1. What is Ethical Consumer?
We are an independent, not-for-profit, multi-stakeholder co-operative with open membership, founded in 1989 and based in Manchester.
We produce six magazines a year, plus special content for our website. We host events, including our own annual conference in London. We also provide research and consultancy services to ethically minded businesses.
For nearly 30 years we have been the hub of the ethical consumer movement, helping consumers to shop ethically, campaigners to challenge corporate power and businesses to improve their supply chain.
2. How do we collect information from you?
We collect browsing information on your IP address, what pages are accessed and when. This is done via cookies. For more details on cookies see below.
We also collect personal information such as your name, email address, postal address and phone number when you subscribe to our mailing list or take out a subscription.
If you purchase a subscription using Direct Debit, financial information will be added to our customer relationship management software. This is to enable use to process future Direct Debit payments.
If you purchase a one-off subscription through our website, your card information is not held by us, it is collected by our third party payment processors, PayPal - https://www.paypal.com and Fidelity Payment Services - https://www.fidelitypayment.com, who specialise in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions.
3. How is your information used?
We use your information to:
• Process a subscription or an order that you have made;
• Carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into by you and us (e.g. send you copies of the magazine, information about your subscription);
• Notify you of changes to our services;
• Send you weekly email newsletters which include information about content on our website, updates on campaigns, information about events we are hosting, and updates on our associated companies, such as the Fair Tax Mark and Save Our Bank;
• Monitor how you use the website, and how you got to the website;
• Seek your views or comments on the services we provide;
• Deal with entries into any competitions we run.
We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis.
We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory obligations.
We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with us.
4. Who has access to your information?
We will not sell or rent your information to third parties.
We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes. We may occasionally share anonymised score customisation data with academic institutions for research purposes.
4.1 Third Party Service Providers working on our behalf
We may pass your information to our third party service providers, agents subcontractors and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf (for example to process subscriptions and send you mailings).
However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes.
Ethical Consumer uses the following Third Party Service Providers:
Google Analytics
Our website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc.. Google Analytics uses cookies, which are text files placed on your computer, to help the us to analyse how visitors use the website. It also send 3rd party requests without cookies
The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity to be looked at by Ethical Consumer, and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage.
Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.
There is a Google Analytics opt-out extension for your browser here - https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.
Our website also uses Google Analytics performance reports relating to demographics and interests and reports. You can disable Google Analytics for display advertising here: https://adssettings.google.com.
Hotjar
Hotjar is a tool that compiles data on how visitors are using our website. It uses cookies to collect non-personal information.
Examples of the type of information collected include, but is not limited to, pages visited, how pages are used and interacted with, type of device and browser used and the country you are in.
For more information on how Hotjar collects data, what data it collects and how to opt out of it collecting your information, please read Hotjar's own privacy policy - https://www.hotjar.com/legal/policies/privacy
Social Media
So you can easily 'Like' or share our content on the likes of Facebook and Twitter we have included sharing buttons on our site.
The privacy implications on this will vary from social network to social network and will be dependent on the privacy settings you have chosen on these networks.
5. Your choices
You can change your marketing preferences at any time by contacting us by email at shop@ethicalconsumer.org or by telephone on 0161 226 2929.
You can also opt out of receiving weekly email newsletters at any time using the ‘unsubscribe’ button at the bottom of any such email.
5.1 How to access and update your information
The accuracy of your information is important to us.
If you are a subscriber you can update your information by logging into the website and editing your profile.
If you are not a subscriber but wish to update your email address please follow the link at the bottom of every email from us.
Alternatively if you change email address, or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please;
email us at: shop@ethicalconsumer.org
or write to us at Unit 21, 41 Old Birley Street, Manchester, M15 5RF, UK
or call us on 0161 226 2929.
5.2 Security precautions in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of your information.
When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that it’s treated securely. Any sensitive information (such as credit or debit card details) is encrypted. When you are on a secure page, a lock icon will appear on the bottom of web browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) are transmitted normally over the Internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk.
Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems.
Where we have given (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our websites, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential.
We ask you not to share your password with anyone.
6. Use of cookies
This website uses cookies, as almost all websites do, to help provide you with the best experience we can. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer or mobile phone when you browse websites.
The Ethical Consumer website uses cookies to:
- Make the website work as you'd expect
- Save you having to login every time you visit the site
- Remember your settings during and between visits
- Improve the speed and security of the site
- Allow you to share pages with social networks like Facebook
- Continuously improve our website
- Make our marketing more efficient (ultimately helping us to offer the service we do at the price we do)
We do not use cookies to:
- Collect any personally identifiable information (without your express permission)
- Collect any sensitive information (without your express permission)
- Pass personally identifiable data to third parties
- Pay sales commissions
6.1 Consenting to cookies
The first time you access our website, you will be asked if you consent to receiving essential and/or non-essential cookies (you can find more information about what these cookies are below). If you agree, cookies will be retained on your browser for that visit and for each time you subsequently access the website. If you decline, they will not be retained on your browser. Please note, you cannot decline essential cookies as they are essential for our site to work.
