Your privacy on this site

Hosting and security (Cloudflare)

The site is hosted by Cloudflare. Like every web server, Cloudflare receives your IP address, your browser and device type and the address of the page you asked for, because it cannot send you a page without them. Cloudflare also uses this information to keep the site running and to block attacks and abusive traffic. Cloudflare keeps its own logs under its own privacy policy. I do not receive a list of visitors' IP addresses.

Why: running a website that works and stays secure. The lawful basis is legitimate interests.

Visitor counts (Cloudflare Web Analytics)

I use Cloudflare Web Analytics to see how many people read each page. It is cookieless: it does not set cookies, does not use your browser's local storage and does not follow you from site to site. A small script from Cloudflare (static.cloudflareinsights.com) sends the page address, the site that sent you, and page load timings. What I see are totals, such as page views, which pages are popular, which site sent people here, and broad figures for country, browser and device type. I cannot pick out you, or any one person, from them.

Why: knowing which reviews are useful, so I know what to test next. The lawful basis is legitimate interests.

If you email me

If you write to me, I receive your email address, your name if you include it, and whatever you put in the message. I use it only to read and reply to you. I do not add you to a mailing list, and I do not pass your message on to a brand or anyone else without asking you first. I delete correspondence when it is no longer needed.

Why: answering you. The lawful basis is legitimate interests, or taking steps you have asked for.

What the site does not collect

There are no forms, comments, accounts or newsletter sign-ups on this site, so it does not ask for your name, email address, payment details or anything else about you.

Because there are no analytics, advertising or tracking cookies, there is nothing to consent to and no cookie banner.

The site remembers your home-page view in session storage for the current browser tab. This preference is used for navigation, not advertising or analytics, and normally disappears when the tab is closed.

One exception sits with the host: if Cloudflare's security checks need to confirm that traffic comes from a real browser, Cloudflare can set a short-lived security cookie (named __cf_bm or cf_clearance). These are strictly necessary to protect the site, contain nothing that identifies you to me and are not used for analytics or advertising, so the law does not require consent for them.

Shop links, including affiliate links

Reviews link to shops such as Amazon, AliExpress, Agena Astro, First Light Optics, ZWO and other shops and makers. Some of these are affiliate links (see the disclosure). When you click one, the shop or its affiliate network may set a cookie on its own site to record that you arrived from my link, so that it can pay me a commission if you buy. That cookie belongs to the shop, and the shop asks for your consent under its own rules.

Nothing about you is sent from this site to the shop beyond what any link sends, and this site is set up so that a link to another site passes on only the site's name (thetelescopeman.com), not the page you were reading. An affiliate link carries a code that identifies me, not you. The reports I get from shops and affiliate programmes show which products sold, not who bought them. I never see your name, address or payment details.

Review videos (YouTube)

Each video on a review starts as a still picture. Nothing loads from YouTube's player until you press play. When you do, the video plays from youtube-nocookie.com, YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode, which does not use your visit to personalise what you see on YouTube unless you watch the video. Once a video is playing, Google, which owns YouTube, is responsible for what it collects, under Google's privacy policy.

On some reviews the still picture itself is loaded from YouTube's image server, which receives your IP address in the same way any web server does.

Patreon, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok

Links to my Patreon and social channels are plain links. Nothing from those services is loaded on this site. If you follow one, that service's privacy policy applies.

Cloudflare is an American company with servers around the world, so visit data can be processed outside the UK. Cloudflare protects it with the safeguards UK law requires for international transfers, which are set out in its data processing terms.

Cloudflare keeps its security logs and analytics totals for limited periods set by its own policies. Emails are kept only as long as the conversation needs. I do not sell personal data, and I do not use it for automated decisions about you.

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• ask for a copy of personal data I hold about you;
• have it corrected if it is wrong, or deleted;
• ask me to restrict or stop using it, and object to how I use it;
• receive it in a portable form where that applies.

In practice the only personal data I hold that can be linked to you is an email you sent me. To use any of these rights, email [email protected]. I will reply within one month. For data held by Cloudflare, a shop, YouTube or Patreon, you can also go to them directly.

The UK regulator for data protection is the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). You can complain to the ICO at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or by phone on 0303 123 1113.