Last updated 2 May 2026 · Effective 2 May 2026
VerdictScout collects your email if you opt in to our quarterly pricing-update newsletter, and standard server logs from your visit. We don't sell your data, we don't run third-party advertising trackers, and we don't share your email with the tools we review. You can unsubscribe or delete your data any time by emailing hello@verdictscout.com. The full legal version is below.
VerdictScout (“VerdictScout”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) is an independent software-review publication operating at https://verdictscout.com. For privacy enquiries you can reach us at hello@verdictscout.com. A postal address is available on request.
For visitors located in the European Union or the United Kingdom, VerdictScout acts as a “data controller” under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the UK GDPR. For visitors located in California, VerdictScout acts as a “business” under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA). For visitors in other US states with comprehensive privacy laws (Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, Oregon, Montana, and others as enacted), the equivalent controller / business designations apply.
This policy covers how we collect, use, store, share, and protect personal information from visitors to https://verdictscout.com and any sub-pages, the email newsletter, and any direct correspondence you have with us. It does not cover the data practices of the third-party software vendors we review — if you click through to a vendor's website and sign up for their service, that vendor's privacy policy applies to that relationship.
Email address — newsletter sign-up. When you submit the “Free quarterly update” opt-in form, we collect your email address. We use it solely to send you the quarterly pricing-update email and occasional editor's-note correspondence (no more than four to six emails per year). We do not sell, rent, license, share, or otherwise disclose your email address to any third party for marketing purposes. The lawful basis under GDPR is your consent, which you give by submitting the form. You can withdraw consent at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in any email or by emailing hello@verdictscout.com.
Information in correspondence. If you email us — for corrections, suggestions, or any other reason — we receive your email address and the contents of your message. We use this only to reply to you and, if relevant, to update our editorial content. The lawful basis under GDPR is our legitimate interest in operating an editorial publication and corresponding with readers.
Server log data. When you visit verdictscout.com, our hosting provider records standard web-server log entries: IP address, user agent (browser and OS), referrer URL, the URL requested, the timestamp, and the HTTP response code. These logs exist for security and abuse-prevention purposes (rate-limiting, blocking malicious traffic) and are typically retained for no more than 30 days. The lawful basis under GDPR is our legitimate interest in keeping the site available and secure.
Privacy-friendly analytics (where enabled). If we operate an analytics tool on the site, it will be a cookieless, IP-anonymising service such as Plausible Analytics or Cloudflare Web Analytics. These tools record aggregate page-view counts, referrer sources, and approximate country, but do not set cross-site cookies, do not assemble user profiles, and do not track you across other websites. No personal data leaves the analytics provider in a form that can be linked back to you. The lawful basis under GDPR is our legitimate interest in measuring readership.
Cookies and similar technologies. VerdictScout does not set its own tracking cookies. Functional / strictly-necessary cookies may be set by our hosting and security providers (for example, an anti-DDoS cookie set by the CDN). These are exempt from consent requirements under the EU ePrivacy Directive and the UK PECR.
We do not knowingly collect: payment information, government-issued identifiers, biometric data, location data more precise than country-level, contact lists, social-graph data, advertising-identifier data, health data, or data about minors under 13. We do not run third-party advertising pixels (no Meta Pixel, no Google Ads remarketing, no TikTok Pixel) at the time of this policy's effective date. If we ever add such tracking we will update this policy, post a clear cookie-consent banner before activation for visitors in jurisdictions that require one, and seek opt-in consent where required.
We use the information described in section 3 only for:
We do not use your information for automated decision-making or profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects. We do not use your information to train artificial-intelligence models. We do not sell or “share” (as the CCPA defines that term) your personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising.
We share personal information only with the following categories of recipients, all of which are bound by contract or by law to use the information solely on our behalf and to maintain its security:
We do not sell personal information to data brokers or any other third party for monetary or other valuable consideration.
VerdictScout earns commissions when readers click affiliate links and become paying customers of the reviewed tools. Outbound affiliate links use the rel="sponsored nofollow" attribute as required by Google's webmaster guidelines, and every page that contains affiliate links shows a visible “Contains affiliate links” disclosure near the byline. Full editorial details are on our Affiliate Disclosure.
