Privacy and Cookies

Who runs this site

London Engagement Rings is written and published by Matt Finch. It is an independent editorial guide. It is not a shop, not a marketplace, and not owned by any jeweller. For anything in this policy, or to ask me to delete something, email hello@londonengagementrings.co.uk.

The short version

Four things happen when you use this site. Google Analytics records that a page was viewed. Microsoft Clarity records how you moved around the page, and that recording can be played back. If you fill in a form, I receive what you typed. And the pages load fonts from Google, which means Google sees your IP address. That is the lot. No advertising trackers, no data sold, no profiles built, no retargeting.

Analytics and cookies

I use Google Analytics 4 to understand which pages get read, roughly where readers are, and which sites they arrived from. It tells me that the Hatton Garden guide is being read and the Richmond one is not. It does not tell me who you are.

Between them, Analytics and Clarity set the following cookies in your browser:

Session recordings

This is the part most privacy policies bury, so I will be direct about it. I use Microsoft Clarity, which does more than count page views. It records your visit as a playable session: where you moved your cursor, what you clicked, how far you scrolled, where you hesitated, and which pages you moved between. I can watch that back.

I use it for one reason, which is to find out where the site is confusing. If ten people all scroll past the same section, or repeatedly click something that is not a link, that is a design fault I would otherwise never know about. It has no marketing purpose here.

What it does not capture: Clarity masks text you type into form fields by default, so your name, email address and message are not visible in a recording. It does not capture passwords or payment details, and this site asks for neither. The recordings are not linked to your name, and I have not enabled any feature that would join them to identifiable data.

Clarity is a Microsoft product, so this data is processed by Microsoft under their own terms, and their privacy statement covers it in addition to this page. If you would rather not be recorded, the opt-out methods listed below block Clarity as well as Analytics. A tracker blocker stops both.

To be straightforward about it: all of these cookies, both the Analytics and the Clarity ones, are set when you arrive, without asking you first. Strictly, UK cookie rules expect consent for analytics cookies before they are set, and this site does not currently show a consent banner. That is a deliberate choice to keep the site uncluttered rather than an oversight, and I would rather tell you plainly than bury it. If you would prefer not to be counted, any of the following works and I would not take it personally:

• Install Google's official opt-out extension, which blocks Analytics everywhere.
• Turn on tracking protection in your browser. Firefox, Safari and Brave block this by default.
• Use any standard ad or tracker blocker.
• Email me and I will delete any data associated with you.

I have not enabled Google Signals, advertising features, or remarketing, so this data is not used to target ads at you anywhere. Google anonymises IP addresses in Analytics 4 by default. Data is retained for the default period and then deleted.

If you email me or use a form

There are two forms on the site, and they work differently.

The contact form collects your name, email address, the reason you are writing and your message. It is handled by Netlify Forms, who host this site, and the submission is emailed to me. I keep it for as long as it takes to reply, and generally longer if we end up in a useful conversation, because deleting a thread mid-discussion is unhelpful. I do not add you to anything.

The email signup on the homepage collects your email address only. It is handled by a third-party service called FormSubmit, which forwards it to me. If you sign up, I will email you occasionally when there is something genuinely worth reading. Every email has an unsubscribe option, and you can ask me to remove you at any time.

I do not sell, rent or share either list. No jeweller featured on this site has access to it, and access is not something the paid Jeweller of the Quarter spotlight includes or ever will.

Other companies involved

Being complete about who touches your data:

Google Fonts is worth naming explicitly because it is easy to miss. Loading a font from Google's servers sends your IP address to Google even if you never interact with the page. I could avoid that by serving the fonts from this domain instead, and I may well do that.

Links to jewellers

This site links out to jewellers' own websites and to Google Maps. Once you follow one of those links you are on someone else's site under their privacy policy, not mine. I earn nothing from those clicks. There are no affiliate links anywhere on this site and no commission arrangements of any kind, which is covered in more detail on the about page.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask me what data I hold about you, ask me to correct it, ask me to delete it, or object to my processing it. One email does all of those and I will action it rather than sending you through a process. There is nothing complicated to untangle here: for most readers the only data that exists is an anonymous analytics record.

If you think I have handled your data badly and I have not put it right, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Changes to this policy

If I add anything that changes what is collected, I will update this page and change the date at the top. I will not quietly add tracking and leave this page saying otherwise.