Privacy & Cookies Policy

This Privacy & Cookies Policy dated 13/03/2017 replaces our previous policies. Please take the time to review before you continue to use our products and services.

This Privacy & Cookie Policy applies to any information you provide to us, including through this website, our mobile apps, communications by email and through social media, by telephone and in person. It also covers any information we receive from third parties.

By using our products and services, including browsing our websites, registering or logging in, you agree we may use your information as outlined in this Policy.

If you do not wish to have your information used in line with this Policy, you must not use our products and services and not otherwise provide us with your information.

About us

dmg media is an international multichannel media company which is home to some of the UK’s most popular brands, including the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, MailOnline, Metro, This Is Money, Today I’m Wearing and You Beauty Box. These brands are trading styles of Associated Newspapers Ltd, which is the data controller of your personal data for the purposes of EU data protection law.

Associated Newspapers Ltd is part of the Daily Mail and General Trust plc group (“DMGT”). Members of the DMGT group may, use and share, within that group, the information you provide and other information held about you for the purposes set out below. For more information about the DMGT group please see the DMGT website and the DMGT Privacy Policy.

Information we may hold about you

• Information you’ve provided to us 
• Information about products and services you’ve ordered, enquired about or shown an interest
• Information provided by other companies who have obtained your permission through their own privacy policies to share information about you, including from specialist data companies
• Information about your interaction with our websites, mobile apps and other products and services, including adverts
• Information we collect using cookies stored on your device about your use of our websites and/or selected third party websites.
• Information we collect or remember using technologies similar to cookies, such as device identifiers on your mobile device.
• Your IP address, which is a number that identifies a specific network device on the internet which allows your device to communicate with websites and apps.
• Technical information from your device relating to the service you receive
• Information relating to the location of your device.

In line with industry best practice guidelines, we have a central database were we compile and hold all the information we have about our customers. In the industry this is often known as a “single customer view”.

How we may use your information 

By using our websites, apps and other products and services, you agree that we may collect, hold, use or otherwise process your information (including personal information) for the purpose of providing you with those products and services and developing our business which shall include (without limitation): 

• Verifying your identity (for example when you return to our websites or mobile apps)
• Personalising the content and advertisements you see on our websites and apps
• Developing the design and style of the our products and services to make improvements
• Understanding more about you, such as your location and demographic information
• Informing you about the latest changes to our products and services
• Informing you of promotional offers that you might find interesting
• Dealing with, and responding to you about, a comment you have submitted for or on our message boards, blogs and other such user generated content facilities
• Enabling you to share our content with others e.g. using “Email a friend” and “Share this article”
• Customer services and support
• Informing you if you have been successful in any competitions or promotions
• Compiling customer reviews
• Conducting market research
• Carrying out statistical, technical and logistical analysis and strategic development
• Communicating with you in relation to your account or service, service updates or other non-marketing communications 
• Communicating (and personalising such communication) with you, according to your preferences 
• Sending you periodic newsletters about your chosen services 
• Sending you direct marketing. This may include communications by post, telephone or email or SMS about us and our business partners’ products and services, events and special offers 
• Providing you with personalised services, such as recommendations on our websites, apps and in direct marketing and tailored advertising. This includes where we use cookies or similar technologies in relation to the devices you use, for example to make some of the adverts you see more relevant to you 
• Maintaining records of our communications with you if you get in contact with us 
• Providing you with location based services such as weather information based on your location and advertising relevant to your location and previous locations 
• Providing you with advertising more relevant to your interests and your online behaviour through the use of cookies and similar technologies when you visit our websites and apps 
• Blocking disruptive use and ensuring the security of our products and services 
• Ensuring the integrity of votes, competitions and polls 
• Complying with laws and other circumstances permitted under the Data Protection Act 1998 and other data protection laws.

How we may use your information in specific products or services

Registration

If you’ve registered on our websites or apps, you’ll receive personalised recommendations, newsletters and marketing. These are tailored to you based upon your registration details and other information you provide us, your browsing history interactions with our emails and information we receive from our trusted partners and specialist data companies to help us understand what you might be interested in. This also includes information provided to us from social media sites when you choose to sign in or log in to our websites or apps through your social media account, or when you link your registration with us to your social media account. This information may be collected using cookies and similar technologies. Demographic information from your registration may be used by us for tailored advertising. Please see our Cookie Policy below for more details.

Message boards, blogs and other public forums

Our websites may provide message boards, blogs and other user generated content facilities. Anything that you share will become public information. You should always be careful when deciding to disclose your personal information. Please see our Terms and House Rules for more information.

