Privacy, in plain English

What we hold, for how long, and how to get it removed. This is a draft awaiting legal review.

If you recommend someone

We ask for your email address once, to send you a confirmation link. We don't store the address itself. We keep a scrambled one-way fingerprint of it, so that one person can only recommend someone once. We can't turn the fingerprint back into your address. The email we send is deleted from our send queue as soon as it has gone. We never publish anything about you, and there's no free text, name or comment attached to a recommendation.

We also keep a scrambled fingerprint of your IP address with the recommendation, to spot abuse.

If you recommend someone who isn't listed yet

We hold the email address you give (and the name, if you add one) for up to 90 days, so we can tell them they've been recommended. We email them once, with one reminder two weeks later, then nothing more. If they claim a profile, the recommendation counts. If they don't, we delete everything at 90 days. They can opt out from any email we send, and we then keep only a fingerprint so we never contact them again.

You can also tell someone they've been recommended from your own phone, by WhatsApp or text. For that we keep the name you typed (and nothing else about them) for up to 90 days, so your recommendation counts if they join, then delete it. We never contact them ourselves in that case, and several people recommending the same name add up to one pending invite.

If you have a profile

We hold the email address you sign in with (so we can send you sign-in links and tell you about milestones or requests about your profile) and what you put on it: your name, what you do, a short description, your area, and any contact details you add. Your profile is public, including a phone number and website if you choose to add them. You can untick \"Show me in search and directory pages\" in your dashboard to keep your page and link but stay out of our search and directory pages. For UK profiles we store the first part of your postcode, never your full address. Elsewhere we store only your country and the area you type. Nobody but you can write anything on your profile.

What we count

To see whether the site is useful, we count simple things: how many profiles and recommendations there are, and which tools providers use (for example, copying an email signature). None of this is about a person's browsing. When another website shows a provider's badge, we record that website's address once, so we can tell the provider it's live. We don't record who viewed it.

We email new providers once, a couple of days after they join, if they have no recommendations yet. Providers also get a short email the first time they're recommended, a daily note if they have new ones, and a Monday summary of how their page did (page views and taps on Call and Website, as plain totals, never who they were). Each of these emails has a one-click link to stop them, and a switch in the dashboard.

Cookies and analytics

We set a cookie only when you confirm a recommendation or sign in, so the site remembers that you've done so. We don't use advertising or tracking cookies.

Removal

If you recommended someone, the email we sent you has a link to withdraw it at any time, and your confirmation page has a withdraw button. If you have a profile, you can delete it yourself from your dashboard, which removes it, its recommendations and the email address we hold for you. If a profile isn't yours, or is wrong, use the "Request removal" link on it. We confirm the requester's email, then review the request ourselves and reply.