Privacy policy

The short version

• No accounts. There are no accounts here, no newsletter and no comments.
• The quote form. The quote-check page has a form for sending us your thruster quote. That one is sent to us and stored, with your email if you give it. What happens to it is below.
• The contact form. The contact page has a form. It opens your own mail program with the message filled in. Nothing you type there is sent to this site or stored by it.
• Share and copy buttons. These sit at the foot of each page and on the quote-check page. They hand a page address or a list to your device's own share sheet, clipboard or mail program, and nothing about that reaches us either.

Apart from the quote form, where both are optional, we do not ask for your name or your email. We run Google Analytics, and the Analytics property is linked to a Google Ads account, so the same tag also reports to Google's advertising systems. We use that to measure and occasionally to run small advertising campaigns for this site.

Some links are referral links. When you click a link to a product, we record the click, and a referral link carries a short random code so the maker can credit the sale to us. Neither involves your name or email. The details are below.

The four tools on the site (the size calculator, the thruster finder, the wiring calculator and the battery calculator) run entirely in your browser, and nothing you type into them is stored. The three calculators never send what you type anywhere.

The thruster finder is different in one way. It writes your answers into the page’s web address, so that a link to your result opens the same result. Google Analytics records the address of every page you view, so your finder answers (boat type, length, what drives her and the rest) reach Google Analytics with it. The compare page does the same with the models you pick and your boat’s length. None of it is tied to a name or an email, because those tools never ask for either.

What we collect

Google Analytics 4, property G-7BV6TQQKP1. It tells us, in aggregate, which pages get read, roughly where in the world people are, what kind of device they used, and which site or search sent them. Google's Enhanced Measurement is switched on for this property, which additionally records how far down a page people scroll and when someone clicks a link that leaves the site.

Google Ads measurement. The Analytics property is linked to our Google Ads account (conversion ID 18453990045) and Google Signals is switched on. In practice that means the same tag also sends your visit to Google's advertising hosts (doubleclick.net and google.com/pagead). This is so that Google can tell us whether an advertisement we paid for brought someone here, and can show an advertisement for this site to people who have visited it before.

Google may combine that with what it already knows about a signed-in Google account, under its own policy for partner sites. We expect to run very little advertising. The link exists so that a small test campaign can be measured.

Analytics and the Ads measurement are loaded only on the published site. Neither is present when the site is run locally during development.

Server and network logs. The site is hosted on Cloudflare Pages. Like any web host, Cloudflare processes the requests your browser makes (including your IP address) to serve pages and to block abuse.

Cloudflare Web Analytics. We also use Cloudflare's own traffic measurement, which counts page views and referrers at the network edge. It sets no cookies, stores nothing on your device and does not track you between sites.

Quotes you send us

When you send a quote from the quote-check page, what you typed goes to a Google Apps Script we run, which adds it as one row to a Google spreadsheet that only we can open and emails us a notice. Google handles the request, so it sees your IP address in the normal way. We do not record your IP address in the spreadsheet.

What is stored: the boat’s length, make and model; the total and any split you gave; the type of thruster and which end; whether it was a quote, an invoice or parts; the port or area and the month; your email, if you gave one; and the name you chose for the credit, if you chose one. The time it arrived and a reference number are added.

What we publish: after we have read it, a dated row in the price tables with the boat, the job, the figure and the port or area, credited to “an owner” or to the first name and initial you chose. We never publish your email or the yard’s name.

Your email is optional. We use it only to write back about your quote. It goes on no mailing list and to no one else. A photo of the paper reaches us only if you email it to us yourself.

We keep each submission as the record behind its row. Write to us and we will delete it, and take the row down, whenever you ask.

What we do not collect

• No email list. There is no signup form, no gated download and no newsletter. The only place we take an email is the quote form, where it is optional and used only to reply to you.
• No accounts and no logins. Nothing on this site is personalized to you.
• No comments, so nothing you write is stored here.
• Nothing typed into the calculators. Your figures stay in your browser. They are not sent to us or to Google, and they are not saved. The finder and the compare page are the exception: their answers ride in the page address, which Google Analytics records, as the short version above says.
• No advertising on the pages. Nothing here shows you an advertisement, and no advertising network other than Google's receives anything from this site.
• We do not sell your personal information. The Google Ads link described above does count as “sharing” for cross-context behavioral advertising in the specific sense California law uses, and the California section below says how to opt out.

Referral links and the click log

Some links on this site are referral links. If you buy through one, we may earn a commission. It doesn't change your price or our recommendations. Every page that carries a direct link to a product says so at the top, and the About page explains how it works.

