Privacy Policy.

We publish this policy to be transparent with our readers and to meet our legal obligations. It also satisfies the requirements of the advertising and affiliate programs we take part in, including the Amazon Associates Program, which require participants to maintain a clear, accessible privacy policy.

We only collect personal data when you choose to give it to us, plus a small amount of technical data needed to keep the site running and free of spam.

• Contact form. When you write to us we store your name, email address, and message. We also keep a salted hash of your IP address (not the address itself), your browser user agent, and the page you wrote from, to limit abuse.
• Comments. If you leave a comment we store the display name and comment text you submit, an email address if you choose to give one (stored as a hash), and a salted hash of your IP address for moderation and spam control.
• Newsletter. If you subscribe to our email updates we store your email address and where on the site you signed up, so we can email you when a new guide is published. Every email includes an unsubscribe link.
• Server logs. Our hosting provider records standard request logs, such as IP address, page URL, and timestamp, to operate the service and detect abuse.

We also use Google Analytics to count page views in aggregate, described in Analytics below. We do not run advertising networks, we do not build advertising profiles, and we do not operate an account system, so there is no password or profile to lose.

Some pages show product details such as titles, images, prices, and availability that we retrieve from Amazon through Amazon's official Product Advertising and Creators APIs. This information describes Amazon listings, not you, and we do not send any of your personal data to Amazon in order to display it.

When you click through to Amazon, your activity there is governed by Amazon's own privacy notice. Amazon may set or read cookies on its domain to attribute the referral so that a qualifying purchase can earn us a commission.

We set no advertising cookies and use no advertising pixels. The cookies this site sets itself are strictly necessary to operate features you actively use, such as our comment tools. Google Analytics sets its own cookies to tell repeat visits apart, as described in the next section.

When you follow an affiliate link to Amazon, Amazon may set cookies on its own domain to attribute the referral. That happens under Amazon's privacy notice, not ours. You can manage or block cookies at any time through your browser settings, and nothing on this site breaks if you do.

We use Google Analytics 4 to understand, in aggregate, which guides are read and where our readers come from. It records page views along with basic technical details such as browser type, device category, and approximate (city-level) location. Google Analytics 4 does not log or store IP addresses. We use these reports only to see which guides are useful, never to identify an individual reader.

If you would rather not be counted, you can install Google’s opt-out browser add-on or block the script with a content blocker; the site works exactly the same either way. How Google handles this data is described in Google’s partner sites policy.

• To operate, maintain, and improve CoffeeGearGuides.
• To see, in aggregate, which guides are read, so we know what to write next.
• To read and reply to the messages you send us.
• To publish and moderate comments, and to keep them free of spam.
• To send our email newsletter, but only if you have opted in, and only when a new guide is published.
• To attribute affiliate referrals so that qualifying commissions can be recorded.
• To protect the site against spam, fraud, and abuse.

CoffeeGearGuides is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program (Amazon.com) and in the Amazon Associates Program operated by Amazon Seller Services Private Limited (Amazon.in). These are two separate affiliate advertising programs that let sites earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.

When you click an affiliate link and make a purchase, Amazon may place a cookie on your browser to attribute the referral. We never see your Amazon account, your payment details, or your purchase history. Amazon provides us only with aggregate reports about clicks and commissions. Taking part in these programs does not increase the price you pay. Full details are in our affiliate disclosure.

If you approach us about a sponsored post, a sponsored entry in a guide, or another partnership, we collect the details you send, which typically include your name, email address, the brand you represent, and the content or links you propose.

We use this to evaluate the request, agree on the arrangement, communicate with you, and keep a record of the commercial terms and any disclosures required by the FTC and ASCI. We keep those records because a disclosure obligation is only defensible if we can show what was agreed. Paid content is always clearly labelled. See our sponsored posts page and affiliate disclosure for how paid content is handled. We keep enquiry data only as long as it is needed, and delete pitches we do not take forward within twelve months.

Contact messages, comments, and newsletter sign-ups are stored with Supabase, our database provider. The site is served by our hosting provider on their global network. Aggregate page-view data is processed by Google Analytics. All three process this data on our behalf under their own security programs.

We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share it for advertising. We may disclose data only where the law requires it, or where it is needed to protect the rights, safety, and property of our readers or of CoffeeGearGuides.

We keep personal data only for as long as it is needed for the purpose it was collected for. Contact messages are kept while they remain relevant and then removed. Comments remain while the comment is published. Newsletter details are kept until you unsubscribe.

You can ask us to delete data you have submitted at any time, and we will do so unless the law requires us to keep it.

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal data, including storing IP addresses only as salted hashes and limiting who can access our systems. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we work to keep the risk low.

Depending on where you live, you have rights over your personal data. To exercise any of them, please contact us, and we will respond within the time the applicable law allows.

• India. Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, you can access, correct, and erase your personal data, and seek grievance redressal.
• United States (California). Under the CCPA and CPRA, you can ask what personal information we hold, request its deletion, and opt out of any sale or sharing. We do not sell or share personal information for money.
• European Economic Area and United Kingdom. Under the GDPR and UK GDPR, you have rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, and objection, and you can withdraw consent at any time.

CoffeeGearGuides is not directed to children under the age of 13, or a higher age where local law requires it. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has provided us data, please contact us and we will remove it.

We serve readers in India, the USA, and elsewhere. Depending on where our providers operate, your data may be processed in a country other than your own, including the United States. Wherever it is processed, it remains protected by this policy.

Our cafe and coffee shop guides describe real businesses. The information in them is limited to what those businesses publish about themselves and what has already been published about them: trading name, address, opening hours, menu, website and social accounts, publicity photographs, and aggregate customer review counts.

Where a business has paid for its entry, that is disclosed on the entry itself. The commercial relationship is stated publicly; the contact details behind it are not published.

We do not collect or publish personal data about business owners or staff. We do not reproduce individual customer reviews or reviewer identities, and we do not build profiles of named individuals. Where a person appears in a business’s own publicity photo, that photo is used as the business published it, with a credit and a link to the source.

If you own or represent a business we have covered and want information corrected, a photograph removed, or the entry taken down, contact us and we will act on it. Our disclaimer sets out exactly how that works.

We may update this policy from time to time. When a change is material, we will post a notice on the site. The date at the top of this page always shows when it was last revised.

If you have any questions about this policy, your data, or your rights, please get in touch. We read every message and reply within 24 to 48 hours.