Privacy Policy

BestBuysUK is operated by Eastpoint Group Ltd. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, retain and protect personal information when you visit bestbuysuk.co.uk, contact us, search the website or follow links to third-party retailers.

This notice is intended to meet our transparency obligations under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 and, where relevant, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR), as amended.

1. Who we are

BestBuysUK is a UK product-comparison and review website operated by Eastpoint Group Ltd. Privacy enquiries and requests to exercise your data-protection rights can be made through our contact page or by emailing the address above.

2. The personal information we may collect

Depending on how you use BestBuysUK, we may process the following categories of information:

• Contact information — your name, email address and the contents of a message if you contact us through the website or directly by email.
• Technical and security information — information generated when your browser connects to the website, which may include an IP address or an anonymised/truncated form of it, browser/device information, requested page, referrer, date/time and security-related request information.
• Session information — a necessary session identifier used to operate site security, anti-forgery protection, form handling, temporary messages and similar functionality.
• Search and usage information — when you use our search function, the search is processed so we can return results. BestBuysUK keeps aggregate category-popularity counts to help improve navigation. We do not maintain a named profile of an individual's search history in our application database.
• Affiliate interaction information — if you follow a retailer link, the destination retailer or affiliate platform may receive information about that click and process it under its own privacy and cookie notices.

We do not currently provide visitor accounts, take card payments or intentionally request special-category personal data such as health, biometric, religious or political information.

3. How we collect information

We collect information:

• directly from you when you submit a contact form or email us;
• automatically where necessary to serve and secure the website;
• through our own search functionality when you submit a search query; and
• from service providers acting on our behalf where this is necessary to host, secure or maintain BestBuysUK.

4. Why we use personal information

We use personal information only where we have a defined purpose. These purposes include:

• responding to enquiries and dealing with correspondence;
• providing requested pages, search results and website functionality;
• protecting the website, our administration area and visitors against misuse, fraud, spam and security threats;
• understanding, in aggregate, which product categories visitors search for so we can improve the website;
• maintaining business, compliance and security records where reasonably necessary; and
• establishing, exercising or defending legal rights where required.

We do not use visitor personal information for automated decision-making that produces legal effects or similarly significant effects. Our use of artificial intelligence relates primarily to product research, editorial drafting, comparison data and product scoring, not to profiling individual visitors.

5. Our lawful bases under UK data-protection law

Where we rely on legitimate interests, our interests include operating a useful product-comparison service, responding to people who contact us, protecting the service, preventing abuse and improving website usability. We consider whether the processing is necessary, proportionate and reasonably expected, and we minimise the data used.

6. Cookies, sessions and Cookiebot consent management

BestBuysUK uses Cookiebot™ by Usercentrics, operated by Usercentrics A/S, as our consent management platform (CMP). Cookiebot is used to present cookie choices, record consent preferences, help prevent non-essential cookies or similar technologies from being activated before the required permission has been obtained, and provide a mechanism for visitors to change or withdraw their choices.

BestBuysUK also uses a necessary server-side session. The corresponding session cookie is used for security and core functionality, including CSRF protection, contact-form handling, temporary status messages and preventing repeated actions from being counted multiple times during a short session. The server-side session is configured to expire after approximately 30 minutes of inactivity.

Where a cookie, script, pixel or similar storage/access technology is not exempt from the consent requirement, we intend to activate it only in accordance with the consent choice recorded through Cookiebot. Necessary technologies may operate without optional consent where the law permits this.

Cookiebot automatically scans the website and can generate a Cookie Declaration showing the cookies and trackers detected on BestBuysUK, their providers, purposes, categories and other available details. We use that declaration as the current, detailed inventory rather than attempting to maintain a static list here that could become outdated.

You can change or withdraw optional cookie consent through the Cookiebot consent controls made available on the website. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that was lawful before withdrawal.

Your browser also provides controls for deleting or restricting cookies. Blocking a strictly necessary session cookie may prevent forms, security-related features or other core functionality from working correctly.

7. Search data and popularity statistics

When you search BestBuysUK, your query is used to return relevant products and categories. The website may increment an aggregate category search count so that popular categories can be surfaced more usefully.

BestBuysUK does not store a permanent, named history of individual searches in the application database. A temporary hashed value may be held in your server-side session for a short period to avoid the same search repeatedly inflating category statistics. Search terms included in a requested URL may also be present in normal hosting/server logs for the period those logs are retained.

8. Contact forms and correspondence

If you contact us, we use the information you provide to read, manage and respond to your enquiry. Please do not send sensitive personal information unless it is genuinely necessary for your request.

Contact-form submissions are normally retained for up to 12 months and then deleted, unless we reasonably need to keep a particular message for longer because of an ongoing enquiry, complaint, dispute, legal requirement or the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

9. Hosting and infrastructure

BestBuysUK is hosted using IONOS web-hosting infrastructure. Our hosting provider may process technical request and operational information in order to deliver, secure and maintain the hosting service.

IONOS currently states that its Web Hosting products collect visitor information such as requested resources, browser/device information, referrer, access time and an anonymised IP address for security, stability and service-quality purposes, and that this visitor data is retained for approximately 8 weeks. Provider practices can change, so the provider's own current privacy information applies to its processing.

10. Cookiebot / Usercentrics

Cookiebot is a consent-management service provided by Usercentrics A/S, Havnegade 39, 1058 Copenhagen, Denmark. We use Cookiebot to help identify website cookies and trackers, present consent choices, store evidence of consent preferences where required and give visitors an accessible way to revisit those choices.

The information processed through the consent-management service may include consent status, consent identifier, date/time, website/domain information, browser/device information and technical connection information required to operate the service. The exact processing depends on our Cookiebot configuration and the technologies detected on BestBuysUK.

