Privacy policy

Who is responsible

This site is operated as Bills & Brains. Questions about anything on this page, or a request about your own data, should go through the contact form.

What we collect

If you use the contact form

The name, email address, topic and message you type. They are used to read your message and reply to it, and for nothing else. Your address is not added to any list, is not used to send you anything you did not ask for, and is not sold, rented or shared.

Messages are delivered by email through a third-party mail relay, which necessarily handles the contents in transit. Delivered messages sit in an ordinary mailbox and are kept while they are useful — typically so a correction can be traced back to whoever reported it.

Server logs

The web server records ordinary request information: the page requested, the time, the browser's user-agent string, the referring page, and the IP address the request came from. This happens for every website and is what makes it possible to see that a page is broken, or that something is attacking the server. It is not tied to any identity, and it is not used to build a profile of anybody.

Analytics

We use a third-party analytics service (Google Analytics) to count visits and see which pages people read. It is on unless you turn it off. For now we are counting visits without asking first, to see how much the site is read. If you had already said no when we asked, that answer still stands and nothing was switched on for you. IP addresses are shortened before being recorded.

To turn it off, use this: Turn analytics off or on (or “Cookie preferences” in the footer of any page). It takes effect immediately: Google Analytics’ cookies are removed from this browser, none are set again, and nothing you do is tied to you or to any later visit. Being straight about what turning it off does not do: the analytics tag still loads, and your browser still contacts Google, which receives an anonymous, cookieless signal. You can turn it back on from the same place.

What this tells us is how many people read an article and how they arrived. It is not used to identify anyone, and we have no interest in doing so.

Advertising

This site is paid for by advertising, served by a third-party advertising network. The advertising tag loads for everyone, and like analytics it starts fromdenied: the cookies adverts rely on are set only if you accept them. This is what lets us show a non-personalised advert to somebody who has refused, rather than showing them nothing — which is the arrangement that keeps the site free to read.

Where you consent, the advertising network and its partners may set cookies to choose which adverts to show, to limit how often you see the same one, and to measure whether an advert was seen. Where you do not consent, adverts may still appear but are chosen from the page you are reading rather than from anything about you.

We do not receive, and do not want, the data those networks collect. We are not given your identity, your browsing history elsewhere, or any profile built from it.

Podcast episodes (YouTube)

Some articles show the matching Bills & Brains podcast episode. Until you press play, nothing from YouTube runs: the page shows only the episode’s thumbnail image, which your browser fetches from YouTube’s image server. The player loads only when you press play, from YouTube’s privacy-enhanced domain (youtube-nocookie.com). Once it is playing, YouTube (Google) may store information on your device and see that you watched, under its own privacy policy, as it would if you watched on YouTube itself.

Cookies, and turning them off

Cookies that are strictly necessary for the site to work — including the one that remembers your analytics choice, once you have made one — are set without asking. Unless you have turned analytics off, Google Analytics also sets its own cookies to recognise a returning visit. Turn it off, and they are removed and none are set. Advertising cookies are not set for anyone while we count visits this way. The analytics and advertising tags themselves load either way, as described above.

You can change your mind at any time using the cookie preferences link in the footer or the switch under Analytics above. Every browser also lets you block or delete cookies wholesale.

Google's own controls for the adverts it serves are at adssettings.google.com, and industry-wide opt-outs are at optout.aboutads.info and youronlinechoices.com.

What we never do

• Sell, rent or trade personal information. There is no circumstance in which this happens.
• Send marketing email. There is no mailing list to be on.
• Ask for financial information. Never give this site an account number, a card number, a PAN or a password — nothing here has any use for one.
• Track you across other websites ourselves.

Children

This site is written for adults making decisions about their own money and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect anything from a child.

Your choices

You can read the entire site without accepting anything or telling us anything. You can turn analytics off and still read every word. If you have written to us and want that message deleted, ask through the contact form and it will be.

Changes

If this policy changes materially, the date at the top of this page changes with it. It is worth checking that date rather than assuming the page is the one you read before.