For privacy purposes the relevant point is: affiliate-network cookies are first-party with respect to the destination tool, not VerdictScout. We do not receive or store your activity on the destination tool's site.
VerdictScout is operated from the United States. If you are accessing the site from outside the United States, including from the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, please be aware that information we collect may be transferred to and processed in the United States or in any country where our service providers operate. Where we transfer personal data of EU/UK data subjects outside the EEA/UK, we rely on appropriate safeguards including the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses (and the UK Addendum where relevant), or the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, or another transfer mechanism recognised under applicable law.
We keep newsletter subscriber email addresses for as long as you remain subscribed plus 12 months in case you wish to resubscribe. Unsubscribed emails are removed entirely from our active list within 30 days of unsubscribe but a hashed record may be retained on our suppression list to honour your unsubscribe preference indefinitely. Server logs are typically retained for 30 days, then deleted by the hosting provider. Correspondence emails are retained for as long as needed to respond and for a reasonable period thereafter for record-keeping (typically up to 24 months).
Regardless of where you live, you can:
If you are located in the EU, the EEA, or the UK you also have the rights to: access (Art. 15), rectification (Art. 16), erasure (“right to be forgotten”, Art. 17), restriction of processing (Art. 18), data portability (Art. 20), and to object to processing based on our legitimate interests (Art. 21). You also have the right to withdraw consent at any time where processing is based on consent. To exercise any of these rights, email hello@verdictscout.com. We will respond within one month. If you believe we have violated your rights you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority — in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk); in Ireland, the Data Protection Commission (dataprotection.ie); a list of EU authorities is available at edpb.europa.eu.
If you are a California resident, the CCPA (as amended by the CPRA) gives you the rights to: know what personal information we have collected and the categories of sources, purposes, and recipients; delete personal information; correct inaccurate personal information; opt out of any sale or sharing of personal information (we do not sell or share, but you have the right regardless); limit the use of sensitive personal information; and not be discriminated against for exercising your rights.
To exercise these rights, email hello@verdictscout.com with “CCPA request” in the subject line. We will respond within 45 days. We may need to verify your identity by asking you to confirm details associated with your account or recent correspondence; we will not ask for additional sensitive information beyond what is necessary to verify the request. You may designate an authorised agent to make a request on your behalf; the agent must provide signed written permission and we may verify the agent's identity directly with you.
In the past 12 months we have collected the following CCPA-defined categories of personal information from California residents: identifiers (email address); internet or other electronic network activity (server logs, aggregate analytics). We have not sold or shared any personal information.
If you live in Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, Oregon, Montana, or any other US state with a comprehensive consumer-privacy law in effect, you have the substantive equivalent of the CCPA rights described above. To exercise them, email hello@verdictscout.com with the name of your state and the right you wish to exercise.
VerdictScout is intended for adults making business-software purchasing decisions. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13 (or the equivalent minimum age in the relevant jurisdiction, including 16 in some EEA countries). If you believe a child has submitted personal information to us, contact hello@verdictscout.com and we will delete it.
We implement reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information from unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. Newsletter submissions are transmitted over HTTPS. Stored data is held by reputable processors (Google) with their own security programmes. No method of electronic transmission or storage is perfectly secure, however, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
Some browsers transmit a “Do Not Track” signal. There is no widely-adopted standard for how websites should respond to that signal, but as a matter of practice VerdictScout does not engage in cross-site or cross-context tracking regardless of the signal you send.
VerdictScout honours the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal where applicable. Because we do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising, the practical effect of the GPC signal is the same as our default behaviour for all visitors.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The “Last updated” date at the top of the page reflects the most recent revision. Material changes will be flagged in the next quarterly newsletter and / or a top-of-page notice for at least 30 days. Your continued use of the site after a change becomes effective constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.
For privacy enquiries, rights requests, legal notices, takedowns, or any other matter covered by this policy, email hello@verdictscout.com. We aim to acknowledge receipt within five business days. A postal address is available on request.