Privacy Policy

At Nick Names we value transparency and your privacy. This page has everything you need to know about how we use your data. If you have any questions about our Privacy Policy, we’d love to hear from you Contact us. This Privacy Policy should be read in conjunction with our Cookie Policy below.

We are Nick Names, and this is the Privacy Policy for the website we operate (the “Services”). For the purposes of UK data protection law, (the “Data Protection Law”), we are the data controller. Please read this carefully to understand how we will collect and use your personal information. By using our Services you acknowledge you have read and understood this Privacy Policy.

Information We Collect About You

We will collect and process certain personal information if you use our Services, including signing up for free, signing up for a subscription, or browsing content or the store.

You may provide us with information about you when you use the Services, including if you:

- Browse the Services

- Search the Services

- Read any content

- Register an account to use the Services

- Submit a query to us

- Report a problem with the Services

- Sign up to email updates

- Pay for products on our store

When you interact with us, we may collect the following types of personal information:

- Identity: age of your children, first and last name, city, country

- Contact: e-mail address

- Analytics: you may voluntarily provide your preferences in your account such as preferred events, activities, etc.

- Interaction: your password, and queries and feedback which you provide to us, including via email, phone and social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or X

- Business: if you represent a business, we additionally collect your job title.

Other parties

We work closely with third parties (including brand, content and advertising partners, our retail partners, sub-contractors in communications, technical, and payment services, analytics providers, and search information providers). We’ll tell you (usually in this Privacy Policy) when we receive information about you from another source, and for what purpose(s) we’ll use that information. We may share personal information we collect or combine data from other sources with personal information you’ve given to us. This may involve processing your identity, contact, interaction and payment information.

We automatically collect

We will automatically collect information from you each time you use our Service. This includes:

- Technical Information

- Location Information

- Information about your visit

Technical information may include the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet, device type, device ID, your login information, browser type and version, Google ID, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform.

Location information may include the physical location (or approximate location) of your device by, for example, using Wi-Fi signals. This information may be used to provide you with personalised services and content, including advertising, and may also be shared with our marketing partners. You will be permitted to allow or deny such uses and/or sharing of your device ‘s location.

Information about your visit may include the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL), clickstream to, through and from our Services (including date and time), pages you viewed or searched for, page response times, download errors, logins, length of visits to certain pages, title selections, watch history, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), information you have viewed and methods used to browse away from the page.

How We Use Your Information

We use your personal information in different ways. We’ve set these out below, along with the types of personal information we use for each purpose, and the legal reason(s) (also known as the ‘lawful basis’ under GDPR) that permits this processing.

We explain more about what each legal basis means below. We may process your personal information based on more than one legal basis, depending on the specific ways we are using your personal information.

How we use this information	Type of personal information	Our lawful bases for processing
To perform our contract with you under our Terms of Service and manage our relationship with you including:Providing our Services to you,Fulfilling and arranging delivery of orders with our retail partners,Facilitating payments,Administering your account with us,Storing your personal information,Providing information to you which you have requested.	IdentityContactAnalyticsInteractionLocation	ContractLegal Obligation
To register you as a new user who wants to use our Services.	IdentityContactLocation	Contract
To promote our service to you and keep you updated with information about our services, including:Delivering relevant content on topics we think may be of interest to you,Letting you know about new products or services; andShowing you online ads for our Services on social media platforms and other websites and apps.To ask you to leave a review, provide feedback or take a survey.	IdentityContactAnalyticsInteractionAutomatically collected information	ConsentOur legitimate interests

To enable you to enter a prize draw or competitions.	IdentityContactAnalytics	Consent
To customise your experience and offer you relevant ads, content and recommendations including information about new promotions.For measuring, understanding and optimising the effectiveness of advertising we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant advertising to you.	IdentityContactAnalyticsInteractionAutomatically collected information	Our legitimate interests
To administer our Services and for internal operations, including bug fixes, troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, and survey purposes.To improve our Services to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer. We may also use aggregated information to help us plan and introduce new features.To keep you up to date about our Service including notifying you about changes to our Service, to our terms or privacy policy and sending you service updates (including security alerts,To keep our Services safe and secure, including taking steps to detect and prevent fraud.	ContactInteractionAutomatically collected information	Our legitimate interests
To analyse our user base, Service and service usage, feature and content popularity, software and hardware quality, and market trends.To share aggregated and anonymised analytics with digital content partners and other organisations about how people use the Services. You cannot be identified from this information.We may also use this information to inform, refine and deliver our wider online marketing campaigns.	IdentityContactAnalyticsInteractionAutomatically collected information	Our legitimate interests
In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, disclose your data to a prospective seller or buyer, or in the event we are the subject of acquisition by a third party.	Information relating to transactions	ContractLegal obligationOur legitimate interests
To comply with any rights requests you make.	Contact information	Legal obligation

Where we receive your personal information from a third party, they will be a separate data controller of your personal information, and will have their own legal bases for processing.