• A random reference code. On your first visit, your browser makes a short random code (it looks like BTG-7K3QXM) and keeps it in local storage under rr_ref for 90 days. The code is added to referral links, and shown on some pages so you can quote it if you phone or email the maker. It is not built from anything about you: not your name, your email, your IP address or your device. If your browser sends the Global Privacy Control signal, no code is made at all.
• Tracking parameters on product links. Links to a maker's own site carry standard utm_ tags saying they came from this site and from which page. Referral links also carry the reference code. Links to sources, forums and documents carry nothing.
• Our click log. When you click a link to a product, your browser sends us a short record: the reference code, the page you were on, the link you followed, the site that first sent you here, the first page you landed on and the time. It goes to a Google Apps Script that writes it into a spreadsheet only we can see. We use it to tell which pages are useful to buyers and to match a referral when a sale is credited.
• With Global Privacy Control on. The click record carries no code, no referring site and no landing page: only the page, the link and the time.

Cookies and what is stored on your device

Four things, of different kinds.

Who else sees anything

These parties, because of how the site is built, and YouTube only if you play a video:

• Google: for Analytics and for Ads measurement, both described above. The site's typefaces are served from this site, not from Google, so with the Google tag blocked a page sends Google nothing at all.
• Cloudflare: hosting, content delivery, abuse prevention and the cookieless traffic count described above.
• Our quote form, through Google. A quote you send is received by a Google Apps Script and stored in a Google spreadsheet that only we can open, as described above.
• Our click log, through Google. The record of a product-link click described in Referral links is sent to a Google Apps Script and stored in a Google spreadsheet that only we can open. Google handles the request, so it sees your IP address in the normal way.
• YouTube, only if you press play. A few pages carry a maker's own video. The page loads nothing from YouTube until you press play. When you do, the player loads from Google's youtube-nocookie.com. YouTube then sees your IP address and may store data in your browser, as it would on any site that plays its videos.
• Whoever you click through to. When you follow a link off this site, the destination is a separate company with its own privacy policy. What happens there is between you and them. A link to a source or a forum carries nothing from us. A link to a product carries tracking parameters naming this site and the page, and a referral link also carries your reference code, so the maker can credit the sale. Nothing else about you is added.

Your choices

• Block the analytics cookies in your browser settings, or use private browsing. The site works exactly the same without them: nothing here depends on knowing who you are.
• Opt out of Google Analytics everywhere with Google's own browser add-on, which stops the measurement on every site that uses it, not just this one.
• Turn off personalized advertising in your Google account at Google's Ads Settings, which stops Google using your visits here, or anywhere, to pick advertisements for you.
• Send the Global Privacy Control signal. Switch it on in Firefox, Brave or DuckDuckGo, or install Privacy Badger, and this site will not load the Google tag for you at all. It also makes no reference code for you, and counts a product-link click with nothing that could tell your visits apart.
• Use a content blocker. Most of them block gtag.js by default, which stops both the analytics and the ads measurement. We do not mind.
• Clear btg-theme and rr_ref by clearing this site's data in your browser, if you want the theme choice and the reference code forgotten. Private browsing keeps the code for that session only.

If you are in California

The categories above are the whole of what is collected:

• Identifiers such as an IP address, an analytics cookie ID, an advertising cookie ID and the random referral code.
• Internet activity such as which pages were read and which links were clicked.
• What you send in the quote form: the details of a quote, and an email address and a first name and initial if you choose to give them.

It is collected to understand which articles are useful, to keep the site up, and to measure the small amount of advertising we run, and, for a quote you send, to publish the price and reply to you. It is not sold.

Because the Analytics property is linked to Google Ads, it is shared with Google for cross-context behavioral advertising in the sense California law uses. To opt out of that sharing, do any one of these:

• Block the analytics cookies or use a content blocker, as described above.
• Turn off ad personalization at Google's Ads Settings.
• Write to us at the address below, and we will exclude your browser's identifiers from the audiences we hold.

If your browser sends the Global Privacy Control signal, this site does not load the Google tag at all. That means no analytics, no ads measurement and no Google cookie for that visit. It also makes no reference code, so no maker receives anything that could identify you, and our click log keeps only an anonymous count.

Firefox, Brave, DuckDuckGo and the Privacy Badger extension can send it. The “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” link at the foot of every page brings you here.

You can ask us what we hold about you, ask us to delete it, and not be treated differently for asking. Write to admin@boatthrusterguide.com. In practice the answer to “what do you hold about me” is usually nothing we could connect to you, because we hold aggregate reports and no records about individuals, apart from any quote you sent us. Ask anyway, and we will tell you exactly what we can and cannot look up.

Children

This site is written for adults buying equipment for boats and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect anything from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has provided information through this site, write to us and we will remove it, though the quote form is the only way to submit anything to us here.

Changes, and how to reach us

If what the site collects changes, this page changes in the same update and the date at the top moves. We will not add a tracker and leave this text describing a site that no longer exists.

Questions, corrections, or a request about your data: the contact page, or admin@boatthrusterguide.com directly.

Boat Thruster Guide is published by Morgain LLC. This page describes what the site does and is not legal advice.