What we keep
When you create an account, we keep:
- Your email address, so you can sign in and so we can reach you about the account.
- Your password, if you set one, stored as a hash we cannot reverse.
- The name you give us, or the one Google gives us if you sign in with Google.
- The language you were reading the site in when you signed up, so the emails we send you arrive in that language.
- One record for each time you sign in: when it started, when it expires, and the browser and IP address it came from.
- If you sign in with Google, the link between your account here and your Google account. Google gives us your name and your email address and confirms the address is yours. We do not keep your photo, your contacts or anything else from your Google profile, and we never read or post anything on your behalf.
- Any rating you give a racket, and which racket it was, tied to your account. Everyone can see the average and how many people rated it; nobody can see who gave which rating.
- Anything you tell us is wrong about a racket: which racket it was, which detail, what you say it should be, and what you wrote to explain how you know, tied to your account. Only the people who look after the site read it; no other visitor ever sees it, and it never appears on the racket page.
- Your IP address, for a short time, when you sign up, sign in, reset your password, delete the account, rate a racket or tell us something is wrong with one, to limit repeated attempts.
- Whether the account runs the site. Every account starts out as an ordinary one, there is no way to change that from anywhere on the site, and it says nothing about you: it is how we know which account may open the pages we use to look after the catalogue.
That is all. There is no profile, no photo, and no record of which rackets you looked at.
What we use it for
To sign you in, to remember your language, and to send you the emails the account needs: confirming your address, resetting your password, confirming that you want to delete the account, or telling you that someone tried to sign up with your email.
We do this because you asked for an account, and because we have to keep that account safe.
We do not sell your details, share them for advertising, or use them to send you newsletters.
How long we keep it
Until you delete your account, plus the time our backups cover: about 4 weeks.
When you delete your account, everything tied to it is removed at once, including your ratings and anything you told us was wrong about a racket. What stays is a scrambled version of your email address (a hash), and only that, for about 4 weeks, or a little longer at most, until our monthly clean-up runs. It exists for one reason: if we ever have to restore the database from a backup made before you deleted, the hash lets us delete your account again instead of bringing it back.
The counters that limit repeated attempts are the one exception, and only the ones held against an IP address rather than an account: they are not linked to anyone and they expire on their own within a day.
One honest limit: in a real disaster recovery, an account deleted in the hours before the failure may come back. If that happens to you, you can delete it again the same way.
The service that sends our emails keeps a record of each one (who it went to, its subject, and whether it was delivered) for 30 days, and its own backups for 7 days. We cannot shorten that.
Who handles it for us
Three companies:
- Railway hosts the site and the database, in the European Union (the Netherlands), and keeps short-lived request logs, as any host does.
- Resend sends our emails from Ireland, in the European Union, and keeps its sending records in the United States.
- Google, only if you choose to sign in with Google. What happens on Google's side is covered by Google's own privacy policy.
- Google also serves the fonts on every page, so Google's servers see your IP address when a page loads, whether or not you have an account.
Cookies
Two that stay, and the site needs both to work, which is why there is no cookie banner:
- A session cookie, set only when you sign in. It keeps you signed in for 30 days, renewed as you use the site, and it is removed when you sign out. Scripts on the page cannot read it.
- A language cookie, set only when you pick a language from the menu. It remembers your choice for a year. We keep the same choice in your browser's local storage too, so it survives if the cookie is cleared.
During Google sign-in, one short-lived cookie carries the sign-in through Google's pages and is gone minutes later.
There are no advertising cookies and no analytics cookies.
How to delete your account
Sign in, open your account page, and choose to delete the account. We send you an email with a link, and the account is deleted when you open it. Everything listed above goes with it, apart from the hash described under "How long we keep it".
If you are in the UK and think we have got something wrong, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.
Changes
If this page changes, the date at the top changes with it.