Legal
Privacy Policy
The short version: if you subscribe, we hold your email address so we can send you the newsletter, and our email provider records which emails you open and which links you click. We only use analytics on the site if you say yes. We never sell your email address.
Who we are
Liverpool & Beyond is a Liverpool city guide and weekly newsletter. For data protection purposes we are the data controller.
The newsletter
What we collect when you subscribe
Your email address and the date you subscribed. We don't ask for your name.
We also record how you found us: the campaign tags in the link you arrived through, the site that sent you, and which sign-up form you used. It tells us which of our efforts work. We don't store anything on your device to do this.
Opens and clicks
Our newsletter provider, Beehiiv, records whether you open each email and which links you click. It does this with a tiny image in the email and with links that pass through Beehiiv before taking you to the page. Some email apps, such as Apple Mail, block or hide this, so it isn't always accurate.
We use it to see which parts of the newsletter people find useful, to tidy up the list, and to give advertisers and sponsors overall figures, such as how many people clicked their link. Advertisers don't see who opened or clicked.
Advertising audiences (only if you agree)
In future we may share a hashed version of your email address with advertising platforms such as Google or Meta. Hashing turns your address into a scrambled code. The platform can't read your address from it, but it can match the code to an account you already have with them, so it still counts as personal data. They use it to show ads to you, to people with similar interests, or to stop showing you an ad for something you've already signed up to.
We will only do this if you have specifically agreed to it, separately from signing up to the newsletter. You can withdraw that agreement at any time, and we'll stop sharing your details from then on.
Why we're allowed to do this
Our lawful basis is consent: you asked us to send you the newsletter. You can withdraw it at any time with the unsubscribe link at the bottom of every email, and we act on it straight away.
Advertising
We may run ads on the site and in the newsletter. Some will be sold by us directly to businesses. Others may come from ad networks that fill space automatically, known as programmatic advertising.
Ads in the newsletter don't give the advertiser your email address. If we use an ad network on the site that uses cookies or similar technology, to measure ads or show ones that suit your interests, we'll ask your permission first through our cookie banner, and we'll name the network on this page before it goes live. Ads that don't use cookies can appear whatever you choose.
Reading the site
We use Google Analytics to see which pages people find useful, but only if you agree. Nothing loads and no cookie is set until you press Accept on the banner. If you decline, no analytics code runs at all, and the site works exactly the same.
If you accept, Google Analytics records things like the pages you view, roughly which town or country you're in, and what kind of device you use. Google says Google Analytics 4 doesn't log or store IP addresses. We look at the figures in total. We're not trying to identify you.
Our hosting provider keeps standard server logs, including IP addresses, for security and to keep the site running.
Some pages show film trailers. A trailer only loads fromYouTube, in its privacy-enhanced mode, when you press play. From then on YouTube's privacy policy applies to that video.
When you follow a link to another site, such as a venue or the council, that site's own privacy policy applies.
Cookies and similar storage
Strictly, we use your browser's local storage rather than cookies for our own settings, but the rules are the same, so we list everything here.
- Your cookie choice (lb-consent). Stores whether you accepted or declined, and when, so we don't ask on every page. We ask again after six months. This doesn't need your permission, because it exists to remember the choice you made.
- Google Analytics (cookies starting _ga). Only set if you press Accept. They recognise return visits and last up to two years unless you clear them.
- Your bin day (binDay). If you pick your usual bin day on our Christmas bin collections page, we remember it so it's already selected next time. It holds only the day of the week, never leaves your device, and you can clear it by tapping the day again.
- Newsletter pop-up (lb-exit-popup and lb-subscribed). Only if you've accepted cookies: when we last showed you our newsletter pop-up, so you don't see it more than once a day, and whether you've signed up, so we never ask again. If you decline, we store neither and the pop-up doesn't appear.
There are no advertising or retargeting cookies on the site at the moment, and no Facebook, Meta or other advertising pixel. If that changes, we'll ask first and update this list.
You can change your mind at any time withCookie settings, which is also in the footer of every page.
Who we share it with
- Beehiiv stores your email address and sends the newsletter for us.
- Google provides the analytics, only if you accept.
- Our hosting provider runs the website.
- Advertising platforms receive a hashed email address, only if you've agreed to that.
Beehiiv, Google and our hosting provider are based in the United States, so some data is stored outside the UK. They provide the safeguards UK data protection law requires for that. We never sell your email address.
How long we keep it
We keep your email address until you unsubscribe. After that it's removed from our list, though we may keep a record that you unsubscribed so we don't email you again by mistake.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you have the right to:
- ask what data we hold about you
- have it corrected if it's wrong
- have it deleted
- object to how we use it, or ask us to restrict it
- get a copy in a format you can take elsewhere
- withdraw your consent at any time
Ask and we'll act on it. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK's data protection regulator.
Security
The site only works over a secure connection (HTTPS). At the moment we don't keep a database of our own: your email address lives with Beehiiv.
Children
The site is for a general audience and isn't aimed at children. We don't knowingly collect data from anyone under 13.
Changes to this policy
If we change how we handle your data, we'll update this page and the date at the top.