The arrangement

Some links to shops and services on this site are affiliate links. If you follow one and buy something, the seller pays us a percentage of what you spent. You pay the same price you would have paid arriving any other way — the commission comes out of the seller’s margin, not off your card.

Every page carrying such a link says so above the fold, before you reach the link. That notice is inserted by the system from a single template, so no individual page can word it away or leave it out.

What commission does not buy

• No merchant has ever seen a draft before publication, and none can request one.
• No position in a comparison, ranking or list is for sale.
• A higher commission rate does not move a product up a page. Where we say which option suits which buyer, that judgement comes from the evidence we captured.
• We publish who should not buy something as readily as who should — including when the “should not” costs us the commission.
• We do not accept payment to remove or soften a criticism.

What we record when you click a link

Outbound links go through our own redirect so we can tell which article earned a sale. The identifier we attach describes the page, not the person.

What it contains

Which article, which topic, which channel, and a random click id.

What it does not contain

Your name, email, account, device id or IP address.

Cookies

We set none. The redirect is a plain 302 and stores nothing on your device.

Your IP address

Used momentarily to filter automated traffic, then discarded. It is not written to our click records.

The seller may set their own cookies once you arrive on their site. That is their arrangement with you, and their privacy policy governs it.

Why the model shapes the writing

We are paid when a reader buys something and keeps it. That aligns us with getting the recommendation right rather than getting the click, which is why prices carry the hour they were checked and why a figure past its window is removed rather than left to age.

It also sets a limit. Where a story has no honest commercial angle, we publish it without one instead of forcing a link into it.

Programmes and partners

We work with affiliate networks and directly with merchants. Where a programme’s terms restrict how its links may be used — link counts, forbidden contexts, imagery — those restrictions are enforced automatically before a page can publish, not left to memory.

Merchants and networks wanting to work with us should use the partner address on the contact page.