Privacy Policy
Iowa Monthly
Last updated: August 10, 2026
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The short version
We are a small publisher. We collect the least we can get away with, we do not sell your information to anyone, and we do not run third-party advertising networks that follow you around the internet. If you want your data removed, email us and we will remove it.
The rest of this page explains that in detail.
Who we are
Iowa Monthly is a general-interest magazine covering Iowa, published by Content Spots as part of the Hometown Publications Network. Our website is iowamonthly.com.
We own and operate our own publishing platform, our own email system, and our own advertising infrastructure. That matters for your privacy: most of what happens on this site happens on systems we control, rather than being handed off to advertising technology companies whose business is building profiles of you.
What we collect
When you simply read the site, our web server records standard technical information: your IP address, browser type, the pages you viewed, and the site that referred you. This is ordinary server logging and it happens on every website. We use it to understand which articles people read and to diagnose problems.
When you subscribe to our email list, we collect your email address, and your name if you choose to provide it. We also record when and from which page you subscribed, because that helps us confirm the signup was genuine.
When you leave a comment, we collect the name, email address, and website you enter in the comment form, along with your IP address. Your name and comment are displayed publicly. Your email address is not.
When you become a Business Member, we collect your business name, contact name, email address, phone number, business address, and information about your business needed to publish and promote it. Payment details are handled entirely by our payment processor — see below.
What we do not collect: we do not ask for your date of birth, your income, your household details, or anything else we have no reason to know. We do not buy data about you from third parties to fill in gaps.
Payments
We use Square to process Business Member payments and invoices. When you pay us, your card details go directly to Square. We never see, handle, or store your full card number, and it is not stored on our systems at any point.
Square maintains its own privacy policy governing how it handles that information, and we recommend reading it if you have questions about payment data specifically.
If you authorize us to keep a card on file for recurring invoices, that authorization and the stored card live with Square, not with us. You can ask us to stop recurring billing at any time and we will cancel it.
If you subscribe, we send you the monthly Iowa Monthly email and occasional updates about the publication. That is it. We do not rent, sell, trade, or share our email list with anyone, including our advertisers and Business Members.
Every email we send includes an unsubscribe link that works immediately. You can also email us and we will remove you by hand.
Business Members receive placement *within* our email. They do not receive our subscriber list, and they never will.
Cookies and analytics
We use cookies for a small number of practical purposes: keeping you logged in if you have an account, remembering your comment details so you do not retype them, and measuring which pages are read.
We use standard web analytics to understand traffic patterns in aggregate — how many people read an article, which pages they came from, roughly where in the state they are. We are looking at totals, not at individuals.
You can block or delete cookies through your browser settings. The site will still work, though you may need to re-enter details more often.
Advertising
This section is short, and we would like it to stay that way.
We do not use programmatic advertising exchanges, real-time bidding, or third-party ad networks. We are not part of any system that tracks you across other websites in order to target you here.
Advertising on Iowa Monthly is sold directly to Iowa businesses, served from our own infrastructure, and shown to everyone who visits a page. Nothing about which ad you see depends on who you are or what you did somewhere else.
When a business sponsors a section or appears in a member feature, that relationship is labeled on the page. We do not accept payment to alter our editorial coverage or our recommendations, and paid placements are never presented as independent reporting.
Third parties we rely on
Running a publication means using some outside services. The ones that touch your information:
– Our web host, which stores the site and its database
– Square, which processes payments and invoices
– Our email delivery platform, which sends the newsletter
– Web analytics, which measures traffic in aggregate
– Facebook, if you choose to join our Iowa community group — that relationship is between you and Facebook, governed by their policies, not ours
Each of these receives only what it needs to do its job. None of them receives our data for their own marketing purposes.
Content pulled from public sources
Some of what we publish — fishing conditions, business filings, agency updates — comes from Iowa state government data that is public record. That information concerns businesses and public resources, not private individuals, and we publish it as the state does.
If you believe something we have published about you is inaccurate or should not be there, contact us and we will look at it.
Your rights
Whoever you are and wherever you live, you can ask us to:
– Tell you what information we hold about you
– Correct anything that is wrong
– Delete your information
– Stop emailing you
– Stop processing your information
Email us and we will do it. We are not going to make you fill in a form, prove a legal basis, or wait ninety days. If you are an Iowa Monthly reader who wants out, you are out.
If you are a California resident, you have specific rights under the CCPA including the right to know what is collected and the right to opt out of the sale of personal information. We do not sell personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of — but the right to know still applies, and the process above is how you exercise it.
If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, the same requests are handled the same way.
Children
Iowa Monthly is written for adults. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we will delete it.
Security
We use encrypted connections across the site, keep our software updated, and limit access to member information to the people who need it. No system is perfectly secure, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. If we ever suffer a breach affecting your information, we will tell you.
Changes to this policy
If we change how we handle information, we will update this page and change the date at the top. If a change is significant — new categories of data, a new way we use it — we will say so in the newsletter rather than quietly editing the page.
Contact
Questions, requests, or complaints about privacy:
Bobby Badboy
Content Spots
bbadboy@contentspots.com
971-205-2403
We answer email from actual people, usually within a couple of days.