Cookiebot's own privacy information applies to Usercentrics' processing of information through its service. Our use of Cookiebot does not remove our own responsibility to configure BestBuysUK's consent mechanism correctly.

Once Cookiebot is fully configured on BestBuysUK, our separate Cookie Policy / Cookie Declaration will provide the current cookie-by-cookie inventory and consent controls.

12. Amazon Associates and affiliate links

BestBuysUK participates in affiliate programmes, including the Amazon Associates Programme. Our product pages may contain tagged links to Amazon or other retailers. We may earn a commission if you make a qualifying purchase after following an affiliate link, at no additional cost to you.

When you click a third-party retailer link, you leave BestBuysUK. The retailer may receive technical information about your visit, set its own cookies or other identifiers, and process information in accordance with its own privacy, cookie and advertising notices. Those retailers act independently in relation to their own websites and services.

For Amazon's current privacy information, see the Amazon.co.uk Privacy Notice.

12. Artificial intelligence and OpenAI

BestBuysUK uses OpenAI as a service provider for internal editorial assistance, including product analysis, comparison content and drafting. This is a business/editorial tool rather than a visitor-profiling system.

We do not intentionally send contact-form submissions, visitor email addresses or personal visitor profiles to OpenAI as part of this editorial assistance. If we introduce an AI feature that directly processes visitor-submitted personal information in the future, we will assess that processing and update this policy before relying on it.

13. Product and manufacturer images

Where permitted, BestBuysUK may use official manufacturer product images. We prefer to host permitted images on our own webspace. If an image is loaded directly from an external manufacturer's server, your browser may connect to that external server and disclose ordinary technical connection information such as your IP address, browser details and referrer information. The external provider's own privacy notice applies to its processing.

14. Who we share personal information with

We do not sell or rent your personal information. Where necessary, information may be processed by or disclosed to:

• IONOS — hosting, database and infrastructure services;
• Usercentrics A/S / Cookiebot — consent-management services used to scan for cookies/trackers, present consent choices and maintain consent-related records and controls;
• professional advisers — for example legal, accounting or compliance advisers where reasonably necessary;
• law-enforcement, regulators, courts or public authorities where disclosure is required by law or reasonably necessary to protect legal rights; and
• third-party retailers when you choose to follow an external affiliate link, at which point the retailer processes information under its own terms and privacy notices.

OpenAI is used for internal editorial assistance as described above; visitor contact data is not intentionally submitted for that purpose.

15. International transfers

Some organisations you choose to visit through external links may process information outside the United Kingdom. Their own privacy notices explain their transfer arrangements.

If Eastpoint Group Ltd makes a restricted transfer of personal information outside the UK, we will use an applicable lawful transfer mechanism where required, such as UK adequacy regulations or appropriate safeguards, and carry out any required assessment of the protection provided by the destination and recipient.

16. How long we keep information

We may retain particular information for longer where reasonably necessary to comply with law, resolve a dispute, investigate security issues or establish, exercise or defend legal claims. When information is no longer required, we aim to delete or anonymise it securely.

17. How we protect information

We use proportionate technical and organisational measures designed to protect information against unauthorised access, alteration, disclosure or loss. Measures used by the BestBuysUK application include HTTPS/TLS, restricted administrative access, secure session-cookie settings, CSRF protection, login rate-limiting, security headers, input validation and access controls.

No website, network or storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure. We therefore review security measures as the service develops and take appropriate action if we become aware of a security incident.

18. Your data-protection rights

Depending on the circumstances and the lawful basis we rely on, you may have rights including:

• Access — to ask whether we process your personal information and obtain a copy of it.
• Rectification — to ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information.
• Erasure — to ask us to delete information where the law gives you that right.
• Restriction — to ask us to restrict particular processing in certain circumstances.
• Data portability — where the legal conditions for portability apply.
• Withdrawal of consent — where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time without affecting processing that was lawful before withdrawal.

These rights are not absolute and exemptions may apply. We may need to ask for proportionate information to confirm your identity before disclosing or changing personal information.

19. How to exercise your rights

Email support@bestbuysuk.co.uk or use our contact form. Please describe the information or right your request relates to.

We will respond without undue delay and normally within one month. Where permitted by law, the response period may be extended by up to a further two months for a complex request or where a number of requests have been made; if so, we will tell you within the initial one-month period and explain why.

20. Complaints and the Information Commissioner's Office

If you have concerns about how we use your information, you can contact us first so we can investigate. This does not affect your right to complain directly to the UK's data-protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

ICO: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint

21. Children's privacy

BestBuysUK is a general product-comparison service and is not designed as a service for children. We do not knowingly create behavioural profiles of children or knowingly use children's personal information for targeted advertising.

If you are under 13, please ask a parent or guardian to contact us on your behalf before sending personal information through the site. If we learn that we have received personal information from a child in circumstances where it should not have been collected or retained, we will take appropriate steps to delete it or otherwise handle it lawfully.

22. External websites

BestBuysUK contains links to websites we do not control. This Privacy Policy applies to BestBuysUK, not to the privacy practices of Amazon, manufacturers, retailers or other external sites. We encourage you to read the privacy and cookie notices of any external service you use.

23. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this policy when our technology, business practices, affiliate arrangements or legal obligations change. The current version will always be published on this page and the date at the top will show when it was last updated.

Where a change materially affects how we use personal information, we will take reasonable steps to bring the change to affected users' attention where required.

24. Contact us

We take privacy seriously and aim to keep BestBuysUK's use of personal information proportionate, transparent and limited to what the service actually needs.