Privacy policy
This policy describes what PanelCompare actually stores. It is written from the database schema rather than from a template, so where a field exists it is named, and where a common practice is absent this page says it is absent rather than reserving the right to start.
Last updated by The PanelCompare editorial team
What is recorded when you just read the site?
Nothing that identifies you, and nothing we place in your browser. There is no sign-up, no login and no profile, so there is no account record to attach behaviour to. We run no analytics product, no advertising network, no tag manager, no session recorder and no third-party embeds, so no other company receives a request from your browser as a result of visiting a page here.
Two details are worth being specific about, because they are the usual sources of hidden third-party requests. The site’s typeface is downloaded at build time and served from this domain, so loading a page does not contact a font provider. Panel logos are fetched and resized by our own server before being sent to you, so your browser never requests an image directly from a panel’s domain.
Our hosting and content-delivery providers generate ordinary server request logs on our behalf, which include IP addresses, and which exist for security and abuse prevention. We do not combine those logs with anything else on this page, and we do not use them to build a profile of a visitor.
What is recorded when you click through to a panel?
Outbound links pass through our own redirector so that a changed or broken destination can be fixed in one place. That redirector writes one row to a clicks table. The table has four data columns and no others.
| Column | What it holds | Why |
|---|---|---|
| panel_id | Which panel was clicked. | To know which listings are useful. |
| at | A timestamp. | To see interest over time and detect abuse. |
| surface | Which kind of page the click came from — a comparison table, a panel profile, a best-of list. | To know which page types do their job. |
| country_code | A two-letter country, derived from the request at the edge. Not stored alongside the IP it was derived from. | Payment methods and minimum deposits are region-decisive, so we need to know which regions to cover. |
There is no visitor identifier, no session id, no IP address, no user agent and no referrer in this table. Two clicks by the same person are indistinguishable from two clicks by two people, which is a deliberate limitation on what the data can ever be used for.
Once you arrive at a panel, that panel is a separate company and its own privacy policy applies. Like any website it will see your IP address, your browser and the fact that you came from here. Where a link is monetised it also carries our referral parameter, which is how the panel attributes a signup to us; the disclosure page lists which links those are.
What do we store if you submit something?
Three forms on this site collect information you type. Each stores a different set of fields, and the difference matters: reviews and reports are designed so that we hold as little identifying data as possible, while a panel listing is a business enquiry and needs a real contact.
Reviews
A review stores the display name you choose, your ratings, the review text and any pros and cons, the language, and a moderation status. Your email address and your IP address are stored only as one-way hashes — the raw values are not retained. Those hashes exist to detect duplicate submissions and to send a verification email, and neither is ever displayed or shared. The display name is published exactly as you enter it, so do not use your real name unless you intend it to be public.
Complaint reports
A report stores a reporter handle, which defaults to “anonymous”, the category and text of the complaint, an optional amount and incident date, and whether a moderator saw evidence. Your email address is stored as a hash so we can reach you about the report; the raw address is not retained. Evidence you send by email is reviewed and then deleted rather than published — what gets published is our note that evidence was seen.
Panel listing submissions
A listing submission stores the panel name, its domain, a contact email address and your message, in plain text, along with a status. This is a business enquiry rather than a consumer interaction, and we need a working address to reply to. The submission is not published; if the panel is accepted, what appears on the site is the panel’s public data, not your message.
What does this site put in your browser?
One value. When you use the theme toggle, we write pc-theme to localStorage holding the string light or dark. It is read by an inline script before the page paints so the correct palette renders immediately. It never leaves your device, and if your browser blocks storage the toggle still works for that page view.
We set no cookies for identification, analytics or advertising. If you have not touched the theme toggle, this site has stored nothing in your browser at all.
What do we not do?
Stating this positively is more useful than a list of rights we reserve, so these are commitments about current behaviour rather than about intent.
- We do not sell or rent personal information, and we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers.
- We do not run third-party analytics, advertising, retargeting or session-recording scripts.
- We do not build profiles of visitors, and the click log is structured so that we could not.
- We do not fingerprint devices, and we do not attempt to identify visitors across sites.
- We do not display the email addresses or IP addresses attached to reviews or reports, because we do not keep them in a readable form.
- We do not require an account to read anything on this site.
How long is anything kept?
| Record | Kept |
|---|---|
| Outbound click rows | Indefinitely, because they contain nothing that identifies a person and are only useful as a long time series. |
| Published reviews and reports | For as long as they are published, which is what makes a review history meaningful. Withdraw one and it is removed. |
| Rejected or spam submissions | Deleted once moderation is complete. |
| Panel listing submissions | Kept while the enquiry is open and for a reasonable period afterwards so we can recognise a resubmission, then deleted. |
| Email correspondence | Kept while the matter is open and afterwards where it evidences a correction we made. |
What rights do you have?
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to ask what we hold about you, to have it corrected, to have it deleted, to object to processing, and to receive a copy in a portable form. Under the UK and EU General Data Protection Regulations you can also complain to your national supervisory authority. Under California law you have the right to know and to delete, and the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information — which is straightforward here, because we do neither.
One practical limit is worth stating honestly. Because ordinary browsing is anonymous and the click log holds no identifier, there is usually nothing to look up: if you have never submitted a form or emailed us, we hold no personal data about you and cannot produce any. Where you have submitted something, the email hash is what lets us find it, so a request made from the same address you used will be quickest.
Making a request
Write to [email protected] with “Privacy request” in the subject, from the address you used, and say what you want: access, correction, deletion or a copy. We reply within 30 days and normally much sooner. We will not ask you for identity documents to process a request about a review handle — we will ask you to reply from the address the hash matches.
Children
This site is a commercial reference work about a market with real legal and platform-policy consequences, and it is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has submitted something here, tell us and we will delete it.
Changes to this policy
This policy describes what the software currently does, so it changes when the software does. The date at the top of the page is the date of the last change, and a change that widens what we collect will be described rather than absorbed into a general revision. Questions about any of it go to [email protected], or through the contact page.