As the site (and its associated services) grow, it has become a necessity to have a privacy page. This clears up a little bit about how we use data, how we protect it and so forth. It also has some terms and conditions that apply to our competitions. If there’s anything you’d like clarifying then I’m reachable at any time via the contact page on London Cyclist.
Here is what we’ll cover here:
- What services does London Cyclist provide?
- Do we use Google Analytics?
- What about our newsletter?
- What about our eShop?
- What about our eBooks?
- What about our apps?
- How can I improve my privacy?
- What about commenting?
- What about surveys/competitions?
- What about cookies?
- Do we sell your data?
- Third party links
- Affiliate links
- Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act
- Your consent
- Changes to our privacy policy
- Contacting us
- A note on competitions…
Thank you,
Andreas
What services does London Cyclist provide?
- eShop
- Newsletter
- Apps (Bike Doctor, London Cyclist app)
- eBooks
- Discussion area where you can leave comments beneath posts
Do we use Google Analytics?
Yes, this site uses Google Analytics which, using cookies, tracks our readers interaction with the website. It allows us to answer questions such as:
- How many people visit the site on a daily basis?
- What are the most popular posts?
We use the results to help us decide what kind of content is popular with our audience, so we can provide more of it.
You can find out more about Google Analytics on their website, where they also list their privacy policy and a plugin to opt out.
The important thing to note here, is that Google and London Cyclist do not collect any personally identifiable information through Google Analytics.
What about our Newsletter?
We use Aweber to provide our newsletter. It is a service that allows us to send emails out to nearly 10,000 subscribers. The service also tracks who is opening the emails (so we know if we’re writing good emails) and what they are clicking on (again, helps us customise our content). Users can unsubscribe at any time, by hitting the unsubscribe link. They’ll immediately stop receiving emails and their details are deleted from our database completely within 30 days.
This does have some personally identifiable information, by we try to keep this to a minimum by only asking for a first name and and email address. You can checkout the Aweber privacy policy on their website.
It’s also worth noting that we use a double opt in. When you enter your name and email, we’ll send you a message to double check that you definitely want to subscribe. This contains a confirmation link you’ll need to click before we start sending you any emails.
What about our eShop?
To complete your order in our eShop we need your name, email address, billing address, shipping address, phone number and credit card information. We use Stripe and Paypal to process payments and for your security at no stage do we see your entire credit card number. This is help privately and securely by Stripe or Paypal, in order to process your payment.
We also use your details to help with customer queries.
Our eShop also uses Google Analytics to track our customers behaviour so we can provide more of the products customers love and retire lines that are no longer popular.
Our eShop is hosted on WPEngine, a highly secure WordPress hosting provider, who provide regular backups. We use Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption for all orders. Our 256 bit certificate is issued by GeoTrust.
What about our eBooks?
We use a service called E-Junkie to sell our eBooks. They handle secure, encrypted order processing and provide us with your details in order for us to send you your eBook. We can also access previous sales in order to re-activate download links for customers, who’s links have expired. E-Junkie also optionally links with Aweber in order to provide updates to eBook customers.
We also sell eBooks through Amazon for the Kindle service. You can read Amazon’s privacy policy on their website.
What about our apps?
Our apps:
- Bike Doctor
- London Cyclist App
Geolocation
The London Cyclist app requests your permission to provide us with your location data.
On the London Cyclist App, this allows us to show you a list of your nearest bike related businesses. It also allows us to show you your location on a map, so that you can find your nearest bike business.
The Bike Doctor app does not require your location.
You can cancel the permission you grant us to use your location data by going in to your iOS settings > Privacy > Location Services and turning off location services for the relevant app.
No personally identifiable information is associated with your geolocation.
Google Analytics
The London Cyclist App uses Google Analytics. This allows us to see how users are interacting with our app, so we can make improvements. For example, we can see that a certain bike shop is more popular than others. No personally identifiable information (including, but not limited to: name, email address or unique device ID) is transferred to Google. You can view Google’s privacy policy here which explains how they use your data.
Cloud storage
We use third parties to help administer the applications (e.g., storage and hosting providers), and such parties may have access to data from our applications.
Advertising
The London Cyclist app allows companies to buy a featured spot at the top of the listings, in return for a discount or special deal for users. We will never share any personal information with these companies, we only share usage data such as how many views their advertisement has had.
eShop
The London Cyclist App links with our eShop. See our eShop section in this privacy policy for more details.
Newsletter
The London Cyclist App and Bike Doctor provide access to our newsletter. See our Newsletter section in this privacy policy for more details.
Accident Report
London Cyclist is partnered with CAMS to offer support and legal advice following an accident. When you choose to provide us with your name and contact number for the explicit purpose of accessing these services, we will forward on the details you provide to CAMS. They will attempt to call you on the number you supply in order to provide these services.
