Privacy Policy

This policy explains what information TradWatch™ collects, why, and what we do with it. We collect as little as we can.

Reading the site

You can read TradWatch without an account and without giving us any personal information.

• No advertising. We do not use advertising networks, advertising cookies, tracking pixels or cross-site tracking.
• Analytics, only if you accept. We ask before using Google Analytics. Until you choose Accept on our cookie banner, and if you choose Decline, no Google Analytics script runs on our pages and nothing is sent to Google. Details are under “Google Analytics” below.
• Theme preference. If you choose light or dark mode, that choice is stored in your own browser (local storage). It is never sent to our servers (if you have accepted Google Analytics, the switch is counted there; see below).
• Server logs. Our hosting provider, Cloudflare, Inc., processes technical information such as IP addresses to deliver the site and protect it from abuse, under its own privacy policy.

Google Analytics

If you accept analytics cookies, we use Google Analytics 4, provided by Google LLC (and, for readers in the European Economic Area and the UK, Google Ireland Limited), to understand how the site is used: which pages are read, how readers arrive (for example from a search engine), approximate region, device and browser type, and a few actions on the page: opening a cited source, playing an embedded clip, sharing a page, subscribing to the RSS feed, sending a message (never its content), switching between light and dark mode, and searching the site. Search terms are sent with anything that looks like an email address or a phone number removed.

• Cookies. Google Analytics sets first-party cookies named _ga and _ga_… that tell visits from the same browser apart. We set them to expire after 13 months.
• IP addresses. Google Analytics 4 does not log or store IP addresses. Google uses your IP address only to estimate an approximate location and then discards it.
• No advertising use. We do not use Google signals or Google's advertising features, so this data is not used for advertising or to build advertising profiles.
• Retention. Google keeps this data for no more than 14 months and then deletes it. We see only aggregate reports, not individual readers.
• Your choice. We remember your answer for six months in a cookie (tw_consent) and in your browser's local storage, then ask again. You can change your mind at any time with Cookie settings at the foot of every page; withdrawing consent stops Google Analytics on our site and deletes its cookies. You can also install Google's opt-out browser add-on.

Google processes this information under its own terms; see how Google uses information from sites that use its services.

Embedded players

Some analyses include audio or video from platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo, Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Nothing from these platforms loads until you press play. When you do, your browser connects to that platform, which may collect information under its own privacy policy. For YouTube we use its privacy-enhanced (youtube-nocookie.com) player.

When you contact us

When you use our contact, correction or right-of-reply forms, we collect what you choose to send: your name, email address, optional organisation and subject, your message, and which analysis it concerns.

We use this only to read and respond to your message and, for right-of-reply submissions, to publish your response as you agreed. Your email address is never published, sold or shared for marketing. A copy of your message may be sent to our editors by email through our email provider, Resend.

To prevent spam, we keep a scrambled (hashed) version of your IP address for a short time to limit how many messages can be sent from one connection. We cannot recover your IP address from it.

Accounts for editors

People who write for TradWatch have accounts. We store their name, email address, role and a securely hashed password, and use a session cookie to keep them signed in. Readers never need an account.

Who processes information for us

Our site is served by Cloudflare, Inc., our database is hosted by Neon, Inc., and email is sent through Resend. Their servers may be in the United States or other countries. Each processes information only to provide its service to us, under its own security and privacy commitments. We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it with anyone else except where the law requires it.

How long we keep it

We keep messages for as long as we need them to respond and to keep a record of our editorial decisions, and we delete them on request unless they form part of a published correction or reply, which are part of the public record.

Your rights

You can ask us to see, correct or delete the personal information we hold about you, or to stop using it, through our contact page. We will answer within 30 days. Depending on where you live, laws such as the EU and UK GDPR or US state privacy laws may give you further rights, including the right to complain to your data protection authority; we will honour them. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 13.

Changes

If we change this policy, we will update this page and the date below.

Last updated: October 9, 2026.