Privacy policy

This privacy policy explains what we do with the information that you give us and sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you or that you provide to us via the website www.reallyuseful.com (the “Site”) will be processed by us.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 1998 (“DPA”), the data controller is The Really Useful Group Limited.  If at any time you have a question about anything contained in this privacy policy or a general query on privacy please do not hesitate to contact us at:

The Really Useful Group Limited
22 Tower Street, London
WC2H 9TW

Tel: +44 (0)20 7240 0880
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7240 1292

Email: online_team@reallyuseful.co.uk

Contents

Information that we collect from you

You will see that if you decide to register to become a member of the Site, when you fill in the registration form you will be asked to provide some personal details which will then enable you to have ‘access all areas’ and us to provide you with information on products, services or events and other information we think you might like.

Please make sure your registration details are correct and up to date at all times so that we can provide you with this information efficiently and so that we can comply with our obligations to keep your information accurate and up to date. You do not have to give us any information if you do not want to but you may not get the full benefit of the Site if you leave certain pieces of information out of the registration form.

We may collect information that you provide to us by filling in other forms on the Site, including information at the time of subscribing for a particular service, purchasing a product, entering a competition or posting content to the Members’ Pages.  We may also ask you for information when you report a problem with the Site.

We may collect generic information about your visits to and use of the Site such as your IP address, geographical location, browser type, referral source, length of visit and number of pages view.  Individual users will not be identifiable from this information.  We record and use this data for a number of purposes such as to provide statistical data, optimising the use of the Site, disclosing to third party contributors or for security purposes.  In particular, we may use an analytics service provider for website traffic analysis and reporting and to track information such as which browser, screen resolution and IP addresses you are using to access the Site, in addition to tracking your movements around the Site.

We may also collect information about your usage of the Site, as well as information about you, from e-mails or letters that you send to us. For example, if you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.

If you participate in our Site by providing content, putting messages on our forums or bulletin boards or on your profile you should be aware that you are disclosing information to anyone else who might happen to be visiting such forum, bulletin board or profile. This means that others can get hold of any information that you give in these areas and you may get messages from people who you don’t know.  Materials and information that you post to the Site are stored on our servers for the purposes of making such materials and information available via the Site.

You are responsible for your information on the internet and we advise you to be selective about what information you post on the Site or that you provide to other users. Make sure that you are careful when you visit our Site from a shared computer or in a public place like an internet cafe.

We may receive some information that you submit to any third party website that you access from a link contained in the Site.  Both us and the owner or operator of that third party site will be the data controller in respect of any such information and you should check the privacy policy of that website to find out how they will use your data. We will only use that information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Cookies

Cookies are small files of information which are stored on your computer. Websites you visit ask your computer to store this information and retrieve it from your computer so that they can keep track of things, like other websites you visit. We may use the information we obtain from the cookies in the administration of the Site, to monitor traffic, to personalise the Site for you and to improve the Site’s usability and for marketing purposes.  We will use cookies to store your password so that you don’t have to keep filling in a registration form every time you want to log in. We may use them to study things such as places on our Site where you visit and which bits of our Site you like best. We may also use them to make sure that any advertisements on our Site aren’t always the same when you visit each time and that you see advertising which you might like more than others. If you click on an advertisement to go through to an advertiser’s site, they may also use cookies and we don’t have any control over what they use their cookies for.

If you do not want to receive cookies you will need to adjust your computer settings to stop them being used but you may find that our Site may not function properly or is slower. For more information on how to disable cookies, please consult the “Help” section of your browser.  You might also have to keep entering registration information every time you log on. It also means we would find it difficult to give you any other information which you might be particularly interested in because we would not be able to recognise that it was you visiting our site.

As mentioned above, we may use an analytics service provider for website traffic analysis and reporting. This website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”).  Google Analytics uses cookies to help analyse how users use the Site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the Site (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the Site, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage.  Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.  By using this Site, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

Use of your information

We will only use your information for the following purposes:

• to ensure that content from the Site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer;

• to provide you with information about our products, services and events that you request from us or which we feel may interest you;

• to provide you with information about third parties’ products, services and events that you request from us or which we feel may interest you, where you have asked or consented to be contacted for such purposes;

• to allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so;

• to provide customer service in relation to your use of the Site, to deal with enquiries and complaints relating to the use of the Site and to notify you about changes to our service;

• to administer your membership account and enable us to provide you with access to all parts of the Site and to enable you to download information and materials from the Site;

• where you have submitted information to forums, bulletin boards or on your Profile, to display to other users your username and any other information that you have submitted and to enable other members of the Site to contact you;

• to administer, support, improve and develop our Site;

• to monitor your compliance with our Terms of Use;

• to send you general (non-marketing) commercial communications, such as information about the services provided to you by us at that time; and

• provide third parties with statistical information about our users – but this information will not be used to identify any individual user.

How do we look after your information?

We make sure that all the information we hold on you is processed in accordance with the DPA.

We employ security measures to protect your information from access by unauthorised persons and against unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction and damage. We will retain your information for the duration of your membership of the Site and for a reasonable period afterwards or as long as the law requires or permits.

We will store all the personal information you provide, including your login details, on our secure servers. All electronic transactions you make to or receive from us will be encrypted using SSL technology.

