Privacy policy

The privacy of visitors to this website is very important to us, and we are committed to protecting it. This policy explains what we do with your personal information. By agreeing to our use of cookies in accordance with the terms of this policy when you first visit this website, you permit us to use cookies each time you visit this website.

The following personal information may be collected, stored and used:
  • information about your computer including your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, and operating system;
  • information about your visit to and use of this website, including the referral source, the duration of your visit, the pages viewed and the navigation paths within the website;
  • information, such as your email address, that you enter when you register on this website;
  • information that you enter when you create a profile on this website – for example, your name, profile pictures, gender, birthday, relationship status, interests and hobbies, educational data and employment data;
  • information, such as your name and email address, that you enter to subscribe to emails and/or newsletters;
  • information you enter while using the services on this website;
  • information generated whilst using this website, including when, how often and under what circumstances you use this website;
  • information relating to anything you purchase, services you use or transactions you make through this website, including your name, address, telephone number, email address and credit card information;
  • information that you post to this website with the intention of publishing it on the Internet, including your username, profile pictures and the content of your messages;
  • information contained in any communications you send to us by email or through this website, including the communication content and metadata;
  • any other personal information you send us.
Before you disclose another person’s personal information to us, you must obtain that person’s consent to both the disclosure and the processing of that personal information in accordance with this policy.

Personal information provided to us through this website will be used for the purposes specified in this policy or on the relevant pages of the website. We may use your personal information for the following purposes:

  • the management of this website and our company;
  • providing services purchased through this website;
  • making services available on this website;
  • the sending of goods purchased through this website;
  • providing services purchased through this website;
  • sending statements, invoices and payment reminders to you, and collecting your payments;
  • sending non-marketing commercial communications;
  • sending email messages that you have specifically requested;
  • sending you an email newsletter, if you have requested this (you can let us know at any time if you no longer need the newsletter);
  • sending you marketing communications relating to our business or the businesses of carefully-selected third parties which we think may be of interest to you, by post or, where you have specifically agreed to this, by email or similar technology (you can inform us at any time if you no longer wish to receive marketing communications);
  • providing statistical information about users to third parties (but those third parties will not be able to identify individual users from that information);
  • handling questions and complaints submitted by or about you in relation to this website;
  • securing this website and preventing fraud;
  • monitoring compliance with the terms and conditions for using this website (including monitoring private messages sent through this website);
  • and other applications.

If you submit personal information for publication on this website, we will publish and otherwise use that information in accordance with the license you grant us.

Your privacy settings can be used to limit the publication of your information on this website and can be adjusted using privacy controls on the website.

We will not provide your personal information to third parties for direct marketing by them or other third parties without your express consent.

We may disclose your personal information to our employees, officers, insurers, professional advisers, agents, suppliers, or subcontractors insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this policy. We may disclose your personal information to any member of our group of companies (this means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and all its subsidiaries) insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this policy. We may disclose your personal information:
  • to the extent that we are legally obliged to do so;
  • in connection with ongoing or future legal proceedings;
  • to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention and reducing credit risk);
  • to the buyer (or prospective buyer) of any business or assets that we are (or are considering) selling;
  • to any person who we reasonably believe may apply to a court or other competent authority for disclosure of that personal information, if, in our reasonable opinion, such court or authority would reasonably be likely to order disclosure of that personal information.
Except as provided in this policy, we will not provide your personal information to third parties.

Information we collect may be stored, processed, and transferred between any of the countries in which we operate in order to enable us to use the information in accordance with this policy. Information we collect may be transferred to the following countries which do not have data protection laws equivalent to those in force in the European Economic Area: the United States of America, Russia, Japan, China, and India. Personal information that you publish on this website or submit for publication on this website may be available, via the internet, around the world. We cannot prevent the use or misuse of such information by others. You expressly consent to the transfer of personal information as described in this section.

This Section sets out our data retention policies and procedure, which are designed to help ensure that we comply with our legal obligations in relation to the retention and deletion of personal information.

Personal information that we process for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes.

Notwithstanding the other provisions of this Section, we retain documents (including electronic documents) containing personal information:

  • to the extent that we are legally obliged to do so;
  • if we believe that the documents may be relevant to any ongoing or future legal proceedings;
  • to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention and reducing credit risk).

We will take reasonable technical and organizational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse, or alteration of your personal information.

We will store all personal information you provide on our secure (password- and firewall-protected) servers.

All electronic financial transactions entered into through this website are protected by encryption technology.

You acknowledge that the transmission of information via the internet is inherently insecure, and we cannot guarantee the security of data sent over the internet.

You are responsible for keeping the password you use to access this website confidential; we will not ask you for your password (except when you log in to this website).

We may update this policy from time to time by publishing a new version on this website. You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are aware of any changes to this policy. We may notify you of changes to this policy by email or through private messages on this website.

You may instruct us to provide you with any personal information we hold about you; the provision of such information will be subject to the following conditions:

  • the payment of compensation; and
  • Providing appropriate proof of your identity (we will usually accept a notarial photocopy of your passport, as well as an original copy of an electricity bill showing your current address).

We may withhold personal information you request, to the extent legally permitted.

You can instruct us at any time not to process your personal information for marketing purposes.

In practice, you will usually expressly agree in advance to our use of your personal information for marketing purposes, or we will offer you the opportunity to opt out of the use of your personal information for marketing purposes.

This website contains hyperlinks to and information from third-party websites. We have no control over these and are not responsible for the privacy policies and practices of these third parties.

Please let us know if the personal information we hold about you needs to be corrected or updated.

This website uses cookies. A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. Cookies may be either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies: a persistent cookie is stored by a web browser and remains valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, expires at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed. Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies. We use both session and persistent cookies on this website.

The names of the cookies we use on this website, and the purposes for which they are used, are described below:

We use Google Analytics and AdWords on this website to: recognize a computer when a user visits the website / track users navigating the website / enable the use of a shopping cart on the website / improve the website’s usability / analyze website usage / manage website usage / administer the website / prevent fraud and improve website security / personalize the website for each user / target advertisements that are of particular interest to certain users / describe the purpose(s).

Most browsers allow you to refuse cookies – for example:

  • in Internet Explorer (version 10) you can block cookies using the cookie handling settings available by clicking ‘Tools’, ‘Internet Options’, ‘Privacy’ and then ‘Advanced’;
  • in Firefox (version 24) you can block all cookies by clicking ‘Tools’, ‘Options’, ‘Privacy’, selecting ‘Use custom settings for history’ from the dropdown menu and deselecting ‘Accept cookies from sites’; and
  • In Chrome (version 29), you can block all cookies by going to the ‘Customise and control’ menu, clicking ‘Settings’, ‘Show advanced settings’ and ‘Content settings’ and then selecting ‘Block sites from saving any data’ under the ‘Cookies’ heading.

Blocking all cookies will negatively impact the usability of many websites. If you block cookies, you will not be able to use all the features of this website.

You can delete cookies already stored on your computer – for example:

  • In Internet Explorer (version 10) you must manually delete the cookie files (instructions for this can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/278835 );
  • in Firefox (version 24), you can delete cookies by clicking “Tools,” “Options,” and “Privacy,” then selecting “Use custom settings for history,” clicking “Show Cookies,” and then clicking “Remove All Cookies”; and
  • In Chrome (version 29), you can delete all cookies by going to the “Customize and control” menu, clicking “Settings,” “Show advanced settings,” and “Clear browsing data,” and then selecting “Delete cookies and other site and plugin data” before clicking “Clear browsing data.”

Deleting cookies has a negative impact on the usability of many websites.