What we collect, and what we deliberately don't

People come here because they are in pain and short of money. That is sensitive on its own. So the site is built to need almost nothing from you.

The short version

• No accounts, no sign-in, no email required.
• We never ask for your name, date of birth, insurance ID, or any health information.
• We do not sell, rent or share personal information. There is none to sell.
• We measure how the site is used with Google Analytics, and pages may show advertising served by Google AdSense, which is what pays for the site. Both are set out below, with how to opt out.
• Nothing you search for or tap here is sent to Google as a description of you, and Google's own rules forbid advertisers to target anyone on the basis of a health condition.

What we collect

When you search

A search sends what you typed — a postcode, a city, a specialty, a clinic or dentist name — to our own server so it can be matched against the directory. The request also carries what the site made of it: the place or specialty it recognised in your words, which kind of result you are reading, and how far down the list you are. It is not stored, not linked to you, and not passed to anyone else. Browsing without searching sends nothing beyond the ordinary request for the page.

Server logs

Serving a web page necessarily involves your device requesting files. Our hosting provider records standard server logs — IP address, timestamp, file requested — used solely to keep the service running and to detect abuse, retained for 30 days.

If you use “Near me”

Your browser asks your permission and then hands us a pair of coordinates. They go to our own server with the distance you asked for, are used once to work out which clinics and dentists are closest, and that is all: they are not stored, not written to any log we keep, and not linked to anything else about you. Decline the prompt and the rest of the page works exactly as before.

Maps

Clinic and city pages embed a Google map, so Google sees your IP address and the location the map is centred on when the page loads. That is unavoidable for anything showing you where a clinic is, and we would rather say it plainly than bury it. Nothing else about you is sent, and we do not tell Google what you searched for.

We are not a HIPAA covered entity and hold no protected health information. Please do not send us medical details — if you do, we will delete them rather than store them.

Third parties

Four third parties are involved. The typefaces are served from our own host, so no font service sees your visit.

• Hosting and content delivery. Serves the files; sees the standard request data described above.
• Google Maps. The map embedded on clinic and city pages, as described above.
• Google Analytics. Receives your IP address, browser and device type, and which pages you opened. See Analytics below.
• Google AdSense. Chooses and shows the advertisements on a page, and may use cookies to do it. See Advertising below.

When you tap a phone number your device places the call directly to the clinic. We are not part of that call and receive no record of it.

Cookies

Three kinds of thing may be stored in your browser:

• Your theme choice, in local storage. That value never leaves your device.
• Google Analytics cookies (names beginning _ga), which let it tell a returning visit from a new one. They expire on their own, and clearing site data removes them.
• Advertising cookies set by Google and its advertising partners when a page shows an ad, used to choose ads, to limit how often you see the same one, and to detect fraud. Names vary; Google lists them in its own policy.

Browsers that send Do Not Track, and content blockers that stop the analytics script, both work here: the rest of the site does not depend on it.

Analytics

We use Google Analytics to count what is read and what is acted on. The whole reason this site exists is to get somebody to a phone call, and without measurement we would be guessing about whether that happens.

Four things are recorded beyond the page you opened: that a phone number was tapped and on which clinic's page, that a search was run and the words typed, that a filter was used, and that the “Near me” button was pressed. Nothing describes you — the clinic identifies the page, not the visitor.

Your location is never sent to Google. When you use “Near me” the coordinates go to our own server, are used once to sort clinics by distance, and are discarded. Only the fact that the button was pressed is measured.

IP addresses are anonymised before Analytics stores them.

Advertising

The site is free and has no other income, so some pages may carry advertisements. They are served by Google AdSense. We do not choose individual ads, we are not paid by any clinic, and no ad changes which clinics are listed or the order they appear in.

Google and its partners use cookies to show ads based on your earlier visits to this and other websites. That is Google's processing, under Google's advertising policy, not ours: we receive no list of who saw an ad. Google does not allow ads to be personalised on the basis of health, so reading about dental care here does not put you into a health-related audience.

Opting out

• Turn off personalised ads in Google's My Ad Center. You will still see ads, chosen from the page rather than from you.
• Opt out of other vendors' personalised advertising at aboutads.info.
• If your browser sends Global Privacy Control, this site tells Google not to personalise ads or use advertising data for you, before any ad loads. You do not need to do anything else.

Visitors in Europe, the UK and Switzerland

For visitors there, every advertising signal is switched off by default: no ad cookies are set and no personalised ads are shown. Analytics still runs, as described above.

Provider data

The directory contains information about providers, not users. Dentist names, credentials, licence numbers and practice addresses are professional details that are already a matter of public record.

If you are a listed provider and believe your entry is inaccurate, write to service@oxcellion.com.