The following statement explains our policy regarding the personal information we collect about you.

1. Introduction

This policy covers the Everything-Free.co.uk use of personal information that is collected when you use everything-free.co.uk. The policy also gives you information about cookies; everything-free.co.uk and third parties' use of cookies; and how you may reject such cookies.

From time to time, you will be asked to submit personal information about yourself (e.g. name and email address) in order to receive or use services on our website. Such services include newsletters, competitions, live chats and message boards.

By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable Everything-Free.co.uk and its service providers to provide you with the services you select. Whenever you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy. When using your personal information Everything-Free.co.uk will act in accordance with current legislation and aim to meet current Internet best practice.

2. Visitor Information

During the course of any visit to Everything-free.co.uk, the pages you see, along with a short text file called a 'cookie', are downloaded to your computer. Many websites do this, because cookies enable website publishers to do useful things like find out whether the computer (and probably its user) has visited the website before. This is done on a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, the cookie left there on the last visit.

Information supplied by cookies can help us to provide you with a better online user experience and assist us to analyse the profile of our visitors. For example: if on a previous visit you checked the Remember me box, we can ensure that you are automatically logged in on your second and subsequent visits.

3. What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small amount of data, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier that is sent to your browser from a website's computer and stored on your computer's hard drive. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser's preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a web site to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites.

Many sites do this whenever a user visits their website in order to track online traffic flows.

Cookies record information about your online preferences. Users have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these, of course, means that certain personalised services cannot then be provided to that user user and accordingly you may not be able to take full advantage of all of the everything-free.co.uk features. Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.

If you have set your computer to reject cookies you can still browse everything-free.co.uk anonymously. For further information on cookies please visit www.aboutcookies.org.

4. Use and storage of your personal information

When you supply any personal information to everything-free.co.uk (e.g. for competitions, everything-free.co.uk Community services or in your everything-free.co.uk profile) we have legal obligations towards you in the way we use those data.

In general, any information you provide to Everything-Free will only be used within the everything-free.co.uk and by its agents and service providers. Your information will only be released to someone if it is needed to bring our services to you, we are obliged or permitted by law or  you give explicit permission to do so. Also, if you post or send offensive, inappropriate or objectionable content anywhere on or to everything-free.co.uk or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on everything-free.co.uk, we can use whatever information that is available about you to stop such behaviour. This may involve informing relevant third parties such as your employer, school e-mail/Internet provider and law enforcement agencies about the content and your behaviour.

We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as you use the service you have requested, and remove it in the event that the purpose has been met, or, in the case of everything-free.co.uk membership you no longer wish to continue your registration as a everything-free.co.uk member. For safety reasons, however, Everything-Free.co.uk may store messaging transcript data (including message content, member names, times and dates) arising from the use of everything-free.co.uk services. Where personal information is held for people who are not yet registered, that information will be held as long as is necessary to ensure that the service is run smoothly. We will ensure that all personal information supplied is held securely, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

Everything-Free.co.uk will not contact you for promotional purposes, such as notifying you of improvements to the service or new services on everything-free.co.uk unless you specifically agree to be contacted for such purposes as indicated by your current newsletter subscriptions.

Any personal information that we collect that is not visible in your public profile, such as email addresses, will be highly protected and not accessible to the public. We will never sell any of you personal information.

5. Users 16 and under

If you are aged 16 or under, please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide personal information to the everything-free.co.uk website. Users without this consent are not allowed to provide us with personal information.

6. How to find and control your cookies If you're using Netscape 6.0:
On your Task Bar, click:

1. Edit, then

2. Preferences

3. Click on Advanced

4. Click on Cookies

If you're using Internet Explorer 6.0:

1. Choose Tools, then

2. Internet Options

3. Click the Privacy Tab

4. Click on Custom Level

5. Click on the 'Advanced' button

6. Check the 'override automatic cookie handing' box and select Accept, Block or Prompt for action as appropriate.

If you're using Internet Explorer 5.0 or 5.5:

1. Choose Tools, then

2. Internet Options

3. Click the Security tab

4. Click on Custom Level

5. Scroll down to the sixth option to see how cookies are handled by IE5 and change to Accept, Disable, or Prompt for action as appropriate.

If you're using Internet Explorer 4.0:

1. Choose View, then

2. Internet Options

3. Click the Advanced tab

4. Scroll down to the yellow exclamation icon under Security and choose one of the three options to regulate your use of cookies.

If you're using Internet Explorer 3.0:
You can View, Options, Advanced, then click on the button that says Warn before Accepting Cookies.

If you're using Netscape Communicator 4.0:
On your Task Bar, click:

1. Edit, then

2. Preferences

3. Click on Advanced

4. Set your options in the box that says Cookies.

7. How do you know which of the sites you've visited use cookies? If you're using Netscape 6.0:
On your Task Bar, click:

1. Edit, then

2. Preferences

3. Click on Advanced

4. Click on Cookies

5. Click the View Cookies button

If you're using Internet Explorer 5.0 or 6.0:

1. Choose Tools, then

2. Internet Options

3. Click the General tab

4. Click Settings

5. View Files

If you're using Internet Explorer 4.0:
On your Task Bar, click:

1. View, then

2. Internet Options

3. Under the tab General (the default tab) click

4. Settings

5. View Files.

If you're using Internet Explorer 3.0:
On your Task Bar, click:

1. View

2. Options

3. Advanced

4. View Files.

If you're using Netscape Communicator 4.0:
Netscape bundles all cookies into one file on your hard drive. You'll need to find the file, which it calls Cookie.txt on Windows machines. 8. How to see your cookie code

Just click on a cookie to open it. You'll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the server that gave you the cookie.

9. Changes to the Privacy Policy

Any changes or amendments to this privacy policy will be displayed on this page - you will not be notified of changes in any other way.

If you have any questions or comments about this privacy policy or anything else, please contact us via the forums or through our contact form.