Our Promotional Updates And Communications

Where permitted in our legitimate interests (explained below) or with your prior consent if required by law, we may:

- Send you marketing and promotional updates about our products and services, by email and SMS, if you have opted-in to receiving these; or

- Use your personal information for marketing analysis.

You can object to further marketing at any time by selecting the “unsubscribe” link at the end of all our marketing and promotional update communications to you or by sending us an email to Contact us.

Lawful bases explained

GDPR requires controllers of personal data to check they have a lawful basis for their processing of personal information, and to explain which lawful bases they are using for specific uses of personal information. Lawful bases under GDPR include consent, legitimate interests (which need to be balanced with the individual’s rights), performance of a contract and performance of the controller’s legal obligations.

Consent: We will process your personal information for promotional or marketing purposes where you have given us your express consent for us to do this, where required by law. This includes sending you updates and newsletters about new content or available products. You can adjust your preferences or withdraw your consent at any time by unsubscribing from marketing in our marketing emails or on the Services.

Contract: We collect, store and process your personal information where it’s necessary for performing a contract you have with us (such as our Terms of Service) or where you have asked us to take specific steps before entering into that contract.

Legal obligation: We may need to process your personal information to comply with our legal obligations, including under applicable UK law (including consumer protection and data protection law), and/or any court orders.

Legitimate interests: processing your personal information is sometimes necessary for us to do the following activities, in our own interest or sometimes in the interests of a third party, like digital content partners we work with. In each case, we balance our legitimate interests with your rights and interests.

Our legitimate interests include:

- Gaining insights on how you use our Services.

- Delivering, developing and improving our Services.

- Enabling us to enhance, customise or modify our Services and communications.

- Growing our business and informing our marketing strategy.

- Keeping our records updated.

- Improving our Services and data security.

- Enforcing or applying our terms or other agreements with you, including recovering fees or other debt due to us.

- Providing you with our promotional updates and communications in certain cases where you have made purchases with us and have not opted-out at the time of purchase or any time since.

Who We May Share Your Information With

We may give your information to:

Any member of our group, which means our subsidiaries affiliate, and any parent company from time to time, who support our processing of personal information under this policy.

Our partner and support businesses, including support services, retail partners, advertisers, as well as brand and content partners.

Our selected third parties may include:

Brand and content partners so they may understand the sorts of people interested in their products and services.

Organisations who process your personal information in order to provide a service to us. This includes third party suppliers, agents, sub-contractors and/or other who support the services we offer through the Services, including those:

- Providing website and data hosting services,

- Distributing any communications we send,

- Supporting or updating marketing lists,

- Facilitating feedback on our services, and

- Providing IT support services.

These organisations will only use your information to the extent necessary to perform their support functions.

Third party ticket sellers who process your information in order to supply tickets you order from them through our Services.

Online advertiser partners

We may work with social media platforms and digital advertising platforms to show you advertising for our Service on other websites and social media platforms. For instance, if you show an interest or buy a product or subscription on our Services, we may advertise that or other products we think may be of interest and you may see them on other websites and on your Facebook or other social media feeds. To do this we will share information with our social media and digital advertising partners about you, usually including your purchase, age, gender and interests for instance so they can better understand what you are interested in and so we can deliver ads to you which we think might be of interest.

Analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our Services (this will not identify you as an individual). See our Cookies Policy for more information.

We will also share your personal information with third parties:

- If we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we will disclose your personal information to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets subject to the terms of this privacy policy.

- If we or substantially all of our assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal information held by it about its customers will be one of the transferred assets.

- If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal information in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of supply terms and other agreements with you; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of us, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction and to prevent cybercrime.

Where We Store Your Information

Your data is principally stored and processed in the UK and Ireland. It may also be processed by staff operating outside the UK or European Economic Area (“EEA”) who work for us. Such staff may be engaged in, among other things, the fulfilment of your order, the processing of your payment details and the provision of support services. Due care is taken when processing your personal data with a number of security measures in place to protect your information.

Where your information is transferred outside the UK or EEA, we will take steps to ensure your personal information is protected by appropriate legal safeguards, and that it is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

Payment Processing

You may use a third-party payment processor (“Payments Processor”) in order to make payments on the Services, including Stripe. In such cases, you will be providing credit or debit card information directly to the Payments Processor which operates a secure server to process payment details, encrypting your credit/debit card information and authorising payment. Information which you supply to the Payments Processor is not within our control and is subject to the Payments Processor’s own Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.

