Legal

Privacy Policy

This policy explains how Tradesmen's Websites handles personal information when you visit our website, contact us or subscribe to our service.

1. Who we are

Tradesmen's Websites is operated by Gareth Williams under the Tradesmen's Websites brand and is powered by WebUp®. For UK data-protection purposes, the operator of Tradesmen's Websites is the controller of the personal information described in this policy.

You can contact us at hello@tradesmenswebsites.co.uk.

2. Information we may collect

Depending on how you use the service, we may collect:

• Your name, business name, trade and contact details.
• Your business address, service areas, services, domain details and website requirements.
• The Google Place ID for a Google Business Profile you choose to connect during onboarding.
• Logos, photographs, text, social-media links and other content you provide for your website.
• Enquiry messages, support requests and correspondence.
• Subscription, billing and payment-status information. Card details will be handled by our payment provider and are not intended to be stored directly by us.
• Technical information such as IP address, browser type, device information, server logs and security events.
• Cookie and consent choices where applicable.
• Analytics and advertising measurement information generated by Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity and Meta advertising tools after optional consent, such as page visits, clicks, scrolling, session recordings and selected browser/server conversion events.

3. How we use personal information

We may use personal information to:

• Respond to enquiries and provide quotations or service information.
• Create, configure, review, launch, host and maintain customer websites.
• Search for and connect the Google Business Profile selected by you, including using its Place ID to display the correct Google Map.
• Manage subscriptions, payments, cancellations and domain arrangements.
• Provide customer support and communicate important service information.
• Protect the platform, prevent misuse and investigate technical or security issues.
• Improve our website, service and customer experience.
• Understand how the marketing website is used and measure which marketing activity leads to website visits, checkout activity, subscriptions and completed onboarding where you have consented to optional tracking.
• Keep business, accounting and legal records.
• Send marketing communications where permitted by law. You can opt out at any time.

4. Our lawful bases

We rely on one or more lawful bases under UK data-protection law:

• Contract: where processing is needed to provide the service you requested or take steps before entering into a contract.
• Legitimate interests: for operating, securing, improving and promoting our business where those interests are not overridden by your rights.
• Legal obligation: where we must keep or disclose information to comply with the law.
• Consent: where consent is required, including certain cookies or optional marketing activity. You may withdraw consent at any time.

5. Who we share information with

We may share information only where reasonably necessary with trusted service providers such as:

• Hosting, infrastructure, email and security providers.
• Domain registrars and DNS providers.
• Payment and subscription providers, including Stripe.
• Google Maps Platform, when you search for or select a Google Business Profile and when a connected Google Map is displayed.
• Google Analytics, when you have accepted optional cookies and website measurement is enabled.
• Microsoft Clarity, when you have accepted optional cookies and behavioural website measurement is enabled.
• Meta Platforms, when you have accepted optional marketing cookies and the Meta Pixel and/or Conversions API are used for advertising measurement.
• Professional advisers, accountants, insurers and legal advisers.
• Authorities or regulators where disclosure is required by law.

Service providers are expected to use information only for the agreed purpose and to protect it appropriately.

6. Google Business Profile and Google Maps

During onboarding, you may search for your business using Google Maps Platform and select the matching Google Business Profile. The search wording you enter is sent to Google through the Places API so that matching businesses can be displayed.

We store the selected Google Place ID so that the correct listing and map can be connected to your website. We do not intend to permanently copy the other Google listing details shown in the search results. Your own business and contact details are entered and confirmed separately during onboarding.

Google processes information under its own Privacy Policy. Use of Google Maps features is also subject to the Google Maps/Google Earth Additional Terms of Service.

7. International transfers

Some technology providers may process information outside the United Kingdom. Where this occurs, we will use appropriate safeguards required by UK data-protection law, such as adequacy regulations or approved contractual protections.

8. How long we keep information

We keep personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary. Our typical approach is:

• General enquiries: up to 24 months after the last meaningful contact.
• Customer and subscription records: for the duration of the service and normally up to 7 years afterwards where required for tax, accounting, contractual or legal purposes.
• Website content and onboarding information: while the service is active and for a limited period afterwards to support closure, transfer, backup and dispute handling.
• Technical and security logs: normally up to 12 months unless a longer period is needed to investigate an issue.

Specific records may be retained for a different period where the law requires it or where necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

9. Security

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal information. No internet service can be guaranteed completely secure, but we review our safeguards and restrict access to information according to business need.

10. Your rights

Depending on the circumstances, you may have rights to:

• Request access to your personal information.
• Ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information.
• Ask us to erase information in certain circumstances.
• Restrict or object to certain processing.
• Receive certain information in a portable format.
• Withdraw consent where processing relies on consent.
• Complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.

To exercise a right, email hello@tradesmenswebsites.co.uk. We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request.

11. Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity and Meta advertising measurement

The marketing website uses the Google tag with Consent Mode v2. Analytics storage, advertising storage, advertising user data and advertising personalisation are denied by default. Before consent, Google Analytics cookies are not set, although Google may receive limited cookieless consent and measurement signals. If you consent to optional cookies, analytics storage is granted and we send page views and selected events such as choosing the demonstration website, beginning checkout, completing a subscription and starting or completing onboarding. The advertising consent settings remain denied. Our manually generated analytics page views omit the Stripe Checkout reference from the page location.

With your consent, the website uses Microsoft Clarity to help us understand how visitors interact with the marketing website. Clarity can provide information such as clicks, scrolling, navigation paths, heatmaps and session recordings. We also send selected Clarity events such as beginning checkout, returning from a cancelled checkout, completing a subscription and starting or completing onboarding so that relevant sessions can be found more easily. Microsoft states that sensitive content such as form input content, numbers and email addresses is masked by default in Clarity recordings.

With your consent, the website also uses Meta advertising measurement through the Meta Pixel and Conversions API. The browser Pixel may receive technical information such as the page visited, browser/device information, IP-derived information and Meta browser identifiers. We send selected advertising events such as PageView, InitiateCheckout, Purchase and a custom OnboardingStarted event.

For consented checkout activity, our server may send a matching InitiateCheckout event to Meta using the Conversions API. This may include the browser's IP address, user-agent and available Meta browser identifiers such as _fbp and _fbc. When Stripe confirms a paid subscription, our server may send a matching Purchase event containing the payment value/currency and a one-way SHA-256 hash of the email address supplied to Stripe. Shared event IDs are used so Meta can deduplicate corresponding browser and server events.

We do not intentionally send onboarding form answers or payment-card information to Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity or Meta. Raw email addresses are not sent in Meta Conversions API Purchase events; the email is normalised and SHA-256 hashed before transmission. Browser-side Purchase events are triggered when Stripe returns the customer to our successful subscription page, while the server-side Purchase event is triggered only after Stripe confirms a paid Checkout Session.

You can reject or withdraw optional consent through the Cookie settings link in the footer. When optional tracking is rejected, analytics storage remains denied, Google Analytics cookies are removed where accessible to the site, Microsoft Clarity is not loaded on subsequent page loads, the Meta Pixel is not loaded on subsequent page loads, and new Meta Conversions API marketing events are not sent.

12. Cookies and similar technologies

Our use of cookies and related technologies is explained in our Cookie Policy. Non-essential cookies will not be intentionally enabled without the appropriate choice or consent mechanism.

13. Links and customer websites

This website may link to third-party websites. Those websites have their own privacy practices. Each customer website created through the platform may also require its own privacy notice reflecting that customer's business and data collection.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when the service or legal requirements change. The latest version will be published on this page with a revised update date.