“Email a friend” and “share this article”

Before you use “email a friend” or “share this article” buttons please make sure that anyone you wish to email or share with are happy for this to occur and expect to receive the email or article. You may only share the details of another person with us where you have their express permission.

Location based services

Where we provide services that utilise your device’s location, such as local weather or news, your location will be determined either from a lookup of your IP address in a “GeoIP” database which lists information provided by your ISP (usually your closest town or borough) or your precise location directly from the device (such as through GPS or Wifi on mobile devices) where you have granted permission for us to access this location information. If you have given us permission to use your location, we may use it for marketing and advertising purposes.

Push and in-app notifications on apps

Where you install one of our apps on your mobile device, this may use push notifications or in-app notifications. These notifications are used for a variety of reasons, for example push notifications may be used to trigger an automatic download of new content (such as a new edition) or to send you an update on new “editorial”, or breaking news message. Please see the app download or install page for each app for more information on how it uses notifications. Within the app, you may be able to select to receive only certain types of notifications.

If you order a product or service from us we may ask for information including your name, e-mail address, delivery and billing address, credit or debit card number and expiry date. Sometimes we may ask for your telephone number to be forwarded to the couriers who may deliver your order. These details allow us to process your orders efficiently

Competitions

If you enter a contest or promotion we may ask for your name, address, e-mail address or telephone number. This is so we can run the contest effectively and tell you if you have won.

Tailored advertising

We use advertising to fund our websites and apps. Some advertising is “contextual” meaning it is shown due to the particular webpage you are presently viewing. Other advertising, known as “online behavioural advertising” is shown to you based upon your likely interests, which are inferred from your device’s browsing history. This information is collected through the use of cookies and similar technologies. You may opt-out of online behavioural advertising at any time, please see our Cookies Policy for details.

Sometimes we allow advertisers to show advertisements directly on our website and apps, which are tailored to you based upon information they have obtained, such as your browsing history on their own website.

Other times we will arrange for our customers to be shown advertisements on our own or other websites or apps. These advertisements are tailored to you with information we have obtained from your browsing on our websites and apps and from information about your likely interests that we obtain from our partners and specialist data companies relating to you and to the devices you use where those partners know you are signed in and, where they have your permission to share this information with us in line with their privacy policies . 

Where we arrange for our customers to be shown advertisements, we use technological and contractual mechanisms to protect your cookie data and to ensure that your browsing data used for advertising is not used by advertisers or other website owners for other purposes, such as linking online behavioural advertising data with your contact details, unless you have provided the advertiser or other website with your express permission to do this.

If you have registered on our websites or apps, we may analyse the information we hold on you in aggregate with our other customers to improve our advertising systems.

When you are shown an advertisement, our advertising systems do not know who you are or your contact details (such as your name, email address or postal address).

Demographic information from your registration on our websites and apps (such as your age, gender and city) may be used to tailor the advertising we arrange to be shown. Your demographic information is not shared with advertisers. 

Where you have granted permission to access your device’s location to us, our advertising partners or specialist data companies, this location information may be used to tailor the advertising you receive, including showing you certain advertisements when you are in the vicinity of a particular location.

Social media advertising

We may target advertising on social media sites to specifically include or exclude customers who have registered for our products and services. For example, customers who have an outdated version of our app may see an ad for the latest version, or customers who have already subscribed to our newsletters may not see the ad for those newsletters.

How we may share your information

When you purchase goods or services from us we partner with specialist companies to fulfil your order. We usually remain the data controller of your information and the other companies only process data under our instructions and cannot use the information for their own purposes. We will use reasonable endeavours to ensure these third parties process your data securely.

Sometimes we bring you promotions from other companies. Here the other company will use your information as the data controller in line with their own privacy policies. We may also use your information for marketing purposes as a data controller.

For example, financial services offers from MailFinance or This is Money are brought to you in conjunction with our third party financial services partners. If you decide to use their advisory services or set up an account with them, these financial services partners will be the data controllers of your information and will handle your information in accordance with their own privacy policies.

We’ll let you know the precise arrangement at the time you provide your personal information.

We may share information about you with suppliers that we engage to help us provide the services and/or functionality, e.g. online payment processing.

As discussed above, we may share your personal information with other companies within the DMGT group of companies.

We may also share personal information about you to third parties, where you have given us permission or where the third party can confirm that they have your permission for us to do this.

We may also provide third parties with certain aggregate statistical data about our customers’ use of our websites and apps, which may include demographic data such as age range and/or geographic location of groups of our customers. This aggregate data does not include contact details (such as the customer’s name, address or email address).