How We Can Protect Your Information

All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of the Services, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, including using SSL encryption to secure our Services and protection your information in transit. We cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to the Services; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.Our Services may, from time to time, contain links to external sites. We are not responsible for the privacy policies or the content of such sites.

How Long We Keep Your Information

We keep personal information for:

- As long as you have an account with us or use our Services in order to meet our contractual obligations to you; and

- Six years after that to identify any issues and resolve any legal proceedings.

We may also retain aggregate information beyond this time for research purposes and to help us develop and improve our services. You cannot be identified from aggregate information retained or used for these purposes.

Age Restrictions

Protecting the safety of children when they use the Internet is important to us. The creation and management of accounts on our Services are restricted to persons who are age 18 or older.

Your Rights

You have the right under certain circumstances:

- To be provided with a copy of your personal information held by us;

- To request the correction or erasure of your personal information held by us;

- To request that we restrict the processing of your personal information (while we verify or investigate your concerns with this information, for example);

- To object to the further processing of your personal information, including the right to object to marketing (as mentioned in ‘Our promotional updates and communications’ section;

- To request that your provided personal information be moved to a third party; and

- To withdraw consent. Where the processing of your personal information by us is based on consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent without detriment at any time.

You may exercise the rights listed above at any time by contacting us on the CONTACT US form.

If your request or concern is not satisfactorily resolved by us, you may approach your local data protection authority which in the UK is the Information Commissioner which can provide further information about your rights and our obligations in relation to your personal information, as well as deal with any complaints that you have about our processing of your personal information.

If you request that we stop processing some or all of your personal information or you withdraw (where applicable) your consent for our use or disclosure of your personal information for purposes set out in this Privacy Policy, we may not be able to provide you all of the services and customer support offered to our users and authorised under this Privacy Policy or the Terms of Service (which Terms of Service shall still continue to apply). Upon your request, we will close your account and remove your personal information from view as soon as reasonably possible, based on your account activity and in accordance with applicable laws.

Changes To This Policy

Any changes we make to our privacy policy in future will be posted on this page. This policy was last updated on 6 June 2024.

Cookie policy

What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small file that contains letters and numbers that is downloaded on to your device when you visit a website. It is sent to your browser and stored on your computer’s hard drive, tablet or mobile device. When you visit our sites it can allow us to recognise and remember you.

Technologies similar to cookies

Technologies that store or access information on a user’s device are similar to cookies and are also covered by this policy. These technologies may include:

- Device fingerprinting – using a set of information without relying on cookies in order to identify a particular device. For this purpose where you are resident in Australia, our partner Ipsos Iris may collect your IP address, monitor settings, type of browser and operating system to create a unique serial number which constitutes a digital “fingerprint”.

- Local storage – storage of data in the local device’s cache, for example to load content quicker.

- Pixels – a small pixel graphic which is used to track user behaviour, site conversions etc.

- Scripts – small computer programs embedded within websites that give them extra functionality but may access user devices.

In this policy we call all cookies and similar technologies “cookies”, for ease.

First-party and third-party cookies

There are different types of cookies:

First party cookies are created by the website that you are visiting. A third-party cookie is frequently used in behavioral advertising and analytics and is created by a domain other than the website you are visiting. Third-party cookies, tags, pixels, beacons and other similar technologies (collectively, “Tags”) may be placed on the Website to monitor interaction with advertising content and to target and optimize advertising. Each internet browser has functionality so that you can block both first and third-party cookies and clear your browser’s cache. The “help” feature of the menu bar on most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to receive notification of new cookies, how to disable existing cookies and how to clear your browser’s cache.

Without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of the Website content and features. Please note that rejecting cookies does not mean that you will no longer see ads when you visit our Site. In the event you opt-out, you will still see non-personalized advertisements on the Website.

What types of cookies are there?

We use four types of cookies:

- Strictly Necessary – These cookies are essential to provide you with services you have requested, which means they cannot be switched off through the “Privacy Settings” link. For example, strictly necessary cookies make it possible for you to stay logged into your account and make comments. If you set your browser to block these cookies, then these functions and services will not work for you. In particular, we won’t be able to save your preferences about cookies.

- Performance – These cookies measure how often you visit our site and how you use them. We use this information to get a better sense of how you engage with our content and to improve our sites so that you have a better experience. For example, we collect information about which of our pages are most frequently visited, and by which types of users.

- Functionality – These cookies are used to recognise you and remember your preferences or settings when you return to our site so that we can provide you with a more personalised experience.

- Advertising – These cookies are used to collect information about your visit to our site, including the content you have viewed, the links you have followed and information about your browser, device and your IP address. We have set out more details on this below.

How long do cookies last?

- Session cookies – These cookies only last as long as your online session and expire when you close your browser (e.g. Chrome or Safari).

