The way people find news is changing rapidly. Shifts in audience behaviour, the growth of AI summaries and changes in how traffic is driven from search and social platforms mean that building direct relationships with Guardian audiences globally is more important than ever.
We are always looking for ways to get closer to our audiences so we can offer a more personalised and engaging experience.
To support this ambition, over the past six months, we’ve been gradually introducing smart sign-in. This means we ask our most regular online visitors to sign in for a free Guardian account.
We remain committed to keeping our journalism free and open, while building a better relationship with those who visit us most often. When we know more about our audiences, it helps generate revenue to support the quality, independent journalism they expect and deserve.
It also means we can provide our audiences with richer and more personalised experiences. For example, tailoring content recommendations and providing audiences with the ability to comment on stories or subscribe to any of our newsletters, which cover subjects and themes in more depth.
If you support the Guardian, either through a subscription or regular payment or have made a recent contribution, signing in also means you will no longer see messages asking you to support our journalism.
Here’s how it will work:
In order to minimise disruption, our sign-in messages are dynamically targeted based on how often users visit our site. The more engaged the visitor, the more likely they will see more messages asking them to sign in and – occasionally – telling them they have to do so. New readers or those who don’t visit our website often are likely to only see these messages every now and again and they will always be able to dismiss them.
For now the sign-in prompt will only appear on text-based articles and not on the front page, live blogs, videos or pictures galleries.
Your privacy
When you sign in, we use any personal data collected from you in compliance with our privacy policy. You can also change and modify some of the personal data you have provided to us using the profile and settings area of your Guardian account (Manage My Account), and you can continue to control how we – and our vendors – use your personal data collected through cookies and other technologies including whether you receive personalised advertising by going to “Privacy settings” in the footer of every web page, or in the app menu at any time.
We know that a smooth reading experience matters and our teams have worked to improve the sign-in experience to address this. Should you encounter any issues or require assistance with your account, please visit our help centre.