We may transfer, sell or assign any of the information described in this Policy to third parties as a result of a sale, merger, consolidation, change of control, transfer of assets or reorganisation of our business.

We may also share your information as required by law and as contemplated by the Data Protection Act 1998 and other data protection laws.

Safeguards and security for your information 

We have measures in place to protect the security of your personal information from unauthorised access or use, such as by using encryption technology.

We comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 and related data protection laws. For more information on the Data Protection Act 1998 and your related rights please see the Information Commissioner’s Office website www.ico.gov.uk.

Children & young people

Our websites, apps and other products and services are not aimed at children. We do not target, intend to collect, or knowingly collect or otherwise process information from anyone under the age of 13.

If you are under the age of 13, we request that you do not provide us with your information and do not use our websites and apps.

If you are a parent or guardian of a child under 13, please contact us [link to new anchor to “contacting us” section below] if you are aware that your child has used our websites or apps or otherwise provided their information to us without your consent. In addition to “your choices” outlined in this Policy, we will delete or otherwise cease processing your child’s personal information within a reasonable time.

If you are aged 13, 14 or 15, we request that you seek your parent or guardian’s permission before providing us with your information or using our websites or apps.

Your choices

Please note that our website, apps and other products and services may not work correctly (or at all) if you change your preferences. For your cookie choices, please the Cookies Policy below.

Email & SMS marketing

You can opt out of a particular marketing campaign or newsletter subscription by clicking on the 'unsubscribe' link in each email.

Your can opt-out of marketing text messages by replying 'STOP'.

In accordance with industry best practice guidelines, we may retain your information for a reasonable amount of time to make sure that we do not contact you in the future.

Use of your location

You can choose whether to provide us with your precise location from your device through your browser’s “Help” menu, or through the “Location” or “Location Services” in the “Settings” section on your mobile device. 

Use of push notifications

You will be prompted to choose whether to receive push notifications the first time you run each app, and you can update your preferences at any time through Settings on your device.

Cookies Policy 

You should be aware that when you use our websites and apps we may collect information using cookies or similar technologies.

When you visit our pages on social media or other websites, the social media site or other website may also use cookies in line with their own cookies policies.

What are cookies and how do they work?

Cookies are small files that are downloaded to your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. Your browser sends these cookies back to the website every time you visit the site again, so it can recognise you. This allows websites to tailor what you see on the screen.

Do you use other technologies which are similar to cookies?

Our websites, apps and emails often contain small invisible images known as 'web beacons' or 'tracking pixels'. These are used in a way similar to cookies, to understand when a particular part of a webpage, email or app is viewed.

Our apps often use device identifiers in the same way as cookies as used on web browsers. A device identifier is a unique number on your device which allow us to remember your device.

We use these similar technologies on websites, emails and apps, for the same purposes and in much the same way as we use cookies on websites. We will use “cookies” and “websites” below as shorthand for “cookies and similar technologies” on “websites, emails and in apps”.

What do you use cookies for?

Cookies are an important part of the internet. They make using websites much smoother and affect lots of the useful features of websites. There are many different uses for cookies, but they fall into four main groups:

(i) Cookies that are needed to provide the service you have asked for

Some cookies are essential so you can move around the website and use its features. Without these cookies, services you've asked for can't be provided. These cookies don't gather information about you that could be used for marketing or remembering your browsing history. For example:

• Keeping you logged in during your visit; without cookies you might have to log in on every page you go to.
• When you add something to the online shopping basket, cookies make sure it's still there when you get to the checkout.

(ii) Cookies used to improve your browsing experience

These cookies allow the website to remember choices you make, such as your language or region and they provide improved features. For example:

• Remembering your preferences and settings, including marketing preferences.
• Remembering if you've filled in a survey, so you're not asked to do it again.
• Showing you information that's relevant to products of ours that you have.
• Showing 'related article' links that are relevant to the page you're looking at.
• Remembering a location you've provided us with to provide local weather forecasts.
• Linking your browsing history collected by analytics cookies to your registration details to provide you with recommended content and marketing
• Restricting the number of times you're shown a particular advertisement. This is sometimes called 'frequency capping'.

Cookies are also used to enable social media components on our websites, such as embedded content from social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter, share buttons and videos. The cookies are set by the relevant social media provider. For more information about these cookies, including how to set your preferences for these cookies, please refer to the relevant social media provider’s website for more information.

