What we collect, why we collect it, and the things we deliberately do not.
The short version. Browsing this site collects nothing that identifies you. We set no tracking cookies and run no advertising. If you click through to a retailer we record that the click happened — which shop, which listing, what time — but not who you are. If you sign up for a price alert we hold your email address, the guitars you asked us to watch and a record of your sign-up, and we use them for those alerts only. Our weekly picks email is a separate sign-up that you have to choose and confirm yourself.
The String Gauge is run by Paul Flett, a sole trader, of 32 Lumley Street, Garston, Liverpool L19 1QY, United Kingdom. For data protection purposes we are the data controller for the personal data described on this page.
Contact us about anything on this page at info@thestringgauge.co.uk.
Nothing that identifies you. We do not use tracking cookies, advertising pixels, social media embeds or third-party analytics that profile individuals. See our cookie notice for the detail.
Our host, Cloudflare, processes your IP address to deliver the site and protect it from attack. That is an unavoidable part of how the internet works — a server cannot send you a page without knowing where to send it. Cloudflare acts as our processor.
We count visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics. It sets no cookies, stores nothing on your device and does not identify you — it gives us totals only, such as how many people viewed a page and roughly which country and type of device they used. Our lawful basis is legitimate interests: we need to know which pages are used.
Every “view at” link on this site passes through our own redirect before it reaches the shop. That redirect writes one short record:
| What we record | Why |
|---|---|
| Date and time of the click | To match the click against that night's price and stock data |
| Which retailer, and the product page you went to | To know which listings people find useful |
| A reference code for the page and position you clicked from | To compare layouts and see what actually helps people |
| The page you clicked from, and your browser's user-agent string | To separate real visits from bots, and phones from desktops |
We do not record your IP address, and we do not set a cookie on you. These records carry no name, no email and no account. They are not used to build a profile of you and we make no attempt to work out who you are from them.
Our lawful basis is legitimate interests — we need to know which listings are useful in order to run and improve the site, and to evidence referrals to the shops we work with. We consider the impact on your privacy to be low because the records are not linked to you.
When you ask us to watch a guitar, we hold:
Our lawful basis is your consent. Nothing is sent until you click the link in our confirmation email (double opt-in), and adding another guitar later needs another click from your inbox. Every alert carries an unsubscribe link, plus a one-click unsubscribe your email app can use.
We use your address for the alerts you asked for and nothing else. We do not add you to our weekly picks email or any other list, and we do not pass your address to anyone for their own marketing. The weekly picks email has its own sign-up and its own confirmation — see below.
The list of guitars you are watching that you see on the site is also saved in your own browser, so the bells stay lit when you come back — see the cookie notice.
The weekly picks is a short email with the week's biggest guitar price drops. You can sign up on the weekly picks page, on the homepage, or by ticking the box in the price-alert pop-up. When you do, we hold:
Our lawful basis is your consent. Nothing is sent until you click the link in our confirmation email. Every weekly picks email carries a personal unsubscribe link, plus a one-click unsubscribe your email app can use. Price alerts and the weekly picks are separate: signing up for one never signs you up for the other, and unsubscribing from one does not stop the other.
This is the part worth reading. Once you land on a retailer's website you are on their property, under their rules. The retailer — and, where we have an affiliate relationship, the affiliate network that handles the referral — will typically set their own cookies to remember that we sent you.
We do not control those cookies and cannot see them. Your relationship there is governed by that retailer's own privacy and cookie policies. If you want to know what they store, their policies are the place to look, not this page.
Where we have a live affiliate relationship, the network currently used is Awin. See how we make money for who that covers.
Cloudflare and Brevo act as our processors: they handle data on our instructions under data processing terms, and may not use it for their own purposes. We do not sell your data. We do not share it with advertisers. Nobody pays us for access to it.
Brevo is based in France and processes our email data in the EU, which UK law recognises as giving adequate protection. Cloudflare is a US company with servers worldwide; transfers to it are covered by the safeguards in its data processing terms that UK law requires — the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework or the International Data Transfer Addendum.
Under UK data protection law you have the right to ask us for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to restrict or object to how we use it, to have it transferred, and to withdraw consent at any time where consent is the basis we rely on.
In practice, for most visitors there is nothing to give you — we hold nothing linked to you. If you have subscribed to alerts, email info@thestringgauge.co.uk and we will act within one month.
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We would rather you came to us first so we can put it right.
This site is aimed at adults buying musical instruments. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has given us their details, tell us and we will delete them.
If we change what we collect, we will change this page and update the date at the top before the change goes live. Material changes to how we use alert subscribers' data will be emailed to those subscribers.