Privacy Policy

The short version

We use Google Analytics to count visits and to see which guides lead readers to a retailer. We run no ads and we do not sell or share your information. Google's advertising features are available on our Analytics property, but every page of this site refuses them as it loads, so no advertising profile is built from your visit. We never ask for your name or payment details. You can switch analytics off for your browser below.

What we collect

Analytics

This site uses Google Analytics 4, provided by Google LLC. When analytics is on, it records:

• the pages you view, how long you stay, and how far you scroll;
• how you arrived, such as a search engine, another website or a link in a message;
• your device type, browser, operating system, screen size and language;
• an approximate location at the level of country, region and city, which Google derives from your IP address. Google Analytics 4 does not log or store the IP address itself;
• clicks on links that leave this site, and for links to a retailer, the product identifier and the part of the page the link was in;
• when you use a Share button or Copy link on a guide, which way you shared it, and when you arrive through one of our short links (theslicklist.com/ followed by 4 characters), which link it was and the name of the site you came from;
• when you sign up for the newsletter, that a sign-up happened and how many topics you picked, never your address.

These records are tied to a random identifier stored in a cookie in your browser. It lets Analytics tell a returning visit from a new one. It does not tell us who you are, and we have no way to connect it to a name or an email address.

Share and short-link counts

Alongside Analytics, this site keeps its own daily tally of short-link visits and shares: the date, the short link, and a channel such as "WhatsApp" or "from Facebook". It keeps a similar tally of page views and of clicks on links to Amazon: the date and hour, the page, and for a click, the product and where on the page the link was. The counts are stored on Cloudflare, which hosts the site. They hold no IP address, cookie, device detail or identifier, so they cannot be traced to anyone. They are collected only when analytics is on.

The newsletter

If you sign up for the newsletter, we keep your email address, the topics you picked, the date, the page you signed up on and the wording you agreed to. We use them only to send you the newsletter on those topics. The list is stored on Cloudflare, which hosts this site, and is never sold, rented or shared with advertisers.

Our emails are delivered by Resend (Resend, Inc., United States), which runs on Amazon Web Services in the US (us-east-1). Resend receives your address and the content of each email we send you, and records whether each one was delivered, bounced or reported as spam. It tells us about bounces and spam reports, and we use them only to stop mailing that address. How Resend handles data is set out in its privacy policy.

When you sign up, we email you a confirmation link straight away. Nothing else is sent until you tap it. To stop the form being used to flood someone's inbox, we count sign-ups from each visitor for an hour, using a scrambled one-way form of your IP address. It cannot be turned back into the address, and it is deleted within 2 hours.

Every email carries a one-click unsubscribe, which takes effect immediately. After you unsubscribe, or if your address bounces or reports spam, we keep only the address, marked so it is never mailed again. To have it removed entirely, ask through thecontact page, and we will also ask Resend to delete its records of it.

What analytics is not used for

Google offers a set of advertising features inside Analytics. Several are switched on at the property level, and this site refuses each of them in the page itself: advertising storage, advertising user data and ad personalisation are all set to denied before the tag loads, and Google signals is disabled in the tag's own configuration. So:

• Google signals, which would link your activity to a signed-in Google account, is enabled on the property and disabled on every page, and collects nothing from this site.
• No advertising cookies are set here, and nothing about your visit is shared for ad personalisation.
• The Analytics property is not linked to Google Ads or any other advertising product.
• We do not set a user ID, and we do not combine analytics with any other information about you.

Analytics also offers automatic collection of user-provided data, which looks for details such as an email address typed into a form and sends a hashed copy to Google. That feature is currently switched on at the property. The only form on this site that asks for an email address is the newsletter signup, which is not connected to anything and stores nothing. If you would rather nothing was sent at all, switching analytics offbelow stops the tag loading in the first place.

Email

If you email us, we keep the message and your address so we can reply and act on it.

The newsletter signup form is not yet connected to a mailing service. Submitting it sends nothing to us and stores nothing. This policy will be updated before it collects any address.

Hosting

The site is served by Cloudflare, which processes IP addresses and request details to deliver pages and to protect the site from abuse. Cloudflare also measures page load speed and counts visits with its Web Analytics, which sets no cookies and does not identify visitors. That processing is governed by Cloudflare’s own privacy policy. The choice below applies to Google Analytics only.

Amazon prices and product photos

On guides that show a live Amazon price, the page asks this site's own server for it. That server gets the price from Amazon, and nothing about you is passed to Amazon in the process. On guides that show Amazon's product photo, your browser loads that picture directly from Amazon's image servers (m.media-amazon.com). Like any image request, it tells Amazon your IP address, your browser type and the page you are on. That request is governed by Amazon's privacy notice. It sets no cookie for this site and is not used by us for analytics.

Cookies and browser storage

Neither Google Analytics cookie is set while analytics is off. When you follow a link to a retailer, that retailer may set its own cookies once you arrive. Those are governed by the retailer’s privacy policy, not this one. Amazon’s is on amazon.com.

Your analytics choice

If you switch analytics off here, or your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal and you have not chosen otherwise, the Google Analytics code does not load at all and nothing is sent to Google.

If you have not chosen, where you live decides the starting point. In most of the United States and Canada analytics starts on. In Quebec, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and the European Economic Area it starts limited: the code loads so it can tell which region you are in, then sets no cookies and stores no identifier in your browser. It still sends Google a basic signal that a page was viewed, which Google uses to estimate total visits. Switching analytics off here stops that too.

The choice applies to this browser on this device. You can also block Google Analytics on every website with Google’s opt-out browser add-on, and Google explains how it uses information from sites that use its services at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

How long it is kept

Google Analytics keeps two kinds of data for this site for different lengths of time. Event-level data, the record of individual page views and clicks, is kept for 2 months, the shortest period it offers. User-level data tied to the random identifier in your browser is kept for 14 months from your most recent visit, and the period restarts each time you come back. After both periods end, only aggregated counts remain, such as the number of visits a page received in a month, and those identify no one. Emails are kept for as long as the conversation needs, and deleted on request.

Where it is processed

Google and Cloudflare process data in the United States and other countries. If you read this site from Canada, your information may be handled outside Canada and be subject to the laws of the country where it is processed.

Affiliate links

When you click an affiliate link, the retailer is told the visit came from us so any resulting commission is attributed correctly. We do not receive your identity, your cart, or what you bought, only aggregate earnings reports. We count the click itself in analytics, as described above. Full affiliate disclosure

Your rights

You can ask what we hold about you, ask for it to be corrected, or ask for it to be deleted, and we will act without requiring a reason. Because analytics records are tied to a random identifier rather than to you, we usually cannot find a specific person’s analytics records. Switching analytics off above is the most effective way to stop them being created.

Depending on where you live you may have further rights, including under the California Consumer Privacy Act, Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and Quebec’s Law 25. We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising. We apply the same standard to everyone regardless of location: ask, and we will do it.

Requests: [email protected].

Children

This site is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect their information.

Changes

When this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. A change to what we collect is made here before it is made on the site.