Introduction

This Policy aims to clarify how we gather, disclose, and utilise your information to better understand your needs and interests. This enables us to offer personalized content and connect you with the most relevant advertisements and/or services.

Consent

By completing any of our registration forms on our website, you give your consent to the use of your personal information in accordance with this Policy.

Who Are We?

Infohaus operates under the trading name of Flamefish Media Ltd, located at 5 Staines Road, Twickenham TW2 5BG. Flamefish Media Ltd serves as the data controller.

Collecting Information

Registration, Forums, Apps, and Your Interactions with Us

We gather the information you provide to us when you complete our online forms, respond to our promotions, inquire about our products and services, subscribe to our newsletters, or participate in our online or app forums. For quality, training, and management purposes, phone calls may be recorded when you contact us or when we contact you. Additionally, we may record customer inquiries conducted via online chat for the same purposes.

Information from Devices

We also indirectly collect information from the device you use when interacting with our website or using our app. This includes geographic location data, which may be necessary for providing copyrighted content. Furthermore, we may collect information through cookies placed on your computer or device. For more details, please refer to our Cookie Policy.

Posts, Comments and Interactions

When readers engage with Infohaus through polls, comments, and forums, we reserve the right to display this content indefinitely in relevant contexts, subject to our editorial judgment. In certain cases, such as testimonials or customer service conversations, this content may be anonymized.

Publicly Available Information and Posts

Any information you submit about yourself or others on social media platforms, including chat rooms, blogs, and forums, is visible to other individuals. Consequently, third parties, including search engines, over which we have no control, may view, collect, and use this personal data. We are not responsible for the information you submit or make available in public areas or its use by any third party.

Social Media Logins

If you log in to our websites or online services via a third-party platform like Facebook, YouTube, etc., that platform may share information with us, such as user ID, associated name, email address, location, and other data permitted under their privacy policy. Our website may also transmit information about you back to the social networking site regarding your login.

Information about third parties

By providing us with information about another person, you confirm that you have been authorised to act on their behalf, share their information (including sensitive personal data), transfer their information internationally, and receive data protection notices on their behalf.

Other Sources

We may also obtain information about you from other companies with your consent to share your information, as well as from various online and offline sources. This information may be combined with data collected directly or indirectly from you.

The Use and Sharing of Your Information

Delivering Services and an Enhanced and Personalised Experience

We utilise your information to provide the requested products and services, enhance your personalised experience, and manage our relationship with you. This includes enabling interactions, comments, and participation in online games or contests. Your information helps us monitor, improve, and safeguard our products, content, services, and websites, both online and offline. Additionally, we may offer assistance and support when necessary, such as reaching out if a checkout process is left incomplete.

The content on our websites and in our communications may be tailored based on your preferences for content, products, and services. This allows us to highlight content and articles that we believe will be of interest to you. We achieve personalisation through various means, including cookies, IP addresses, web beacons, URL tracking, and app settings. For detailed information on how we use these techniques, please refer to our Cookie Policy.

Market Research and Analytics

We may use your information to conduct market research aimed at improving the services we provide and developing new products and services.

Helping us to Delivering Relevant Advertising

We employ targeted advertising to deliver online ads that align with your interests. These ads are based on your interactions with us through our website, mobile app, and tablet editions of our products and services. Information obtained through your participation in competitions, offers, and events, whether initiated by us or in collaboration with our commercial partners, may also be used to provide more relevant online advertising. Additionally, we may use your device’s location to deliver pertinent online advertisements. This information is aggregated, and advertising is presented based on your interests and profile when you visit websites or apps that use the same advertising networks. Further details can be found in our Cookie Policy.

Third-Party Advertising

Some advertising content may be tailored based on personal information. In such cases, third parties may create this targeted advertising, and the information collected will be held by these third parties, beyond our control. We assume no responsibility for the content of advertising materials, including any errors, omissions, or inaccuracies.

Direct Marketing

This includes communication through postal mail, telephone, email, and messages to your mobile phone, as well as through social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. These communications pertain to us and our business partners’ products and services, events, and offers.

Relevant Communications

Unless you have specified otherwise, we may use your information to send you newsletters, bulletins, and other information related to your selected services.