How can I improve my privacy?
You can increase your anonymity by using Private Browsing which is available in most modern browsers. You can also use encrypted browsers such as Tor.
However, if you don’t sign up to our newsletter, leave a comment or purchase from our eShop, then you are anonymous to London Cyclist.
What about commenting?
When you leave a comment, you can enter a name and email address. This is to discourage spammers and so that others can respond to your comment by name. You also have the option of receiving an email every time someone responds to the post you have commented on. If you wish, you are welcome to leave a false email address. Your email address can only be seen by site administrators.
You can contact me at any time to remove your commenting data and I will aim to do so within a reasonable time frame.
What about surveys/competitions?
For surveys and competitions we typically require a name and email address. At other times we’ll ask you to participate on our Facebook page or through Twitter. This is used to administer the competition.
What if I submit an accident report?
London Cyclist is partnered with CAMS to provide cyclists with support and legal advice following an accident. If you submit a relevant form with your name and phone number, we forward these details on to CAMS, in order for them to provide these services. CAMS will attempt to call you on the number you provide, in order to provide you with these services. If you don’t wish to proceed with your claim, then CAMS will not call you again. CAMS is regulated by the Ministry of Justice in respect of regulated claims management activities, authorisation number: CRM2490.
What about cookies?
Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computers hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow) that enables the sites or service providers systems to recognise your browser and capture and remember certain information. We use cookies to help us remember and process the items in your shopping cart and for tracking through Google Analytics.
Do we sell your data?
Absolutely not! Private data held by London Cyclist will never be sold to another company. We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property, or safety. However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.
How do we secure your data?
We take all reasonable steps to keep your data secure:
- We limit access to only essential members of our team to deliver our services
- We use secure passwords
- We use encryption for all order processing
- We keep all software up to date
- We use a hosting provider reputed for their security
- We only link to trustworthy websites
- We never see your full credit card details when you purchase from us
- We keep our computers secure, using regularly updated antivirus software
Transmissions over the internet or mobile network can never be totally secure and we cannot guarantee that a breach will never occur.
Third party links
Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third party products or services on our website. These third party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.
Affiliate links
Occasionally on the site you’ll see a link such as: https://www.londoncyclist.co.uk/go/wpengine/
This will link to something along the lines of: http://www.shareasale.com/r.cfm?u=370911&b=398424&m=41388&afftrack=wpengine%2Dlondoncyclist&urllink=wpengine%2Ecom%2F%3FSSAID%3D370911
This is an affiliate link. If you end up purchasing a product from this outside vendor, London Cyclist makes a percentage of the sale, which helps us run the site with minimum advertising and without charging users or requesting donations.
We primarily work with Wiggle, Evans Cycles, Amazon and Chain Reaction Cycles.
Typically a cookie is used to track where the visitor comes from and any sales they make within a certain time period is paid to us.
Once again, no personally identifiable information is held by London Cyclist.
We use redirect links such as: https://www.londoncyclist.co.uk/go/wpengine/
Because they allow us to centrally update these links when they change. Products often become out of stock or unavailable, at which point we try to change the link to somewhere where the product is available or a more up to date version of the product is available.
Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance
We are in compliance with the requirements of COPPA (Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act), we do not collect any information from anyone under 13 years of age. Our website, products and services are all directed to people who are at least 13 years old or older.
Your Consent
By using our site, you consent to our privacy policy.
Changes to our Privacy Policy
If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page.
Contacting Us
If there are any questions regarding this privacy policy you may contact us using the information below.
https://www.londoncyclist.co.uk/contact/
A note on competitions..
Occasionally, when we are feeling generous we run competitions here on London Cyclist to give away nice prizes to our readers. Special conditions may apply to each competition, and these will generally be stated in the post where the competition is announced. However, if not stated otherwise then the rules listed here apply to competitions:
- Winners are normally randomly selected by the Random website.
- Giveaways are generally open to UK residents over the age of 18.
- Winners need to respond within a reasonable time frame to organisers emails to receive their prize. Otherwise a new winner is randomly drawn.
- Anyone related to London Cyclist can’t enter the competition (e.g. Andreas, Employees, Freelancers, Writers, Advertisers)
- The decision of the judges or the random number chosen is final and no correspondence will be entered in to.
- Winners may be asked to participate in publicity and that is their choice.
- The winners name will be announced.
- Events may occur that make the prize draw itself or the awarding of the prize impossible due to reasons beyond the control of London Cyclist Blog or the promoter. (E.g. If we were giving away Olympics tickets and the Olympics were suddenly cancelled)
- London Cyclist Blog may at its absolute discretion vary or amend the competition and the entrant agrees no liability shall be attached to the promoter as a result thereof.
- If there’s a conflict with these rules and the specific competition rules then the latter take preference.