This policy explains what personal data audio-play.com collects, why it is collected, how long it stays around, who else can see it, and what you can ask us to do about it. It applies to this website only. It does not cover Amazon or any other site you reach by following a link from here, and those sites have their own policies that you should read separately.
The operator of this site acts as the data controller for the information described below. You can reach us at any time at [email protected].
Information you give us directly
The only place on this site where you can deliberately hand over personal information is the form on the contact page. That form is built with Contact Form 7, and submissions are stored in this website’s own database by a companion plugin, CFDB7, in addition to being emailed to us.
This is worth stating clearly, because it is not obvious to most visitors: when you submit the contact form, a copy of what you wrote is saved on this server, not just sent as an email. That copy contains whatever you typed into the form, which normally means your name, your email address, your subject line and your message, along with the date and time of submission and technical data such as the IP address the submission came from.
Please do not put sensitive information into that form. It is a general contact channel for questions, corrections and coverage suggestions. It is not a secure channel and it should never be used for payment details, government identification numbers, health information or account passwords.
Information collected automatically
Server access logs. Like every web server, the machine hosting this site records each request it receives. A log line typically includes your IP address, the date and time, the page or file requested, the HTTP status returned, the referring page if your browser sent one, and your browser’s user agent string. They are used to keep the site running, to investigate errors, and to identify abusive traffic such as scraping, brute force login attempts and denial of service activity.
Analytics. We collect aggregate usage statistics so we know which pages are read, which links are followed, and where traffic arrives from. This is used at the level of pages and totals rather than to build a profile of an individual visitor. We do not use analytics data to identify you personally, and we do not attempt to link it to any other information about you.
Security and bot filtering. The site runs protective measures that inspect incoming requests to block automated abuse. This processing looks at request characteristics including the IP address and user agent.
Cookies
Cookies are small text files a site asks your browser to store. This site involves several sources of them.
WordPress, the software this site runs on, sets cookies for functional purposes. Most of these only appear if you log in or leave a comment, which ordinary visitors never do. The caching layer that serves pages quickly may also set a cookie so it can decide whether to give you a cached copy of a page or a freshly generated one.
The important one to understand is the third party case. When you follow an outbound link from this site to Amazon, Amazon sets its own cookies in your browser under Amazon’s domain. Those cookies are what allow Amazon to attribute a later purchase to this site and pay us an advertising fee. We do not set them, we cannot read them, and we cannot delete them for you. They are governed by Amazon’s privacy notice and cookie policy, not by ours. The cookie policy goes through all of this in more detail, including how to control cookies in your browser.
Why we process this data, and on what legal basis
For visitors covered by the UK or EU General Data Protection Regulation, the legal bases are as follows.
- Consent for anything you send us through the contact form. You choose to send it, and you can withdraw it by asking us to delete the message.
- Legitimate interests for server logs, security filtering and aggregate analytics. Our interest is in operating a site that stays online, resists abuse and improves over time, and that interest is balanced against the limited and largely technical nature of the data involved.
- Legal obligation where we are required to retain or disclose something by law.
We do not sell personal information, we do not share it with data brokers, and we do not use it for automated decision making or profiling that produces legal effects.
How long data is kept
We would rather be accurate here than quote a tidy number we cannot enforce.
Contact form submissions stored by the CFDB7 plugin remain in the site database until they are deleted. There is no automatic expiry running on them by default. We clear old submissions periodically as part of routine maintenance, but we are not going to promise a fixed schedule that nobody is monitoring. If you want your message removed sooner, ask and we will delete it.
Server logs are rotated and overwritten by the hosting stack on its own cycle, which is generally a matter of weeks rather than years. That rotation is a function of the server configuration rather than something managed page by page. Analytics data is retained in aggregate form. Backups of the site database exist for disaster recovery, so a deleted record can survive in a backup image until that backup is itself rotated out.
Who else can see your data
Our hosting provider processes everything that passes through the server, since the data physically sits on their infrastructure. The email provider that delivers contact form messages handles those messages in transit. Analytics processing is carried out for us and is not shared onward for advertising. Beyond that, we disclose personal data only where we are legally required to, or where it is necessary to protect the site against abuse or to defend a legal claim.
Amazon is a separate matter and worth repeating. Once you click through to Amazon you are on Amazon’s site under Amazon’s terms. What Amazon collects there, including data collected through its own cookies, is entirely between you and Amazon.
Children
This site is aimed at adults shopping for audio equipment. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has submitted information through our contact form, write to us and we will delete it.
Your rights
If you are in the UK or the European Economic Area, you have the right to ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, to have inaccurate data corrected, to have data erased, to restrict or object to processing, and to receive data in a portable format. You also have the right to complain to your national data protection authority.
If you are a California resident, you have the right to know what categories of personal information have been collected and for what purpose, to request deletion, and not to be discriminated against for exercising those rights. We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined by the California Consumer Privacy Act, so there is nothing for you to opt out of on that front.
To exercise any of these rights, email [email protected] and say what you want done. For most visitors the only record we hold is a contact form submission, so the fastest route is to write from the same email address you used on the form, or tell us roughly when you wrote in and what about. We may need to confirm we are dealing with the right person before acting on a deletion request, and we respond within the periods required by applicable law.
Security
The site is served over an encrypted connection, administrative access is restricted, and the software is kept updated. No website can guarantee absolute security, and we are not going to claim otherwise. Please keep sensitive information out of the contact form.
Changes to this policy
If the way this site handles data changes, this page is updated to match. Continued use of the site after a change means you accept the revised policy. For questions about anything on this page, contact [email protected].