This privacy policy explains how Digital Forerunners (digital-forerunners.com) collects, uses and protects personal information when you visit the website. Our readers live in many countries. We handle personal information in line with New Zealand’s Privacy Act 2020 and its information privacy principles, and every visitor gets the same protection, wherever they live.
In short: you can read the whole site without an account, and we do not ask for your name or email address. We have no newsletter, no comments and no analytics tool such as Google Analytics. The site does show ads from Google AdSense, contains Amazon affiliate links and product boxes, embeds YouTube videos and offers AMP versions of articles. Those services can collect information about your visit, as explained below.
Who is responsible
Digital Forerunners is represented by the website’s owner, who is responsible for the personal information handled on this website. If you have questions about how your information is handled, please contact us through our contact page.
What information we collect
Information you send us
When you email us, we receive:
- your email address
- your name, if you give it
- the content of your message
- any other information you choose to include
Technical information collected automatically
When you visit the website, some technical information is collected automatically by our hosting provider Hetzner and by the security and delivery service Cloudflare:
- IP address, used to deliver the pages and protect the site against abuse
- browser type and version
- operating system
- the page that referred you to us
- the time of your visit
- the pages you view on the site
This information comes from server logs and necessary cookies. We use it only to keep the website running and to protect it, not to build a profile of you.
Star ratings
Many articles let you rate a product with stars. If you vote, the website stores your rating together with your IP address and the time of the vote. We use the IP address only to stop the same person from voting many times on the same article. Ratings are shown as an average and never linked to your name.
Information collected by Google AdSense
Some pages show ads served by Google AdSense (publisher ID ca-pub-1766525617576378). When an ad loads, Google receives your IP address, information about your browser and device, and the page you are viewing. Google and its advertising partners can use cookies and similar technologies to show ads, limit how often you see the same ad, detect fraud and measure how the ads perform. Depending on your settings and where you live, the ads can be personalised based on your earlier visits to this and other websites.
We do not see who you are, and we do not pass information about you to Google ourselves. Google explains how it uses information from sites that show its ads on the page How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services. You can turn off personalised ads in Google’s ad settings.
Amazon affiliate links and product boxes
Digital Forerunners takes part in the Amazon Associates programme. Our guides show product boxes with prices and images supplied by Amazon, and many links to products go to Amazon. The product images are loaded from Amazon’s servers, so Amazon receives your IP address and browser information when a page with a product box loads.
When you click an Amazon link, the link carries our affiliate code. Amazon uses it, together with its own cookies, to see that you came from our site, and we may earn a commission if you buy something. The price you pay is the same. We do not receive your name, address or what you bought, only summary sales reports. What happens on Amazon is covered by Amazon’s privacy notice.
Embedded YouTube videos
Many articles embed videos from YouTube, such as product reviews and setup guides. An embedded video behaves as if you had visited YouTube. When a page with a video loads, or when you play it, YouTube (Google) can receive your IP address and browser information, set its own cookies and link the visit to your Google account if you are logged in. This is covered by the Google privacy policy. We do not receive the information YouTube collects.
AMP pages
Our articles are also available in AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), a lightweight format for phones. An AMP page loads the AMP framework from cdn.ampproject.org, a service run by Google, so Google receives your IP address and browser information. If you open one of our articles from Google Search on a mobile device, Google may also deliver the AMP version from its own AMP cache. Both are covered by the Google privacy policy. We have not added ads or analytics to the AMP pages.
Cookies
The website uses these cookies:
- Necessary cookies: set by Cloudflare for security, by LiteSpeed Cache so pages load faster, and by WordPress for logged-in site administrators.
- Cookie notice: when you close the cookie notice, a small cookie (euCookiesAcc) remembers that you have seen it, so the notice is not shown again.
- Advertising cookies: set by Google and its partners for the AdSense ads described above.
- Third-party cookies: set by YouTube when a video loads or plays, and by Amazon when you visit Amazon through one of our links.
