Privacy and cookies

Item.ie is a price comparison site run by Badr Salim, who is responsible for the personal data described here. Write to [email protected] or use the contact form about anything on this page.

We do not sell products, we do not sell or rent anyone's details, and Item.ie is not aimed at children.

When a page opens, our server records the page, the site you came from and any campaign tag on the link you arrived by, your country (worked out by our network provider from your IP address), the type of device, any search you run, its number of results and which result you open from it, and which shop (or our Telegram channel) you click through to. Each record carries a visitor code: a scrambled mix of your IP address, your browser details, a secret and today's date. It changes every day, and we never store your IP address itself.

We use this to see what is read and what is not, to find broken pages and empty searches, and to refresh the prices of the products people are looking at. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in running and improving the site; you can object at any time.

Page views, searches and the results opened from them are deleted after 180 days, shop clicks after 13 months, which covers the time a shop takes to confirm a commission.

We use Google Analytics, which counts visits, and Microsoft Clarity, which records how pages are used (clicks, scrolling, mouse movement) as session recordings and heatmaps.

Until you agree, both run without cookies: nothing is stored on your device, each page view is counted on its own and cannot be linked to your other visits, and Google estimates totals from these anonymous counts. When you agree, both may also use their cookies, which tell one browser's visits apart. To group Clarity's recordings by browser we then also give it our own random id for your browser, kept for 12 months, and today's visitor code, which connects a recording to that day's page views, searches and shop clicks above.

Microsoft collects this data and may also use it for its own purposes, as described in the Microsoft Privacy Statement; see also Google's privacy policy. We keep Clarity's advertising setting off, so nothing is shared with Microsoft Advertising, and Google Analytics runs with its advertising features off.

Google's consent box asks for this as purposes "for this site's own use". Until you answer, both stay in the cookieless mode above. To change your answer, use Privacy and cookie settings at the bottom of any product, category or deals page. Withdrawing removes their cookies and our ids from your browser.

Most pages carry ads from Google AdSense. Google and the ad partners listed in the consent box use cookies and similar technology to show and measure ads, and personalised ads only with your consent. Some partners rely on their legitimate interest instead; you can object to that in the box under Manage options. See how Google uses information from sites that use its services.

Some links to shops are affiliate links: if you buy, the shop may pay us a commission. The affiliate network that handles such a link (Awin, or Amazon for amazon.ie) records the click so the sale can be credited to us, under its own privacy policy. Every shop learns that you came from Item.ie; we do not pass your personal details to any of them.

On Spotted deals (amazon.ie deals we picked) the product photos load from Amazon's own servers, as Amazon's rules require: your browser asks Amazon for them, so Amazon sees your IP address and that the request came from Item.ie, before you click anything. We rely on our legitimate interest in showing the product, and nothing else about you is passed on.

An account holds your email address, your password stored only as a scrambled hash we cannot read back, the products you watch and your target prices, your saved searches, your sign-ins for the last 30 days, and a record of the alert emails we sent you. We use them to run the alerts you asked for, which is the legal basis.

We keep it while the account exists. Ask us to delete it and we delete the account and everything linked to it within one month. Alert emails are sent through Zoho Mail from its EU data centre.

Some readers are offered a card to join our email list. If you join, we keep your email address, which AI assistant sent you to us, the page you were reading, the site you came from, your country and your type of device, so we know where interest comes from. The legal basis is your consent. We keep it until you leave the list or ask us to delete it, and every email we send to the list will carry an unsubscribe link.

The contact form sends your name (optional), email address and message to our mailbox at Zoho Mail; we keep them only as long as we need to deal with your message. A Cloudflare Turnstile check on the form tells people from spam bots. It is a security measure for the form you are using, so it does not ask for consent; see Cloudflare's privacy policy.

• Hetzner Online GmbH hosts our servers and database in Germany.
• Cloudflare delivers the site, protects it and runs the Turnstile check; it sees the IP address of every visit.
• Zoho delivers and stores our email, in its EU data centre.
• Google provides AdSense, the consent box and, with consent, Google Analytics.
• Microsoft provides Clarity, with consent.

Google, Microsoft and Cloudflare are US companies. Where data reaches the United States it is covered by the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or by the European Commission's standard contractual clauses.

These are needed for the site to work, or remember a choice you made:

These are only set after you agree in the consent box:

Advertising cookies are set by Google and the ad partners named in the consent box, under "List of partners", and only as your answer there allows.

You can ask for a copy of the data we hold about you, have it corrected or deleted, restrict or object to how we use it, or receive it in a portable format. You can withdraw consent at any time; that does not affect what happened before. Write to [email protected] and we will answer within one month.

You can also complain to the Data Protection Commission at dataprotection.ie.

When what we collect changes, this page changes with it, and the date at the top says when.