Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

(a) This policy explains how we collect, hold, use and disclose your personal information, in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).

(b) Personal information is information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable.

(c) This policy describes our practices. Where we need your consent for a particular use of your personal information — for example, to send you updates about getting found locally — we ask for it separately; see section 9.

2. What We Collect

We collect only what we need to operate Rank Tally:

(a) account details — the email address you register with;

(b) the business details you enter — business name, Google Maps listing link, the search terms you track and the location you track them around;

(c) what you give us through our free-report funnel. This starts earlier than the report form: when you type your email address into one of the email boxes on our site and press the button, we record that address straight away, before you have filled anything else in. On the report form itself we collect the business you pick from Google's list (or the Google Maps link you paste, if you use that option instead). Asking for a report signs you up for our emails: the form asks you to tick a box confirming we can email you your report and follow-up tips, and we cannot build the report unless you do. After your report, that means up to six follow-up emails over three weeks, and at most two more depending on your answers to the questions in (d). You can unsubscribe at any time, using the link in our emails or through our contact form, and the follow-up emails also stop if you start a trial. We also record the campaign details carried in the link you arrived by, and use your IP address to limit how often the same visitor can submit;

(d) your answers to the optional questions some versions of our free-report page ask while your report is being built — for example, whether your Google Maps ranking affects your revenue, who looks after your listing, what a regular customer is worth to you, what you spend on marketing and what you want more of. You can skip any question. Your answers are stored with your report;

(e) how you move through our free report — the pages you reach, the questions you answer or skip and the buttons you click — recorded against a random identifier for that browser tab, held in a token our server signs, together with the campaign details in the link you arrived by. Once you ask for a free report, those steps are linked to that report and to the record we hold for your email address, and if that email address is later used to start a trial, the trial is linked to them as well;

(f) what you send us through our contact form, and technical details of the submission such as the page it was sent from and the time;

(g) subscription and billing details — your plan, billing period and payment status. Payment card details are collected and processed directly by our payment provider (listed in section 5), which is the merchant of record for your purchase;

(h) technical details of faults — when something goes wrong, our error-tracking provider records the error and the technical context around it, which can include your IP address, browser and the page you were on; and

(i) any other information you choose to provide to us.

3. How We Collect and Hold It

(a) We collect personal information directly from you, when you use the Service, submit a form or contact us.

(b) Some information is also collected automatically in your browser: by our error-tracking tool, by the spam check on our public forms, by the Google business picker on the free-report form and the Google map drawn behind the grid on your report, by Google Tag Manager and the cookie consent banner it shows on our public pages, by Meta's advertising pixel on our public pages, and by the cookies that keep you signed in to the customer portal. What each of those stores or receives is listed in our Cookie Policy.

(c) We hold personal information in the cloud infrastructure of our hosting and storage providers (currently Amazon Web Services, in the United States), in the systems of the service providers listed in section 5, and in our email and business records. Form submissions are stored in our systems, and the free report you ask for is emailed to you.

(d) Our public pages load Meta's pixel, a script from Meta Platforms, through Google Tag Manager and only once you consent to advertising cookies in our consent banner. It tells Meta when you view one of those pages or ask for a free report, and Meta receives that together with your IP address, browser details, the page address and the identifiers held in its cookies. It is not loaded on your report or on the links in our emails, and we remove your email address from the page address before it loads. Meta's script can also read the contact details you type into a form on one of those pages — your email address, name and phone number — hash them in your browser and send the hashes to Meta so it can match the visit to a Meta account (Meta calls this automatic advanced matching); the free report form is on those pages. We use it to measure and improve our advertising on Meta's platforms, and Meta handles the data under its own privacy policy. How to stop it, and the cookies it sets, are in our Cookie Policy.

(e) Our public pages load Google Tag Manager, a tool from Google that loads other scripts on our behalf, and through it the CookieYes cookie consent banner. Before any analytics or advertising script runs, the banner asks for your consent, and those scripts stay switched off until you give it; you can change your choice at any time from the banner. When they load, Google and CookieYes receive your IP address, browser details and the page address, and the banner stores your choice in a cookie. Neither is loaded on your report or on the links in our emails, and we remove your email address from the page address before they load. Google handles that data under its own privacy policy, and CookieYes under its own. The cookies involved are in our Cookie Policy.

