Privacy policy

Your email address, and your first and last name if you provide them. If you sign in with a password we store a cryptographic hash of it, never the password itself. If you sign in with Google we store the connection to that Google account, the email address it supplies, and your name if Google provides it. We keep the time you last signed in.

Delivery addresses you save — name, street, city, state, postal code and country — so you don’t have to retype them. You can add and remove them from your account.

What you bought, the quantities and prices, the shipping method and cost, and the delivery address as it stood at the time of the order. We keep that copy on the order deliberately: if you later edit or delete a saved address, the record of where a past parcel was actually sent must not silently change. Tracking details appear here once the maker adds them.

The maker you buy from sees your name and, for a shipped order, your delivery address, so they can fulfil it. They don’t see your email address. We also keep the payment and refund records described under Stripe below.

Records of your active sign-in sessions, any devices you have chosen to trust, and your two-factor settings if you turn them on. Password-reset and email-verification links are stored as one-time tokens that expire. This exists so you can see and revoke access from Account security, and so we can stop someone else getting into your account.

Products you favourite, products you have recently viewed while signed in, and reviews you write. Reviews are public and attached to your name. Recently-viewed history is only used to show you your own history.

Buyers and makers communicate through the Maker & Story messaging system. When you send a message, we store its content in order to deliver it, to show it in your conversation, and to provide the messaging service.

Message content is protected using encryption and other appropriate security measures while it is stored. No method of storage or transmission is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Messaging does not disclose your email address to the maker, and it does not disclose the maker’s contact address to you. You read and reply to messages on Maker & Story.

Who can see a conversation. You and the maker. We do not read messages as a matter of routine. If either of you reports a conversation, an administrator may review its contents in order to investigate and resolve that report, and the review is recorded. We may also need to access message content where the law requires it, or where it is necessary to protect the security of the service or the safety of the people using it.

Other information described in this policy may be accessed by authorised personnel where it is reasonably necessary to operate, maintain, secure or support the service, to investigate misuse, to enforce our terms, or to comply with a legal obligation.

Notifications. We may email you when a new message arrives. A notification tells you that a message is waiting and who sent it; it does not include the content of the message. Send your reply through Maker & Story rather than by replying to the notification.

How long we keep messages. We keep message content for two years from the date a message is sent, after which it is deleted. Deletion runs as part of routine housekeeping rather than at a fixed moment, so removal is not instantaneous. Where a conversation has been reported, we may keep its content while the report is under review. The record of the conversation itself — who it was between, the product or order it relates to, and when it took place — is kept so that your account history remains complete.

If you collect an order in person, you show the maker a one-time code that expires after ten minutes. We keep only a scrambled (hashed) form of it. To confirm the handover you sign on the maker’s device, by drawing your signature or typing your name. We keep that signature with the order, along with the statement you confirmed, the time, and a short description of the browser and device used. You, the maker and our administrators can see it. The handover record doesn’t include your location or IP address.

If you report that a parcel didn’t arrive, or that an item arrived wrong, damaged or defective, we keep your report, the messages about it and any photos you add. Photos are stored privately with location and camera details removed, and only you, the maker and our administrators can see them through the site.

If you email us, we keep your message and our reply so we can help you and keep a record of it.

To limit repeated failed sign-ins and similar abuse, we keep short-lived counters. The identifier for each counter — your email address or network address — is stored only as a cryptographic hash, so the table holds no readable email addresses or IP addresses. The counters expire on their own.

Apart from these scrambled counters, the site’s own database doesn’t store IP addresses. The companies that host and deliver the site (described below) receive IP addresses with requests and may keep them in their own logs.

Your shop details, story, imagery, craft, general location, shipping and returns information, and a contact address for buyer messages. Your shop’s public page shows the location you choose at city level, not a precise address. Your contact address is not shown publicly and is not disclosed to buyers.

We use your contact address to notify you when a buyer sends you a message. Because messages are read and answered on Maker & Story, replying to a buyer does not disclose the address we contact you at.

The site’s application and database are hosted by Render, in the United States. Render’s infrastructure handles requests to the site, and so receives the ordinary information a web request carries, including your IP address.

When you check out, you are taken to Stripe’s hosted checkout page. Stripe receives the items and prices in your order, an order reference, and your email address where available; you enter your card details directly with them. We keep Stripe’s references for the payment against your order, with the amounts Stripe reports for it: the payment, Stripe’s fee, and any refund or card dispute, including the reason the card issuer gives. We use them to match payments to orders and keep accurate records.

Makers who take payment also create a Stripe account through us. Stripe receives the maker’s contact email to set that up, and handles their identity and banking details directly — we store only the account identifier and whether the account is ready to accept payment.

Sends the emails the service needs to function: password resets, email verification, sign-in codes, updates about your orders, pickups and any problem you report, and notifications that you have received a new message. It receives the recipient’s email address and the contents of those emails. Message notifications do not include the content of your messages.

Images makers upload (product photographs, shop branding and portraits) are stored with Cloudflare and served from there; when your browser loads one, Cloudflare receives the ordinary information a web request carries, including your IP address. Pickup signatures and photos added to a problem report are also stored with Cloudflare. These files are kept in private storage, and access to them through the site is restricted to the people described above. If a maker uses their own web address for their shop, Cloudflare provides the secure connection for it.

If you sign in with Google, Google confirms who you are and gives us your email address and, if your Google account has one, your name. Google knows you signed in to Maker & Story.

A maker can connect their own Shippo account to check addresses, get shipping rates and prepare labels. When they do this for your order, Shippo receives, through the maker’s account, your name and delivery address, the maker’s return address and any phone number or email the maker adds for labels, and the parcel’s weight and size.

The Explore Makers map loads its imagery from OpenFreeMap, a free public map service. Your browser requests those map tiles directly, which means OpenFreeMap sees the ordinary information any web request carries — including your IP address — and which part of the map you are looking at. It does not receive your account, your identity, or anything you do on the rest of the site, and we have no commercial relationship with them. Map data is from OpenStreetMap and OpenMapTiles.