(iii) Cookies used to understand how people use our products and services (Analytics)

We like to keep track of what pages, links and sections of our apps are popular and which ones don't get used so much to help us keep our sites relevant and up to date. It's also very useful to be able to identify trends of how people navigate (find their way through) our sites and if they get 'error messages' from web pages.

We use cookies, which are often called 'analytics cookies', to gather this information. These cookies don't store you contact details (such as your name or postal address). We may, however, combine information collected by analytics cookies with other information that you provide to us. For instance, if you have registered for an account with us, we may combine your contact details other information you provide us with the browsing history from your device collected by analytics cookies (including data collected from before you registered and when you are signed-out). We use this information to provide you with personalised content recommendations and marketing communications and to recognise you as the same visitor across different devices you may use. We may also use this combined information to improve our products and services. For instance, we may analyse this information in aggregate to improve our advertising systems. 

(iv) Cookies used to show advertising that is relevant to you

Some advertising, known as “online behavioural advertising” or “OBA” is tailored to you and uses information collected by first party and third party cookies. Please see our Privacy Policy above for further information about how we use online behavioural advertising.

We also use cookies in order to know how many advertisements we serve, how many times these are clicked or hovered over with a mouse cursor, how many advertisements we show to a given user and how many customer actions these generate.

We also use cookies on our own and advertisers’ sites to understand which customers reach a sale or other action page on an advertiser’s site. This allows us to monitor how many sales or actions we achieve for an advertising client, and therefore, how effective our advertising is.

In order to protect our advertisers' brands, we often use a technology that scans the page to ascertain that it is safe from profane, sensitive & potentially brand-negative topics, before serving an ad there. This process is called “ad verification”.

We and our advertisers may use information from within our webpages to determine whether you have an ad-blocker enabled. This information may be stored or associated with your device (including through the use of cookies) to re-insert advertisements on our websites and to understand how our customers use ad-blockers. The advertisements that are re-inserted may include those from ad-blockers’ “white lists” or that promote our own products and services.  

Our websites do not respond to "Do Not Track" (DNT) browser settings. To change your cookie preferences for advertising and analytics, please see our Privacy Policy and Cookies FAQ’s.  

Some of our web pages will contain promotional links to other companies’ sites. If you follow one of these links and then register with or buy something from that other site, a cookie is sometimes used to tell that other site that you came from one of our sites. That other site may then pay us a small amount for the successful referral.

Your cookie choices

Please note that our website, apps and other products and services may not work correctly (or at all) if you change your preferences. For example, you may not be able to purchase products via our websites. However, you may still be able to place an order via our telephone order line. Please consult our websites for more details. 

You can opt-out of receiving cookies by changing your web browser settings. For more information on how to achieve this, please see our Privacy Policy and Cookies FAQ’s.

You can usually prevent the operation of web-beacons by changing your web-browser cookie settings and your ad choices, or for those in emails, by switching off images in your email client or viewing emails using only the “text” display (rather than “HTML” display”). See the “Help” section of your email client for instructions. You can opt-out of analytics cookies on this website on our "Controlling online behavioural advertising and other third party cookies” page. Where you use our apps, similar technologies to cookies are used for analytics. It is not presently possible to opt-out of these similar technologies. If you are not happy to be included in our analysis, please do not use our apps.

Your ad choices

You can opt-out of online behavioural advertising cookies on this website on our “Controlling online behavioural advertising and other third party cookies” page.

When using a mobile device, you can opt-out of receiving online behavioural advertising by selecting ‘Limit Ad Tracking’ in the Settings of your Apple iPhone or iPad, or the “Opt out of interest-based ads” in the Settings on your Android device. You may also be able to reset your unique identifier used for online behavioural advertising (referred to as an “Advertising ID”) in the Settings on your Apple or Android device.

Please note that you will continue to receive advertising, however, it may not be tailored to your likely interests using information collected from cookies and similar technologies on your device.

Contacting us and accessing your personal information

If you have any queries or comments about this Privacy & Cookies Policy please contact us at:

If you wish to review or receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you, please write to us at:

Data Protection Officer

Commercial Legal Department

Associated Newspapers Limited

Northcliffe House

2 Derry Street

London

W8 5TT

United Kingdom

We may charge a small administration fee (not exceeding the maximum permitted by law) in relation to fulfilling a request for access to personal information.

Changes to this Privacy & Cookies Policy

We reserve the right to make changes to our Privacy & Cookies Policy. Where changes are made, we will post the revised Policy here with an updated effective date. Your continued use of our websites, apps, or other products or services will signify your acceptance of these changes.