How We Share with Third Parties

We may share your information with suppliers we use for services involving data usage on our behalf, such as delivery services or market research agencies. Additionally, if we offer a service contingent on age or residency verification, we may pass your details to a third party for verification.

We will only disclose your information to third-party companies for their purposes, including marketing, when we have obtained your explicit permission to do so. For instance, in the event of a competition we organise, the partner providing the prize may wish to send entrants information about their products.

Co-Branded Services and Features

We may offer co-branded services or features in collaboration with third parties and may share the information you provide with these third parties. These co-branded services may be hosted by us or the third party. The use of your information by the third party will be governed by their privacy policy, which you should review.

Enabling Social Sharing Functionality

By logging in with or connecting your account to social media platforms, you authorise us to share information collected from and about you with that social media provider, other users, and your friends. You understand that the use of this shared information will be governed by the social media service’s privacy policy. If you do not wish for your personal information to be shared in this manner, please refrain from connecting your social media service account to your account and avoid participating in social sharing on our websites or apps.

Linked Services

Our services may be linked to websites operated by third-party companies, featuring advertisements or offering content, functionality, games, newsletters, contests, sweepstakes, or applications developed and maintained by unaffiliated companies. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of unaffiliated companies. When you leave our services or click on an advertisement, it’s essential to review the applicable privacy policy of the other service.

Legal Disclosures

Your personal information will be disclosed when legal obligations require it. We may also disclose your personal information where permitted by law to protect or enforce our rights or the rights of others and for the detection and prevention of crimes, such as fraud.

Acceptable Use of Services

If you post or send offensive or objectionable content on our website or app, or engage in disruptive behaviour on our platforms, we may use the available information about you to curtail such behaviour. This may involve notifying relevant third parties, such as your employer and law enforcement agencies, about the content and your conduct.

In the Event of the Sale of Our Business

In the event of the sale of part or all of our business, customer information may be among the transferred business assets. If this occurs, your information may be disclosed to any successors of our business for use in accordance with the purposes outlined in this Policy.

Data Transfers

When you complete our registration forms or utilise our services, we may transfer your information to processors located outside the European Economic Area. However, rest assured that we do so while implementing appropriate measures and controls to safeguard that information in compliance with applicable data protection legislation.

Furthermore, when you provide us with information about another person, you confirm that they have authorised you to act on their behalf and have consented to the transfer of their information abroad.

User Access and Control

Keeping Your Information Up to Date

Please ensure that you keep your personal information up to date and notify us if it changes or becomes inaccurate. You can update your details on the “My Account” section of our website.

Managing Other Communications

You can manage communications such as bulletins and other information related to your selected services by following the unsubscribe instructions in the communication. Please note that you may still receive other relevant communications related to your chosen services but not specific to the type of communication you’ve opted out of. In such cases, you will have the option to unsubscribe from these communications as well.

Direct Marketing Preferences

If you wish to change your preferences regarding receiving direct marketing from us, you can do so by contacting us using the provided contact details or by following the unsubscribe instructions in the communication.

Retention of Personal Information

We will retain your information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Policy. If you request the deletion of your information before this timeframe, we may not be able to comply due to technical, legal, regulatory, and contractual constraints. For instance, we must retain your name and contact details for suppression purposes if you do not wish to receive direct marketing from us.

If you request the closure of your account, we will do so as promptly as reasonably possible, subject to any applicable terms and conditions relating to the account. Personal information from closed accounts is retained to fulfil legal obligations, prevent fraud, collect outstanding fees, or resolve disputes.

In cases where we discontinue a product or service, such as an online forum, we may either archive or delete the information you have provided.

Your Personal Information

You have the right to request a copy of your personal information that we may hold about you, and we may charge a small processing fee for this service.

This Policy covers our use of cookies, IP addresses, and other technologies.

Cookies Explained

Cookies and other online tracking technologies are small pieces of data or code used to identify your devices when you interact with our websites and other services. They are primarily used to remember your preferences, identify popular news stories, and keep you logged in, enabling you to comment on stories.

What Cookies Do We Use and How Do We Use Them?

Essential Cookies

These cookies are crucial for the proper functioning of our services on our websites and apps. Without these cookies, certain parts of our websites would not operate. For example, they allow us to determine if you are logged into your account, enabling additional functionality like commenting on stories.

