Privacy policy: what TheBettingDude collects and what it doesn't

Short version: you can read this whole site without telling us anything. The site runs no analytics script today, no advertising trackers and no social media pixels. We only hold personal data if you send the business form or sign up for the newsletter.

Who is responsible for your data

The data controller is the operator of TheBettingDude.com. For anything about your data, write to the operator at contact@thebettingdude.com.

What we collect, and why

When you send the business inquiry form

Data: name, company, email, product URL, request type, your message, the time you sent it, the time you gave consent, the site language and a two-letter country code. We also record whether the request has been answered.
Why: to answer your request.
Legal basis: your consent, and steps taken at your request before a contract (GDPR Art. 6(1)(a) and (b)).

Data: email, the site language, the sign-up time, a random confirmation code, confirmation status and time, and a two-letter country code.
Why: to send you the email you asked for. Sign-up is built as double opt-in: one confirmation email, and nothing else unless you confirm. Email sending isn’t switched on yet, so today no confirmation email goes out, no newsletter has been sent, and your address waits on the list unconfirmed.
Legal basis: your consent (Art. 6(1)(a)).

When you click a link to a listed product

Data: a daily counter per product, per destination (the product’s site, the App Store or Google Play) and per site language. The counter goes up by one. It holds no IP address, no browser details, no referrer and nothing else about you.
Why: to see which listings readers use.
How: the link itself stays a plain, direct link. Your browser sends our server a short background message saying the link was used; you are not sent through a redirect and nothing is added to the address you go to.
Legal basis: legitimate interest (GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)).

When you submit a form or click a product link

Data: a salted hash of your IP address, deleted after 24 hours. It is stored next to the name of the action (inquiry, sign-up or click), not next to the product or anything you wrote.
Why: to limit how often one connection can use these features, which stops spam and abuse.
Legal basis: legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)).

We never store your raw IP address in our database, and our own error logs record only an error code, never what you submitted.

Analytics

The site runs no analytics script today. We may add Cloudflare Web Analytics later. It is a cookieless service: it sets no cookies and shows totals such as page views, referrers and countries, never individual people. If we add it, this page will say so. If we ever add anything that needs your consent, this page changes first and a consent banner appears before any such script loads.

What is stored on your device

Two small first-party items, both for your convenience, neither used for tracking:

theme in your browser’s local storage remembers whether you chose light or dark mode.
lang_choice, a cookie kept for one year, remembers that you chose a language or dismissed the language suggestion.

You can delete both in your browser settings at any time; the site works without them.

Spam protection

Both forms have a hidden field that only bots fill in, and a limit on how many times one connection can submit per hour. The forms are also built to use Cloudflare Turnstile, which checks signals from your browser and your IP address to tell people from bots. Turnstile isn’t switched on yet. When it is, it loads only once you start filling in a form.

Who processes data for us

Cloudflare, Inc. hosts the site and its database today. Like any web host, it processes IP addresses to deliver pages and keep the service secure. It will also provide Turnstile, and Web Analytics if we add it.
Brevo is the email service the site is built to use for the notification we receive when you send an inquiry, the newsletter confirmation email and the newsletter itself. It isn’t connected yet, so no data goes to Brevo today. This page will be updated when that changes.

Where data leaves the European Economic Area, it is covered by the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses or an adequacy decision. We don’t sell personal data, and we don’t share it with anyone else unless the law requires it.

How long we keep it

Data	Kept for
Business inquiries	Our policy is to delete them no later than 24 months after our last message to you
Newsletter address	Until you ask to be removed; our policy is to delete unconfirmed sign-ups after 30 days
Hashed IP for rate limiting	24 hours, deleted automatically
Link-click counters	Kept as totals; they contain nothing about you

Only the 24-hour deletion runs automatically today. The other periods are our policy, and we apply them by hand.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you can ask us to:

show you the data we hold about you, and give you a copy;
correct it or delete it;
restrict how we use it, or object to a use based on legitimate interest;
hand it over in a portable format;
stop any use based on consent, at any time. There is no self-service unsubscribe link yet: to leave the newsletter list, write to us and we’ll remove your address.

Write to contact@thebettingdude.com and we’ll answer within one month. You can also complain to your data protection authority. In Romania that is the ANSPDCP (dataprotection.ro).

Age

This site is for adults: 18+, or 21+ where your law requires it. We don’t knowingly collect data from anyone younger.

Links to other sites

We link to the products we list with plain links: no tracking parameters, no affiliate codes, no redirect. We count the click itself, as described above. Once you leave, the other site’s privacy policy applies.

Changes to this policy

When this policy changes, the “last reviewed” date at the top changes with it. Significant changes are explained here in plain words.

See also the terms of use and how to contact TheBettingDude.