The short version
- You can use broadband.click without an account, a sign-up or giving us your name.
- We run no analytics or tracking tools of our own. The only cookie we set ourselves remembers your answer to the cookie question.
- Other companies are involved only in specific cases: Awin’s affiliate script if you accept cookies, affiliate networks when you click a link marked “Ad”, and Google if we show adverts. Each is explained below.
- We never sell your information or share it for marketing.
Who we are
broadband.click is run by Steve Smith, who is the data controller for personal information collected through this website.
For anything about your personal data, email privacy@broadband.click. For anything else, use our contact page.
What happens when you use the site
Searching a postcode
When you enter a postcode, our server asks Ofcom’s Connected Nations service what broadband the addresses in that postcode can get. Only the postcode is sent. We keep Ofcom’s answer for up to 30 days so the next search for the same postcode is faster. A postcode on its own does not identify you, and we do not link searches to anyone.
Choosing your address
If you pick your address from the list, our server sends that property’s Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN — a public reference for a building, not your name) to Giant, a broadband provider, to ask whether it can serve that property. Giant’s answer is kept against the UPRN for up to 7 days. Your choice travels in the body of the request, never in the web address, so it does not appear in your browser history, in shared links or in our server logs.
Clicking through to a provider
- Links to providers we have no commercial relationship with go straight to their website.
- Links marked “Ad” pass through our redirect so the affiliate network can credit us. We count those clicks per provider, per day — a number only, with no IP address, device or identity attached.
- From that point the affiliate network (Awin or TopCashback) and the provider set their own cookies on their own websites to record a sale. Their privacy policies apply to that.
The Awin script — only if you say yes
When you first visit, we ask whether we may use affiliate cookies. Only if you click Accept do we load a small script from Awin (dwin2.com), the affiliate network we work with. It helps Awin credit us for sales and can turn eligible links into tracked affiliate links, and it may set cookies and receive your IP address and browser details. Awin’s privacy notice explains what it does. If you click Reject, or ignore the question, the script is never loaded.
Comments
Comments are switched off on this site, so we collect nothing through them.
Contacting us
Messages sent through our contact form are emailed to us and are not stored on this website. We use your email address only to reply, and delete the correspondence once it is no longer needed. To stop abuse, a one-way scrambled form of your IP address is kept for one hour to limit how many messages can be sent. Messages may be checked for spam by Akismet.
Server logs
Like almost every website, our hosting provider keeps technical logs of requests — IP address, date and time, the page asked for and the browser used — to keep the site secure and working. They are kept for a limited period and are not used to identify visitors.
Fonts and images
Our fonts and images are served from our own server. We do not use Google Fonts and do not load images from other websites, so viewing a page does not send your IP address to those services.
Advertising
We may show adverts on this site served by Google AdSense. Where we do:
- Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your previous visits to this website or other websites.
- Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visits to this site and/or other sites on the internet.
- You can opt out of personalised advertising in Google’s Ads Settings, and opt out of some other vendors’ use of cookies for personalised advertising at youronlinechoices.com.
- Google explains how it uses information from sites that use its services.
We ask for your consent before advertising or affiliate cookies are used. Adverts never affect how we rank providers.
Cookies at a glance
| Set by | When | What for |
|---|---|---|
broadband.click (bbc_consent) | When you answer the cookie question | Remembering your answer, for 12 months |
| broadband.click (WordPress) | Only if you log in (staff only) | Keeping staff logged in |
| Awin (dwin2.com) | Only after you click Accept | Crediting affiliate sales |
| Affiliate networks and providers | After you click a link marked “Ad”, on their websites | Recording that a sale came from us |
| When adverts are shown | Delivering, measuring and personalising adverts |
Changing your mind
Use the “Cookie settings” link at the foot of any page to see the question again. If you change from Accept to Reject, we stop loading Awin’s script and remove the cookies it set on this site. Cookies that other websites set on their own domains, for example after you click through to a provider, are controlled in your browser settings.
Why we use your information
- Running the site, keeping it secure and answering messages: our legitimate interest in providing a safe, working service.
- Advertising and affiliate cookies: your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
Where your information goes
Some services we use, such as Google and Automattic, may process information outside the UK, including in the United States. Where they do, they rely on legal safeguards such as UK adequacy regulations or standard contractual clauses.
Your rights
You can ask for a copy of the information we hold about you, have it corrected or deleted, object to or restrict how we use it, and withdraw consent at any time. Email privacy@broadband.click. In practice we hold very little: usually only a message you sent us.
If you are unhappy with how we handle your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.
Children
This site is not aimed at children, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13.
Changes to this policy
If we change how we handle information, we will update this page and the date at the top.