Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Whisky Marketplace collects, uses, stores, and protects personal information when you use our website to browse, search, compare, and discover whisky prices.

Whisky Marketplace is a UK-based whisky price comparison website. We help users compare prices, availability, offers, and retailer listings from specialist whisky retailers. We are committed to being transparent about how we use personal information and how our website is funded.

Whisky Marketplace is operated by Whisky Marketplace Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 17204643. Registered office: 128 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX, UK.

For the purposes of UK data protection law, including the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, Whisky Marketplace Ltd is the controller of the personal information we collect through this website.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how we use your information, you can contact us at:

Email: privacy@whiskymarketplace.com

We collect personal information in a few different ways, depending on how you use the site.

Information You Provide to Us

You may provide information directly to us when you:

• contact us through the website;
• sign up for email updates, alerts, or newsletters;
• submit feedback, enquiries, or request to be listed;
• communicate with us by email or another channel.

This information may include your name, email address, message content, alert preferences, and any other details you choose to share with us.

Information We Collect Automatically

When you visit Whisky Marketplace, we may automatically collect limited technical and usage information, including:

• browser type and version;
• device type;
• operating system;
• pages viewed;
• search queries and filters used on the site;
• referral source;
• approximate location derived from your IP address;
• date and time of visits;
• interactions with retailer links, affiliate links, buttons, and comparison features.

We use this information to operate the website, improve performance, understand how users interact with our comparison tools, detect abuse, and improve the accuracy and usefulness of our service.

Information from Retailers, Affiliate Networks, and Service Providers

We may receive information from third-party retailers, affiliate networks, analytics providers, hosting providers, and other technical partners. This may include aggregated performance data, referral data, click data, commission data, and technical logs.

Where possible, we use aggregated or pseudonymised information rather than directly identifying information.

Cookies on Whisky Marketplace are used for:

• essential website functionality (remembering your cookie consent choice);
• security and bot protection;
• remembering your country selection so we can suggest the right regional site;
• analytics and performance measurement, via Google Analytics 4.

Whisky Marketplace does not set advertising or marketing cookies, and we do not run retargeting or ad-personalisation tags.

When you click through to a retailer, that retailer (or their affiliate network) may set its own cookies on its own domain to record that you arrived from Whisky Marketplace. Those cookies are not set or read by us, and are governed by each retailer's privacy and cookie policies.

You can control cookies through your browser settings, the cookie banner, or the Cookie preferences link in the footer. Blocking some cookies may affect how parts of the website work.

For more information, please see our Cookie Policy.

We use personal information to:

• provide and operate the Whisky Marketplace website;
• show relevant whisky prices, retailer listings, availability, offers, and product information;
• help you compare whisky prices across retailers;
• provide alerts, updates, newsletters, or other communications you have requested;
• respond to questions, feedback, support requests, and retailer enquiries;
• remember preferences and improve your experience;
• analyse website performance and user behaviour;
• monitor, troubleshoot, and improve the site;
• detect, prevent, and respond to abuse, fraud, spam, or security issues;
• manage affiliate links, referral tracking, and commission reporting;
• comply with legal obligations;
• protect our rights, users, retailers, and service providers.

We only use personal information where we have a lawful basis to do so under UK data protection law.

Depending on the context, we may rely on:

Consent

We may rely on your consent where you sign up for marketing emails, agree to non-essential cookies, or opt into certain alerts or updates. You can withdraw consent at any time.

Contract or Pre-Contract Steps

Where you request a service from us, such as setting a price alert or contacting us about a service, we may use your information to provide that service or respond to your request.

Legitimate Interests

We may use personal information where it is necessary for our legitimate interests, provided those interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms. This may include improving the website, measuring performance, preventing abuse, maintaining security, understanding which features are useful, and operating affiliate referral tracking.

Legal Obligation

We may use or retain information where required to comply with applicable laws, regulations, tax obligations, accounting rules, legal claims, or regulatory requests.

Whisky Marketplace is a price comparison website. Some links to retailers may be affiliate links.

If you click an affiliate link and make a purchase from a retailer, we may receive a commission from that retailer or an affiliate network. This helps fund the site and allows us to continue providing price comparison tools.