4. Why We Collect, Hold, Use and Disclose It

(a) to provide, operate, secure and improve the Service;

(b) to respond to your enquiries and provide support;

(c) to monitor errors, performance and usage of the Service;

(d) to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes and enforce our agreements;

(e) to take payment for a subscription and manage your plan, trial and renewals;

(f) to tailor your free report, and the follow-up emails we send you, to your answers;

(g) to understand, in aggregate, how people use our free report and answer its questions, and which reports and versions of our pages lead to a trial, so we can improve the Service and our advertising;

(h) with your consent, to send you updates about getting found locally — every message includes an unsubscribe link; and

(i) for other purposes you would reasonably expect, or with your consent.

5. Who We Disclose It To

We may disclose personal information to the following categories of recipient:

(a) our personnel, contractors and related entities, on a need-to-know basis;

(b) service providers who help us operate the Website and our services — including hosting and storage, account sign-in, ranking and listing data lookups, email delivery, error tracking, tag and consent management, payment processing and advertising measurement;

(c) our professional advisers, such as accountants, auditors, insurers and lawyers;

(d) a purchaser or prospective purchaser, if there is a change of control of our business or a sale or transfer of business assets — disclosed under an obligation of confidentiality;

(e) where required or authorised by law, or to a regulator, law-enforcement body or court; and

(f) any other person with your consent.

The third-party service providers we currently use include those set out below. This table reflects our current providers and is not an exhaustive list or a limit on the categories above — we update it as our providers change.

6. Overseas Disclosure

We are likely to disclose personal information to recipients located outside Australia. Those recipients are likely to be located in the United States, Ireland and the United Kingdom, and may be located in other countries in which our service providers operate from time to time. Where we disclose personal information overseas, we take reasonable steps to ensure the recipient handles it in accordance with the APPs (APP 8). You can ask us where your personal information is currently held through our contact form.

7. Security

We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, interference, loss, and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure — including encryption in transit (HTTPS), access controls and monitoring. No system is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee the security of information transmitted over the internet. In the event of a data breach that is likely to result in serious harm, we will notify affected individuals and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required by the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme (Privacy Act, Part IIIC).

8. How Long We Keep It

We keep personal information only as long as needed for the purposes above, then take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify it (APP 11.2). Current retention practices:

(a) your account, and the business details and search terms you track — kept while your account is open, and after that only as long as we need them for our records and legal obligations;

(b) free-report submissions and the reports generated from them — kept for about 13 months after your most recent submission, then deleted;

(c) your answers to our free-report questions, and the record of how you moved through our free report — kept for 24 months, then deleted;

(d) messages sent through our contact form — kept as long as needed to handle the enquiry and for our records;

(e) subscription and billing records — kept as long as we need them for our accounting and tax records; and

(f) error reports — kept for the period our error-tracking provider retains them.

9. Your Rights

You have the following rights in relation to the personal information we hold about you:

(a) Access. You may request access to the personal information we hold about you through our contact form (APP 12). We will respond within a reasonable period. We do not charge for making a request.

(b) Correction. You may ask us to correct personal information that is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete or misleading (APP 13).

(c) Withdraw consent. Where we rely on your consent, you may withdraw it at any time by contacting us. Withdrawing your consent does not affect anything we did on the basis of that consent before you withdrew it.

(d) Opt out of updates. You may opt out of our follow-up and update emails at any time using the unsubscribe link in any message, or by contacting us through our contact form.

(e) Complaints. If you believe we have breached the APPs, contact us with the details. We will investigate and respond within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC): www.oaic.gov.au | 1300 363 992.

10. Children

The Service is intended for use by adults and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a child, we will take reasonable steps to delete it. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us through our contact form.

11. Third-Party Links

Our Website may link to other websites. We are not responsible for their privacy practices — review their policies before providing personal information.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time by posting the updated version on the Website, and will notify registered users by email of significant changes.

13. Contact Us

Use our contact form.