Privacy, in plain language.
What this site stores, what it counts, and what happens when you follow a shopping link.
Who is responsible
Pickstead is published by Brian J. Rich, 844 The Crescent, Colchester, Essex, CO4 9YQ, United Kingdom; telephone +44 7756 003176. This notice explains what personal information Pickstead collects from visitors to its Australian pages, why it collects it, and what choices you have. Pickstead aims to handle that information in line with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs). For anything about your information or this notice, write to [email protected] or to that postal address.
Saved guides and products
Bookmark choices are stored in this browser using local storage. They are not synced to an account or another device. Remove an item with its bookmark button, or clear this site’s browser data to erase the list.
If browser storage is unavailable, bookmarks can work for the current visit but may not survive a page change or refresh.
Reading interests
To put the categories you read most first, this browser keeps a small tally of the categories of the guides, category pages and topic pages you open and of the things you save. The home page uses it to order its shelves and suggest a few more guides, and the guide and pick filters use it to order their categories.
The tally sits in local storage next to your bookmarks. It is not sent to Pickstead or anyone else and is not tied to an account. Clear it, or turn it off, here:
Search and site usage
Search runs in your browser and fetches only the pieces of the search index it needs from this site’s /au/pagefind/ folder on demand, rather than one big catalogue. Search terms appear in the page address so you can bookmark or share a results page. A hosting service may process normal request logs that include the page address.
Pickstead keeps its own visitor statistics rather than using an advertising or analytics network. A small script served from stat.pickstead.com records the page you open, the page that referred you, the terms you search for on this site, your browser and screen size, roughly how long the page stayed open, and clicks on retailer links, and it sets one first-party cookie (pickstead_vid, one year) so repeat visits are counted once. Your IP address is used to estimate a country and city and to tell data-centre traffic from readers. The web server also keeps ordinary request logs (IP address, page address, time and browser), because a website cannot be served or kept secure without them. We use all of this only to see which guides are read, which links work and how to keep the site running and secure; it is not sold, used for advertising or shared with advertisers. The script and cookie are not tied to your name or an account, but an IP address or an identifier such as pickstead_vid may still be personal information if it can be linked back to you, so we treat it that way. Blocking the script or the cookie does not affect the site.
This site does not collect email addresses, process payments, or install advertising analytics. Its content and assets are served as website files.
Retailer links
Following a product link takes you to a retailer’s website. The retailer’s privacy and cookie policies then apply. Future affiliate links may include referral information used to attribute a qualifying purchase.
Pickstead does not receive your payment information from a shopping link.
How long it is kept and where
Visit records from the statistics script, including the estimated location and the pickstead_vid identifier, are kept for 13 months and then deleted; only totals that cannot be traced back to a visitor are kept longer. Server request logs, and the records drawn from them, follow the same 13-month limit.
Pickstead’s website and statistics run on a server in the United States, so this information is stored and processed outside Australia, and it may be accessible to authorities there under United States law. We tell you this so you know where your information goes before you use the site (APP 8); if you would rather it did not go there, you can block the statistics script as described below and keep using the site.
Your choices
Statistics are collected on the basis of this notice. To opt out, block the stat.pickstead.com script or the pickstead_vid cookie in your browser; the site works the same without them. To remove a pickstead_vid cookie already set in your browser, clear this site’s cookies.
Access and correction
You can ask what personal information Pickstead holds about your visits and ask for it to be corrected (APPs 12 and 13). Write to [email protected]. The statistics are not tied to a name or account, so please include your pickstead_vid cookie value (listed among pickstead.com’s cookies in your browser’s settings or developer tools) to help us find the records; we may ask you to confirm that the cookie is yours before we release anything. We will reply within 30 days. If we cannot give you access or make a correction, we will tell you why in writing.
Complaints
If you have a privacy concern, please contact us first at [email protected] and we will do our best to put it right. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at oaic.gov.au.
Photo and product sources
Product photography comes from the brands linked in the guides.