You can delete cookies and block new ones in your browser settings at any time. Blocking necessary cookies may affect how the website works. Read more on our cookies page.
Why we use your information
We collect and use personal information only for a clear and lawful purpose connected to running this website:
- Answering your messages: we use what you send us to reply and, where relevant, to correct the article you told us about.
- Running and securing the website: technical information is used to deliver pages, prevent abuse and fix faults.
- Star ratings: your vote and IP address are used to show a fair average rating.
- Funding the website: ads from Google AdSense and commissions from Amazon pay for running the site.
- Understanding search visibility: Google Search Console shows us summary statistics on how the site appears in Google Search. It runs no code on this website and does not tell us who you are.
We do not use your information for any other purpose without telling you first, unless the law requires or allows it.
How long we keep information
We keep personal information only as long as it is needed for the purpose it was collected for:
- Messages you send us: up to 3 years after the last contact, then deleted, unless the law requires us to keep them longer
- Star ratings: kept with the article for as long as the rating is shown
- Server logs at Hetzner: deleted automatically after a short period, normally a few weeks
- Cloudflare security logs: normally kept for about 30 days
- Cookies: from the end of your browser session up to the period set by each provider; Google’s advertising cookies can last up to about 13 months
When information is no longer needed, we delete it or make it anonymous.
Service providers that handle information
We never sell personal information. The following third parties handle information so the website can run:
- Hetzner Online GmbH (hosting): handles server logs and IP addresses as part of hosting the website. Location: Finland (EU). Privacy policy
- Cloudflare, Inc. (security and delivery): handles IP addresses and technical information. Location: United States, with servers worldwide. Privacy policy
- Google (Google AdSense, YouTube, the AMP cache and Google Search Console): serves the ads and videos, may deliver AMP pages and provides summary data about searches that lead to the website. Location: United States and Ireland. Privacy policy
- Amazon (Amazon Associates): supplies product information and images and handles clicks on affiliate links. Location: United States. Privacy notice
We may have to disclose information to public authorities where the law requires it.
Information sent overseas
Our service providers store and handle information in the European Union and the United States, and some of them use servers around the world. As the Privacy Act 2020 requires, we work only with providers that are bound by privacy laws or contractual protections comparable to those in New Zealand, so your information stays protected wherever it is handled.
How we protect information
We take reasonable steps to protect personal information against loss, unauthorized access, use, change or disclosure:
- HTTPS encryption across the whole website
- Cloudflare’s security services, including protection against attacks and automated abuse
- regular updates of WordPress, plugins and themes
- limited access to the website’s administration
- secure storage of email correspondence
If a privacy breach happens that has caused or is likely to cause serious harm, we notify the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the people affected as soon as practicable, as the Privacy Act 2020 requires.
Your rights
Whichever country you live in, you have the right to:
- ask whether we hold personal information about you and to see it
- ask us to correct information that is wrong
- ask us to delete information about you, which we do unless we still need it for the purpose it was collected for or the law requires us to keep it
- complain if you think your privacy has been interfered with
Depending on where you live, local privacy laws may give you further rights, and we will respect them. To use your rights, contact us through our contact page. We reply as soon as possible and no later than 20 working days after receiving your request. We may ask you to confirm your identity first.
Complaints
If you are not happy with how we have handled your personal information, please contact us first so we can try to put it right. Because we follow New Zealand’s Privacy Act 2020, you can also complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, New Zealand’s privacy regulator, at privacy.org.nz. Complaints can be made online through its website.
Children
Some articles on Digital Forerunners mention online casino sites, and real-money gambling is only for adults. Those parts of the site are meant for readers aged 18 or over, or the higher legal age where they live. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
Changes to this policy
We may update this privacy policy when our practices or the law change. The latest version is always published on this page. You can also read our terms of use, our AI policy and our responsible gambling page.
