needs to show non-personalized ads, as described above. Apple and Google receive your payment details directly, because they are the ones taking the payment. Beyond that there is nothing about you for us to pass on. The anonymous counts described above go to a server we run ourselves on Cloudflare, and are not passed to anyone else. All network connections made by the app use encrypted HTTPS.
Everything the app remembers about your reading is stored locally on your device, so you can remove it at any time by clearing the app's storage in your device settings or by uninstalling the app. There is no account to delete. The anonymous usage counts cannot be deleted on request, because there is no identifier in them that could be used to find yours: they are totals, and nothing in them points back to you. The one record we can have deleted for you is the subscription record at RevenueCat described above. For the information Google's ad software collects, see Google's policy linked above; on Android you can also reset or delete your advertising ID in your device settings. Email us at the address below and we will have it deleted.
We may update this policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with a new "Last updated" date.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, contact us at: everythingenglishwithjohn@gmail.com.