If you want to opt out of using cookies in future, you can do so. Simply revisit the cookie settings bar, which is available on every webpage, and choose your preferences. It is important to note that if you change your settings to block cookies, our website may not function effectively.
6.2 First and third-party cookies
This website uses both first and third-party cookies. First-party cookies are set by the Ethical Consumer website and only this website can read them. Third-party cookies are set by external websites such as YouTube. You can turn these off by using the cookie settings bar, which is available on every webpage. More details are below about the first and third-party cookies we collect.
6.3 Session and persistent cookies
Cookies exist on your computer for varying lengths of time. Some cookies will only last as long as your online session, which are called ‘session’ cookies. Others will remain on your computer after you have left our website and closed your browser, which are called ‘persistent’ cookies.
We use persistent cookies to remember your settings for future visits to our website, whereas session cookies are deleted when you close your browser. You can find further details about the expiry of each cookie in the list below.
6.4 Essential cookies
Essential cookies help make a website usable by visitors and provide information we need:
- recording your choice whether you consented to save non-essential cookies or not
- login access to subscriber-only areas of the website
- purchasing subscriptions
- anonymised basic usage analytics (for example, Google Analytics)
- bot detection to prevent against spam (for example, on contact forms)
You cannot disable these cookies on the Ethical Consumer website, but Google Analytics does provide an opt-out browser add-on which provides more choice on how data is collected by Google Analytics, see https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Google Analytics
On Ethical Consumer, visitor IP addresses are anonymised before any data is sent to Google Analytics.
We use Google Analytics to compile visitor statistics such as how many people have visited our website, what type of technology they are using (e.g. Mac or Windows which helps to identify when our site isn't working as it should for particular technologies), how long they spend on the site, what page they look at etc.
Google also collects data for advertising purposes. This provides us with demographic (age and gender) and interest information that Google has about you. You can manage your google advertising settings and information here - https://www.google.com/settings/ads
Cookie names:
• __utma
• __utmb
• __utmc
• __utmt
• __utmz
• _ga
• _gid
• _gat
6.5 Non-essential cookies
Non-essential cookies add features to this website, but aren't considered necessary for the site to function properly, such as:
- Hotjar recordings of visitor sessions which show us heat maps of where users scroll, click etc. This data is anonymised before we see it.
- Sharethis social media share buttons
- YouTube videos
You can disable all these cookies by selecting 'Essential Only' in the cookie settings bar.
Hotjar
Hotjar provides anonymised recordings of how visitors interact with our website, such as where people click on a page or scroll on a mobile device. Information about all Hotjar cookies can be found on the Hotjar website
Sharethis
Sharethis provides the social sharing buttons on each page - you will not see these buttons if you have accepted only Essential Cookies.
Sharethis says: The data our tools collect on your website is pseudonymised personal data. We know how a particular browser or device interacts with your website; we do not know the person behind the browser or device. We know what you know about your visitors: where they came from (referring domain), the type of browser they are using, their IP address, a certain portion of items they’ve browsed online.
This pseudonymised personal data (e.g. click stream information, browser type, time and date, subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over) during your visit to this website may be used in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of interest to you. To learn more about Interest-Based Advertising or to opt-out of this type of advertising, you can visit AboutAds.info/choicesor www.networkadvertising.org/choices/.
It may also use non-cookie technologies, such as statistical IDs. Please keep in mind that your web browser may not permit you to block the use of these non-cookie technologies, and those browser settings that block cookies may have no effect on such techniques. If the third-party company uses the non-cookie technologies for interest-based advertising, you can opt out at www.networkadvertising.org/choices. Please note the industry opt out only applies to use for interest-based advertising and may not apply to use for analytics or attribution.
YouTube
Disabling these cookies is likely to stop the YouTube videos on this website from displaying correctly:
• VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
• PREF
• YSC
• GPS
7. Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to websites run by other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our website‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website.
In addition, if you linked to our website from a third party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third party site.
8. 16 or Under
We are concerned to protect the privacy of children aged 16 or under. If you are aged 16 or under‚ please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide us with personal information.
9. Your rights
Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and The Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) you have a number of rights with regard to your personal data.
You have the right to:
1. Be informed about the collection and use of your personal data
2. Access to your personal data
3. Rectification of your personal data
4. Have the personal data we hold on you erased
5. Restrict the processing of your personal data
6. Object to the processing of your personal data
7. Have your personal data transferred to another controller/processor
10. Identity and contact details of controller and data protection contact
Ethical Consumer Research Association is the controller and processor of data for the purposes of the DPA 18 and GDPR.
If you have any concerns as to how your data is processed you can contact:
enquiries [at] ethicalconsumer.org
Or you can write to:
Ethical Consumer Research Association
Unit 21, 41 Old Birley Street
Manchester
M15 5RF
United Kingdom
If you are unhappy with how we are using your information and are unable to resolve the issue with us, you can raise the matter with the Information Commissioner's Office by calling 0303 123 1113 or visiting https://ico.org.uk/concerns
11. Review of this Policy
We keep this Policy under regular review. This Policy was last updated in March 2022.