This policy covers whatsthedamage.co.uk ("What's The Damage", "this site"), published by Bright Loop Media. It sets out, plainly, what is and is not collected when you visit or use this site. There is not much here, because the site itself does not do much with personal data.
Analytics
This site uses Umami, a cookieless analytics tool that we host ourselves, loaded first-party from whatsthedamage.co.uk itself. Umami records aggregate, anonymised usage data — which pages were viewed, roughly how, referring site, device and browser type, and country — and does not use cookies, does not fingerprint individual visitors, and does not track you across other websites. Nothing is shared with advertisers or anyone else. Because no cookies are set and no personal data is collected by this analytics tool, no cookie consent banner is shown on this site — but you can still switch it off for your own browser, below.
Newsletter sign-up
The "Stay Updated" form on the homepage collects an email address if you choose to submit it. Submissions are handled through Netlify Forms (our hosting provider's built-in form service). We use the address only to let you know when a new guide is published on this site. We do not sell it, and we do not share it with third parties for their own marketing. If you want your email address removed from this list, contact us via the Contact page.
Outside of that one form, this site does not currently have any other form, account sign-up or checkout that collects personal data.
Affiliate links
A small number of guides include Amazon Associates affiliate links, disclosed on the page where they appear and set out in full on our Affiliate Disclosure page. Clicking one of these links takes you to amazon.co.uk, where Amazon sets its own cookies and collects data under its own privacy policy. That happens on Amazon's site, not this one, and is outside our control.
Who processes your data
We use a small number of trusted providers to run the site. They process data on our behalf:
- Netlify. Hosting and form handling (the newsletter sign-up).
- Vercel and Neon. Host our self-managed Umami analytics service and its database. Only aggregate, cookieless analytics data passes through them.
- Google Fonts. Serves the typefaces used on the site, which may log your IP address as part of delivering those files.
Cookies
This site does not set its own cookies. The only cookies you might encounter are ones set by Amazon after you click through an affiliate link, governed by Amazon's own cookie policy, not ours.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you can ask us to see the data we hold about you, correct it if it is wrong, delete it, stop using it, and unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time. To make any of these requests, contact us through the Contact page. If you are not happy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.
Children
This site is aimed at adults researching UK job and service costs and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children.
Cookies and analytics
This site does not use tracking or advertising cookies. Our analytics are cookieless. Your browser may store small technical items needed for the site to work.
- Pages viewed and where visits arrive from
- Clicks on guides and calculator use
- How far down a page gets read
- No cookies, no names, no profiles
- Nothing sold, nothing shared
- Nothing follows you beyond this site
Changes to this policy
If what this site collects or how it uses data changes — for example if we add a contact form or a new affiliate programme — we will update this page and the date above.
Contact
For any question about this policy, or to ask us to remove a newsletter sign-up, see our Contact page.