Legal

Privacy Policy

This policy explains what information POD Benchmark handles, why we use it, where browser data stays on your device, and what happens when you follow a supplier link.

Effective date

1. Scope

This Privacy Policy explains how POD Benchmark handles information when you visit podbenchmark.com or use its product search, comparison, profitability, and related features (the “Service”). POD Benchmark operates the Service and is the controller of the personal data described in this policy.

This policy does not apply to print-on-demand suppliers, affiliate partners, or other third-party websites that you access through the Service. Those organisations apply their own privacy policies.

Questions and privacy requests can be sent to privacy@podbenchmark.com.

2. Information we handle

The current Service does not provide public user accounts or checkout. During ordinary use, we do not ask you to provide your name, postal address, or payment-card details.

Technical information

Our hosting, content-delivery, security, diagnostic, and analytics systems may process:

  • your IP address and an approximate region derived from it;
  • browser, operating-system, device, and screen information;
  • requested pages, URLs, referrers, and timestamps;
  • network, performance, diagnostic, and security information; and
  • errors and technical information connected with them.

Usage information

We use PostHog to understand and improve the Service. When analytics is configured, the information handled may include:

  • page views, navigation, clicks, and other interactions;
  • searches, filters, comparison pages, and features used;
  • selected destinations, currencies, product options, and sales channels;
  • outbound supplier-link interactions;
  • pseudonymous visitor or session identifiers; and
  • performance and error information.

We do not associate this information with a POD Benchmark account because the Service currently has no public account system. Analytics is not intended to include raw selling prices, target margins, custom business costs, or the raw contents of your local exploration workspace.

Preferences stored on your device

The Service may store information in cookies, local storage, or IndexedDB so that it can remember your choices. This may include:

  • delivery destination;
  • display currency;
  • whether to show only shippable products;
  • visual theme;
  • preferred sales channel; and
  • products, configurations, visits, or pins in your local exploration workspace.

The exploration workspace is intended to remain on your device. Individual choices may still be sent to our servers when required to display a comparison and may be included in analytics only as described in this policy.

Information you send us

If you contact us, we receive the information contained in your message, including your email address and anything else you choose to provide. Please do not send sensitive personal information.

3. How and why we use information

We use information to:

  • provide and personalise the Service;
  • remember settings you selected;
  • calculate and display relevant comparisons;
  • understand which features and pages are useful;
  • diagnose errors and improve reliability and performance;
  • protect the Service from misuse, attacks, and technical problems;
  • measure supplier and affiliate-link use;
  • respond to messages; and
  • comply with legal obligations and protect our legal rights.

Where the EU GDPR, UK GDPR, or similar legislation applies, our legal bases may include:

  • Legitimate interests: operating, securing, maintaining, and improving the Service, preventing misuse, and using proportionate product measurement. We balance these interests against visitors' rights.
  • Steps at your request: responding to a message or providing a feature you request.
  • Consent: where we have asked for permission for a particular use of information.
  • Legal obligations: retaining or disclosing information where applicable law requires it.

4. Cookies and browser storage

POD Benchmark preferences

The first-party pod-pref cookie remembers destination, currency, and the preference to show only shippable products. It expires after one year.

Related preferences, including settings such as visual theme and preferred sales channel, may be stored in local storage until you clear POD Benchmark's site data.

Exploration workspace

Products, visits, configurations, and pins may be stored in IndexedDB on your device. They remain there until you remove them through the Service, clear POD Benchmark's site data, or your browser removes them.

Analytics storage

When browser analytics is configured, PostHog may use first-party cookies or local storage to maintain pseudonymous visitor and session identifiers. The resulting events may contain the limited technical and usage information described above.

You can limit or delete cookies and other browser storage through your browser's privacy and site-data controls. Clearing cookies alone may not remove local storage or IndexedDB; use the browser option to clear all site data for podbenchmark.com when you want to remove all data held on that device.

5. Retention

We retain information only for as long as reasonably necessary:

  • the pod-pref cookie expires after one year;
  • local storage and IndexedDB remain until you remove the information, clear site data, or your browser removes it;
  • analytics events and operator-controlled request or security logs are retained according to the settings of the systems that process them and only while reasonably needed for measurement, reliability, or security;
  • information connected with an incident may be kept longer while the incident is investigated; and
  • correspondence is retained until the matter is resolved and afterwards only where reasonably necessary for legal or administrative records.

We may retain information longer where required by law, necessary for a legal claim, or needed to investigate fraud or security incidents.

6. Who receives information

We may disclose limited information to:

  • Cloudflare and other infrastructure providers, which help host, deliver, secure, and operate the Service;
  • PostHog, which provides product analytics and error-diagnostic services;
  • suppliers and affiliate partners, when you follow a link to their website;
  • professional advisers such as lawyers or accountants; and
  • courts, regulators, law-enforcement bodies, or other parties where disclosure is legally required.

Providers acting on our behalf may process information only as necessary to provide their services and under their applicable contractual and data-protection obligations.

We do not sell personal information or use it for cross-site behavioural advertising.

7. Third-party websites and affiliate links

The Service links to websites operated by print-on-demand suppliers and other third parties. When you follow one of these links, the receiving website may collect information, set its own cookies, and apply its own privacy policy.

Some links are affiliate links. The receiving supplier or affiliate network may use referral parameters or cookies to attribute a signup or purchase to POD Benchmark. We do not receive your payment-card details from these websites.

8. International processing

Some providers may process information outside the country where you live. Where required by data-protection law, we use providers that offer recognised transfer safeguards, such as adequacy decisions or approved contractual protections.

9. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

  • access personal data held about you;
  • correct inaccurate data;
  • request deletion or restriction;
  • receive certain data in a portable format;
  • object to processing based on legitimate interests;
  • withdraw consent where processing relies on it; and
  • complain to your local data-protection supervisory authority.

To exercise a right, email privacy@podbenchmark.com. Because POD Benchmark has no public account system and generally uses anonymous or pseudonymous information, we may need an analytics identifier or similar technical information to locate data connected with your device. In some cases, we may not be able to identify which data belongs to you.

We do not use personal data to make automated decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects.

10. Security

We use reasonable technical and organisational safeguards designed to protect information. No internet service or storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

11. Children

The Service is intended for people researching or operating print-on-demand businesses and is not directed to children under 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when the Service, our providers, or applicable legal requirements change. The effective date at the top identifies the current version. Material changes will be communicated through the Service where appropriate.

13. Contact

Questions, privacy requests, and complaints may be sent to POD Benchmark at privacy@podbenchmark.com.

Read the Terms and Conditions How the comparison service may be used and where its limits apply.