Privacy policy

1. Who we are

Appliance Compare is an independent UK appliance comparison site based in London, United Kingdom. We act as the controller for any personal data described below under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. Contact for data matters: hello@appliancecompare.uk.

2. What we collect from you

When you visit a page, our hosting infrastructure receives standard request metadata (IP address, user-agent string, requested URL, referrer). This is used only to serve the page and to detect abusive automated traffic; it is not used to build a profile, retained beyond seven days in server logs, or shared with third parties.

When you click an outbound "View" link to a retailer, we record the click event for affiliate-revenue attribution. The record includes the SKU, the retailer, the country code, an anonymous browser session token (no personal identifier), and a one-way SHA-256 hash of your IP address salted with a daily-rotating secret. The plain IP is not stored. These records are retained for 90 days, after which they are deleted in bulk.

We do not collect names, email addresses, phone numbers, payment details or any other identifying information through normal browsing. The only way you may share such data with us is by emailing us, in which case we retain your email and message only as long as needed to answer it.

3. Cookies and similar technology

Appliance Compare itself does not set advertising cookies, analytics cookies, or any cookie that tracks you across sites. The only cookie that may be set by our domain is a strictly-necessary session cookie used to remember which product comparison set you are currently building during a single visit; it expires when you close the browser tab.

When you click an outbound retailer link, the destination retailer (and the Awin tracking domain that the link briefly passes through) will set their own cookies on the retailer's domain in line with their own privacy policies. We have no access to those cookies and they are not visible to us.

4. Third parties

• Cloudflare (Cloudflare, Inc., USA) provides DNS resolution and domain registration. They see request metadata necessary for DNS to function.
• Awin (Awin AG, Germany) operates the affiliate network that attributes our outbound retailer clicks. They see the click event and any purchase that follows it, governed by their own privacy notice at awin.com/gb/legal/privacy-policy.
• Retailers (Currys, AO.com, John Lewis, Argos and others) receive your visit once you click an outbound link. Their privacy notices apply once you are on their site.
• Our content data sources (the EU EPREL register, public review platforms such as YouTube, manufacturer product pages) are processed for content generation only; they do not receive your personal data.

5. Lawful basis for processing

We rely on our legitimate interest in operating a functioning website (Article 6(1)(f) UK GDPR) for the minimal request metadata and the hashed-IP affiliate-click record. We balance this interest against your privacy by hashing the IP, salting daily, and deleting records after 90 days.

6. Your rights

You have the right to:

• request a copy of any personal data we hold on you,
• ask us to correct or delete that data,
• object to our processing of it,
• complain to the Information Commissioner's Office if you are dissatisfied with our response.

Because we do not store personal identifiers from browsing, we will not in practice be able to find data about you unless you have previously emailed us. Email us at hello@appliancecompare.uk to exercise any of these rights.

7. Data security and location

Server logs and affiliate-click records are stored on infrastructure located in the United Kingdom. Cloudflare DNS is provided from their global network. We do not transfer data outside the UK or EEA other than as inherent to operating these services.

8. Changes

Material changes to this policy will be published at the top of this page with a revised "last updated" date. If a change materially expands the categories of data we collect or who we share it with, we will explain why.