Privacy notice

businessrank.co.uk is run by Stader Advertising, a UK sole trader, who is the data controller. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office, reference ZC290880. Contact: team@businessrank.co.uk.

• Your login. First name, email address and password. The password is stored only in hashed form, so nobody can read it, including us. We note when you added the listing and the IP address used.
• Your listing. Business name, category, county, town, phone number, website address, description, and up to 8 pictures or a logo.
• Payments. These go through PayPal, so we never see card or bank details. PayPal tells us the payer's name, email address and business name (if any), and the transaction number, amount, fee, status and date.
• Emails you send us, with any attachments. Attachments are virus-checked and only images and PDF files are kept.
• Checks. We may visit a listed website to see that it is genuine and working. When a listing is added we note the country the connection came from (supplied by our security service, Cloudflare) to help spot spam.
• Technical records. Standard web server logs (IP address, browser, pages and times) and visitor counts from Statcounter.

Most of this comes from you. A listing can also be sent here through Stader.co.uk, a listing management service run by the same operator; in that case the details come from your Stader account.

Your listing is published so customers can find you, and search engines may index it. It shows everything on the listing, and how many times it has been viewed, but never your email address. Your first name, login and payment details are never shown.

• To run your listing: creating your login, checking and publishing the listing, taking payments, and service emails such as the confirmation link. Basis: our contract with you.
• To reply to you and deal with correction or removal requests. Basis: contract, or our legitimate interest in answering people who contact us.
• To keep the website safe and see how it is used: logs, spam checks and visitor counts. Basis: our legitimate interests.
• To meet the law: keeping payment records for tax. Basis: legal obligation.

No decisions about you are made by automated means alone.

• Our host: S S Network Limited, a UK company registered with the ICO, which hosts this website on servers provided by HostGator (Newfold Digital) in the United States. It acts on our instructions as a processor.
• PayPal, which takes payments and is responsible in its own right for what you give it.
• Statcounter, for visitor counts.
• Brevo, which may send our emails for us.
• The public and search engines, for published listings only.

We may also have to share information where the law requires it, for example with a court or the police.

Yes. Our servers are in the United States. That transfer is covered by the UK International Data Transfer Addendum in our host's contract. PayPal and Statcounter may handle information outside the UK under their own safeguards. Brevo handles data in the European Union, which the UK treats as giving adequate protection.

• A listing whose email address is never confirmed: deleted after 30 days.
• A listing refused at review: deleted straight away.
• A live listing and its login: until you remove it or ask us to.
• Payment records: 6 years after the end of the tax year, as HMRC requires, even if the listing has gone.
• Support emails: 2 years after the conversation is closed. Spam: 30 days.
• Web server logs: 30 days.
• Backups can hold a copy for up to 60 days after deletion.

• Login cookies (essential) keep you logged in to your Dashboard. "Keep me logged in" remembers the device for up to a year, until you log out.
• A view-count cookie (essential) lasts until you close your browser, so that looking at the same listing twice is only counted once.
• Statcounter (analytics) counts visits and popular pages. You can refuse it at statcounter.com/about/set-refusal-cookie.
• PayPal sets its own cookies while you pay.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser. If you block login cookies, the Dashboard will not work.

You can ask for a copy of your information, have it corrected or deleted, limit or object to how we use it, or receive it in a portable format. Email team@businessrank.co.uk and we will reply within one month. We may ask you to show who you are, for example by emailing from the address on your listing.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.

The website uses HTTPS, passwords are hashed, attachments are virus-checked and access to the database is restricted. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a strong password that you do not use anywhere else.

We update this notice when the website or our use of information changes. The current version is always here, with the date it last changed.