Affiliate networks and retailers may use cookies or similar technologies to record that you reached their website from Whisky Marketplace. These technologies may track clicks, referrals, purchases, and commission eligibility.

We do not control the privacy practices of retailers or affiliate networks once you leave Whisky Marketplace. Their own privacy policies and cookie policies will apply.

Affiliate relationships do not determine the cheapest price shown for a bottle. On product comparison pages, retailer listings are ranked by price and availability, not by commission.

We share personal information with third parties only where it is necessary to operate the website, provide our services, or comply with the law.

The categories of recipients are:

• Hosting and infrastructure providers — for website hosting and edge network delivery, and content management system hosting.
• Analytics providers — Google Analytics 4, used to measure how the site is used and to improve our comparison tools.
• Email and newsletter providers — used to deliver any communications you have requested.
• Affiliate networks and retail partners — used to record click-throughs from Whisky Marketplace to participating retailers and to manage commission reporting.
• Professional advisers — such as accountants, lawyers, and insurers, where reasonably needed.
• Regulators, authorities, and law enforcement — where we are legally required to disclose information, or where disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, our users, or the public.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for third-party advertising or marketing purposes.

Where we use a service provider, we require them to use personal information only for the purposes we specify, to keep it secure, and to comply with applicable data protection law.

Most personal information we hold is processed in the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area. Our content management system, for example, is hosted in London.

Some of our service providers — including hosting, analytics, and email delivery — process personal information outside the UK, principally in the United States. When personal information is transferred outside the UK, we rely on a lawful transfer mechanism, such as:

• a UK adequacy regulation, where one applies to the destination country;
• the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, where the recipient is certified under it;
• the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, or the UK Addendum to the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses; or
• another mechanism permitted by UK data protection law.

We review these arrangements from time to time to confirm that an appropriate safeguard remains in place for each transfer.

We keep personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.

Retention periods may vary depending on the type of information and why we hold it. For example:

• contact enquiries may be kept for as long as needed to respond and maintain appropriate records;
• newsletter or alert subscription data is kept until you unsubscribe or the service is no longer provided;
• analytics data may be retained in aggregated or pseudonymised form;
• records needed for tax, accounting, legal, or fraud prevention purposes may be kept for longer where required.

When information is no longer needed, we delete it, anonymise it, or securely archive it.

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal information against unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration, or disclosure.

However, no website, database, or transmission method is completely secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security, but we work to protect the information we hold and review our safeguards as appropriate.

Under UK data protection law, you may have rights in relation to your personal information. These include rights to be informed, access your data, correct inaccurate data, request deletion, restrict processing, object to processing, data portability, and rights relating to automated decision-making and profiling.

Depending on the circumstances, you may have the right to:

• ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
• ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information;
• ask us to delete your personal information;
• ask us to restrict how we use your information;
• object to certain uses of your information;
• withdraw consent where we rely on consent;
• request transfer of your information in a portable format;
• complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office.

You can exercise your rights by contacting us at privacy@whiskymarketplace.com.

We may need to verify your identity before responding to certain requests.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK regulator for data protection matters.

If you sign up for newsletters, price alerts, or other updates, we will use your email address to send the communications you requested.

You can unsubscribe at any time by using the unsubscribe link in our emails or by contacting us.

We may still send non-marketing service messages where necessary, such as important account, security, or service updates.

Whisky Marketplace is intended for adults of legal drinking age.

In the United Kingdom, you must be at least 18 years old to purchase alcohol. Our website is not intended for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from people under that age.

If you believe someone under 18 has provided personal information to us, please contact us and we will take appropriate steps to delete it.

Whisky Marketplace contains links to retailer websites and other third-party websites.

We are not responsible for the privacy practices, content, pricing, availability, checkout process, delivery terms, or cookie practices of third-party websites. When you leave Whisky Marketplace, you should read the privacy policy and terms of the website you visit.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time.

When we make changes, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. If changes are significant, we may provide additional notice where appropriate.

Questions about this Privacy Policy or how we use personal information?

Contact us at:

Email: privacy@whiskymarketplace.com