Data transmission over the internet is inherently insecure, and we cannot guarantee the security of data sent over the internet.

You are responsible for keeping your password and user details confidential.

Third party site and contributors

The Site contains links to websites and microsites that are operated by third parties. We do not control those websites and microsites and as such this Privacy Policy does not apply to those websites and microsites. Please consult the terms and conditions and privacy policy of those third party websites and microsites to find out how they collect and use your personal data and to establish whether and for what purpose they use cookies.

Advertisements contained on our Site operate as links to the advertiser’s website(s) and as such any information they collect by virtue of you clicking on that link will be collected and used in accordance with the privacy policy of that advertiser.

When do we give information you provide us to other people?

Other than as expressly set out in this Privacy Policy, or as otherwise required or permitted by law, we never give your information without your consent to anyone outside The Really Useful Group of companies, any websites affiliated with our Site or any companies used by us to look after your information.

We may disclose your personal information to (i) carefully selected third parties to contact you about products, services and events which may be of interest to you, where you have asked or consented to be contacted for such purposes; (ii) any third party to whom disclosure is necessary to enable us to provide you with any service to which you have subscribed via the Site; (iii) any person to whom disclosure is necessary to enable us to enforce our rights under this Privacy Policy; and/or (iv) any purchaser (or prospective purchaser) of some or all of the shares or business of The Really Useful Group Limited (or its subsidiaries, parent companies or any other subsidiaries of such parent companies) or any purchaser of the Site.

Occasionally the law will require us to provide information about you to third parties. 

Where we disclose your information to third parties we require their compliance with the DPA to make sure they keep your information safe and secret. We never directly disclose your information to advertisers but we may show you the advertisements of advertisers you might be most interested in bearing in mind what we know about you from your registration information.

We do give advertisers information where you are not identified such as how many people have clicked on their advertisements, what age range those people are and whether they are male or female. This may also include information about their particular interests, however they will never know who these people are.

Competitions

From time to time we may hold competitions in connection with our content or products, or in partnership with one or more of our partners, as part of which, we may request contact information from you when you enter.

We will use the information you provide to administer your entry to the competitions and for other purposes to which you consent at the time of entering the competition. If we offer competitions which are run or sponsored by third parties, we may share the information we obtain from you with them. If that is the case, then we will notify you that we are sharing your personal information with such partner at the point where we collect it and you will be able to choose whether to participate in the applicable competition.

Your rights

You are entitled to see the information held about you and you may ask us to make any necessary changes to ensure that it is accurate and kept up to date. If you wish to see the information we hold about you, please contact us in writing using the information provided above. We are entitled by law to charge a fee of £10 to meet our costs in providing you with details of the information we hold about you.  We are also legally obliged to request you to provide us with identification so that we can be certain that you are entitled to receive the requested data.

You may request us to cease sending you any marketing information at any time by notifying us in writing or alternatively each marketing email sent to you will contain an easy, automated way for you to cease receiving marketing emails from us, or to change your expressed marketing permissions.  If you wish to do this, simply follow the instructions at the end of any email.  You may request us to cease processing your data at any time and if we are required to cease such processing we will.  Please note that if you withdraw your consent to certain types of processing described above we may be unable to maintain your membership of the Site. If you have received unwanted, unsolicited emails sent via this system or purporting to be sent via this system, please forward a copy of that email with your comments to online_team@reallyuseful.co.uk for review.

Children under 13 years old

Notice to Children

If you are under 13 years old we cannot let you register with us until your parents or guardians give us written permission. You can still use other parts of our Site but you are not allowed to fill in any forms. Ask your parents or guardians to read this notice and get in contact with us.

Notice to Parents

We do not allow children who tell us they are under 13 to register with us or buy merchandise or tickets unless we have parental or guardian consent. Please write or send a fax to us at the address above (do not email) with your child’s name and email address and confirmation that they may provide us with their details. Let us know if they may receive information on products from carefully selected third parties. If your child wishes to buy merchandise from us please also confirm in writing that they have permission to give us your credit card details.

We never give out details on children under 13 to third parties unless the child’s parent or guardian says so and the parent or guardian can tell us at any time if they wish to withdraw their permission. A parent or guardian can look at the information we hold on their child at any time and let us know if any information or material relating to the child should be deleted.

Changes to our privacy policy

We reserve the right to make changes to the Privacy Policy from time to time. Any such changes to our Privacy Policy will be posted to the Site and, where appropriate, through e-mail notification.

International use

You agree to comply with all applicable laws regarding the transmission of technical data exported from the United Kingdom or the country in which you reside (if different) and with all local laws and rules regarding acceptable use of and conduct on the Internet.

Our servers are situated in the UK, however we collect data from wherever users are situated.  The information that we collect will therefore be transferred to the UK from any other country in which you may be located and will be subject to UK data protection laws rather than the laws of the country in which you are resident.

We may need to transfer your data outside the UK (and possibly to places outside the European Economic Area) and by using the Site you consent to us transferring any such data in this way.

How to get in contact with us?

Please let us know if the personal information which we hold about you needs to be corrected or updated at any time.  If you forget your password please click the link under the log in buttons. If you need to contact us, please email us at: online_team@reallyuseful.co.uk