- Persistent cookies – These cookies stay on your device after your browser has been closed and last for a time specified in the cookie (but not longer than 13 months). We use these cookies when we need to remember you for more than one browsing session, for instance to remember your preferences from one visit to the next.

How do we use cookies?

We use cookies in a range of ways to improve your experience on our sites, including:

- Keeping you signed in.

- Understanding how you use our site, for instance how long you stay on a page or which article you read next.

- Delivering content to you.

- Showing you journalism that is relevant to you.

- Showing you products and services that are relevant to you.

- Delivering marketing and service messages to you on our site.

- Working with partners to deliver relevant advertising to you.

- Reminding you to complete online journeys (e.g. registration flow).

- Processing payments and refunds.

- Monitoring how users interact with pages on our site to identify and remedy technical issues.

In the next sections, we explain in more detail how cookies on our site may be useful, as well as when and where you can control them.

How do we use cookies for advertising?

If you accept cookies, as you browse our site, we will place cookies on your device. Some cookies are for advertising, so we can understand what sorts of pages you read and are interested in viewing. We can then display advertising on your browser based on these interests. For instance, if you have been reading a lot of food articles, you may be shown more adverts for food.

Our apps integrate third-party software that provides us with information about how the app is used and what content you have viewed for the purposes of online advertising and analytics. It uses cookies from some of the providers listed in our “Privacy Settings”, that can be found in the footer of every page on our site. The advertising techniques we use do not collect personal data such as your name, email address, postal address or phone number. We sometimes use information such as your IP address and browser type, and also sometimes share these with others for advertising purposes.

We also allow other organisations to use cookies and other technologies to help us analyse how our site is being used, measure the number of visitors to the site, and display advertising.

Our primary partner in this regard is Mediavine who we work with to manage third-party interest-based advertising appearing on the Website. Mediavine serves content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use first and third-party cookies.

The Website collects the following data using a cookie when serving personalized ads:

- IP Address

- Operating System type

- Operating System version

- Device Type

- Language of the website

- Web browser type

- Email (in hashed form)

Mediavine Partners (companies listed below with whom Mediavine shares data) may also use this data to link to other end user information the partner has independently collected to deliver targeted advertisements. Mediavine Partners may also separately collect data about end users from other sources, such as advertising IDs or pixels, and link that data to data collected from Mediavine publishers in order to provide interest-based advertising across your online experience, including devices, browsers and apps. This data includes usage data, cookie information, device information, information about interactions between users and advertisements and websites, geolocation data, traffic data, and information about a visitor’s referral source to a particular website. Mediavine Partners may also create unique IDs to create audience segments, which are used to provide targeted advertising.

If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices to opt-in or opt-out of this data collection, please visit the National Advertising Initiative opt out page. You may also visit Digital Advertising Alliance website and Network Advertising Initiative website to learn more information about interest-based advertising. You may download the AppChoices app at Digital Advertising Alliance’s AppChoices app to opt out in connection with mobile apps, or use the platform controls on your mobile device to opt out.

For specific information about Mediavine Partners, the data each collects and their data collection and privacy policies, please visit Mediavine Partners.

Google Ad Manager

We use Google Ad Manager to deliver advertising. In order to do this Google may collect or receive information about you. You can opt out and find further information about Google by following this link:

https://policies.google.com/privacy

Social Media

There are times when we want to reach out to readers who use social media to market our own products and services such as our live events and jobs. We use cookies to help with this.

How can you control advertising cookies?

If you reside anywhere in the world (except the US), you can exercise control over advertising cookies by clicking the “Privacy Settings” link in the footer of every page on our site.

How to manage cookies on our site?

You can manage the use of cookies on our site, including advertising cookies, and disable the sharing of data with partners for advertising purposes by clicking the “Privacy Settings” link in the footer of every page of our site. These “Privacy Settings” allow you to withdraw your consent to placing cookies, or object to the use of data collected by cookies under the legitimate interests option.

Making a choice about personalised advertising does not mean you will not see advertising. You may still see advertising that has been tailored to your interests or advertising that is intended for our readers in general. When you choose advertising which is not personalised to you, that may reduce the number of advertising partners with whom we share your data, or reduce the relevance of advertising tailored for you.

You can switch some cookies off through your browser. You may need to do this again each time you use a different IP address, device, or virtual private network. You can also adjust the global privacy setting or plug-in which should be communicated to use via your browser.

It is also possible to stop your browser from accepting cookies altogether by changing your browser’s cookie settings. You can usually find these settings in the “options” or “preferences” menu of your browser. If you stop your browser from accepting cookies altogether, some features on our site may not work as well as you expect. Please note that searching in incognito mode or regularly clearing your cookies may reset your cookie settings.

The following links may be helpful, or you can use the “Help” option in your browser.