Privacy Policy what we collect, and your rights over it

Reading the site requires no account and no personal details. Some information is nevertheless collected automatically, as it is on essentially every website, and some is collected only if you choose to give it.

Home Palais uses analytics to measure traffic in aggregate, and works with an advertising network that places display advertising on the site. That network and its partners may set cookies or read identifiers already in your browser in order to choose which ads to show and to measure whether they were seen.

Where required, a consent banner appears before non-essential cookies are set, and you can change or withdraw your choice at any time through the banner’s controls. Essential cookies, which make the site function, are set regardless.

You can also block or delete cookies through your browser settings. Doing so does not reduce the number of ads, only how relevant they are, and it may affect how some parts of the site behave.

California law gives residents the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information, and of its use for cross-context behavioral advertising. Some advertising cookies used on this site may qualify as sharing under that definition, even though no money changes hands for your data and we hold no contact database.

To opt out, use the cookie consent controls on this site and decline advertising or targeting cookies. Your choice is stored in your browser, so you will need to repeat it on other devices or after clearing cookies.

Home Palais honors the Global Privacy Control signal. If your browser or extension sends GPC, we treat it as a valid opt-out request for that browser without any further action from you.

Under the GDPR every use of personal data needs a lawful basis. There are only two on this site.

Analytics run on our legitimate interest in understanding which guides are useful, an interest we have balanced against your privacy by keeping the data aggregated and not using it to identify you. Advertising and targeting cookies run on your consent, collected through the banner before they are set, and you can withdraw it at any time through the same controls.

The newsletter, when it opens, will run on consent given by double opt-in, and every message will carry an unsubscribe link.

If the GDPR applies to you, you have the rights listed below. Exercising any of them is free, and we will respond within one month.

In practice this site holds very little that could identify you: no account, no contact database from lead forms, and analytics recorded in aggregate. For most readers a request will find nothing to act on, which is the point of building it this way.

The site is hosted, and its analytics and advertising partners are operated, largely from the United States. Data collected through those services is therefore transferred outside the European Economic Area.

Those transfers rely on the safeguards the providers put in place, typically the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified, or the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses. If you decline advertising cookies, no advertising identifier is created and there is nothing for those partners to receive.

Under the CCPA as amended by the CPRA, California residents may request to know what personal information has been collected about them, request that it be deleted, request that inaccurate information be corrected, and opt out of its sale or sharing. You may not be discriminated against for exercising any of these rights.

In practice the site holds very little that could identify you: no account, no contact database from lead forms, and analytics recorded in aggregate. A deletion request will usually concern a newsletter subscription or an email you sent us.

To exercise any of these rights, write to us through the contact page. We will verify the request against whatever information we actually hold, which for most readers is nothing at all, and respond within the period the law allows. An authorized agent may act on your behalf with written permission.

Aggregate analytics are retained for as long as they are useful for understanding which guides serve readers, and are not tied to an identifiable person. Newsletter subscriptions are kept until you unsubscribe, and every message carries an unsubscribe link.

We take reasonable measures to protect the limited information we hold. No transmission over the internet is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Guides link to retailers, manufacturers and service providers, including affiliate links disclosed on our affiliate disclosure page. Once you follow a link, you are on that company’s site under their privacy policy, and anything you submit there is governed by their terms, not ours.

This matters more here than on most sites, because our entire conversion model is outbound. When a guide points you to a company that quotes work, you fill in their form on their domain, and they become the controller of what you give them. Read their policy before you do.

This policy will change as the site does, in particular when the advertising network goes live and when the newsletter opens. The updated date at the top of this page moves whenever the substance changes.

Material changes will be announced on the site rather than applied quietly.