Functional and Preference Cookies 

These cookies collect information about your choices and preferences, allowing us to remember details such as language, your username (for faster logins), text size, and location, enabling us to present relevant content based on your location. They empower us to customise the services you access and offer features like video clips.

Analytical Cookies

These cookies gather information about your use of our website or app and help us enhance its functionality. For instance, analytics cookies reveal which pages on our website are most frequently visited, allowing us to prioritize popular news articles. They assist in tracking how you interact with our website, including navigation from page to page, helping us identify improvements in the user experience. Additionally, these cookies provide insights into overall usage patterns at an aggregated level.

Advertising and Tracking Cookies

We use these technologies to deliver advertisements tailored to your interests. This is achieved by displaying online ads based on your previous web browsing activity, commonly known as “online behavioural advertising” (OBA). These cookies are placed in your browser to remember the websites you have visited. As a result, when you visit other websites within the same advertising network, you may see ads related to your previous web activity.

For instance, if you are researching online to purchase a new sofa and read several articles about sofas on our website, a cookie from an advertising network will be placed in your browser. This cookie would remember your visits to websites related to sofas. Consequently, when you visit another website within the same advertising network, you might see an ad related to sofas. We may also use cookies and similar technologies to deliver ads based on your location, the offers you click on, and other interactions with our websites and apps.

To facilitate the delivery of relevant advertising using cookies, we utilize Google Double Click. More information about Google Double Click can be found on https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/enterprise/

Flash Cookies

In specific situations, we may use Adobe Flash Player to provide special content such as video clips or animations. To enhance your user experience, we utilize Local Shared Objects, commonly referred to as Flash cookies, which store data like your preferences and settings. Flash cookies are stored on your device but are managed through a different interface than your web browser.

Web Beacons

Web beacons are small pieces of data that track the number of users who access our website or webpage and can also determine if a cookie has been activated. They are used on web pages or in emails to assess the success of an article or the successful delivery and reading of an email message in a marketing campaign. Web beacons are also employed to confirm clicks on links or advertisements contained in emails. This information helps us identify which emails are of greater interest to you and informs advertisers about the number of customers who have clicked on their ads. Please note that this information is aggregated and does not individually identify you.

Tracking URLs

Tracking URLs are unique web links that enable us to measure when a link is clicked. They help us gauge the effectiveness of campaigns, advertising, and the popularity of articles that are read.

In addition to cookies and similar technologies, we may also collect information in the following ways:

·      When you access our services: Cookies may collect certain information about your visits, such as your IP address, browser type, hardware and software information, and geographic location, in order to facilitate your connection to our websites.

·      When you access our services from a mobile device: We may collect a unique device identifier, geo-location data, and other transactional information related to that device. This unique identifier may also be used to validate special offers.

·      Service Usage: We collect, use, and store information regarding your usage of our services, website, and app. This includes pages visited, content viewed, search queries run, and interactions with advertisements.

·      Providing relevant content: We tailor the content on our websites and in our communications based on your preferences for content, products, and services. We achieve personalization through various means, including cookies, IP addresses, web beacons, URL tracking, and mobile app settings.

·      Mobile Applications: Our app may require access to services on your device, such as a unique identifier, MAC address, or location. We may also send push notifications to your device, which can be controlled using your device’s tools, such as turning off push notifications and location services.

·     Third-party advertisers: Advertisers on our websites may employ cookies to display relevant ads. They may use browsing data to limit the frequency of specific ads (frequency capping). You may also see these advertisers’ ads on other websites you visit. The use of third-party cookies is governed by the privacy policies of the third parties using such technologies.

Managing Cookies

Most modern browsers are set to accept cookies by default, but you can change your settings to be notified when a cookie is being set or updated, or to block cookies altogether. Consult the “Help” section of your browser for guidance.

OBA Cookies

For more information on controlling cookies and opting out of behavioural advertising, visit the “Your Online Choices” website at http://www.youronlinechoices.com. It provides an easy way to opt out of behavioural advertising from networks represented by the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance.

Web Beacons

While you cannot prevent web beacons from tracking your activity in emails, you can manage your cookie options. For information on managing your cookie options, visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.

Please note that blocking some or all cookies may limit your access to certain features, content, or personalization available on our websites or apps.

Flash Cookies

You can manage the use of Flash technologies using the Flash management tools available on Adobe’s website.