How we found your business
Why you are reading this
We wrote to your business without you having contacted us first. When personal data is collected from somewhere other than the person it concerns, we have to say where it came from. This page is that explanation.
Where we got your details
From public sources only. We do not buy contact lists.
- Companies House — Public register of companies, used to identify newly incorporated businesses to contact
- DVSA MOT History API — Looks up when a vehicle's MOT expires from its registration number, for a garage's MOT reminders to its own customers
- HMRC Check a UK VAT number API — Confirms the VAT number a business enters for its quotes and invoices is registered, and returns the name it is registered to
- Google Places — Public business listings, used to find and qualify businesses to contact
- Serper — Web search for newly incorporated businesses, used to find their public website, email and social profiles
- Brave Search — Web search for newly incorporated businesses, used to find their public website, email and social profiles
If your company was incorporated recently
Some of the businesses we write to are limited companies registered in the last few days. Those we read from the public Companies House register: the company name and number, the date of incorporation, the SIC codes that say what the company does, the registered office address, and the name and role of each officer. We keep those, together with what our own checks concluded about the registered office. We do not keep an officer’s date of birth, nationality or home address, and nothing we print or publish contains them. From that entry we build a preview website for the company and post one card about it to the registered office. The preview is private, is not indexed by search engines, and is removed the moment anyone presses “Remove this preview” in its footer — after which we do not write to that company again.
What we hold
Your business name and trade, a public address, phone number and email where one is published, your website address and what we could tell about it, and notes from our own research about whether a new website would help. If we sent something and someone scanned the QR code or followed the link, we record that visit — the pages opened, the referring page, device type and a hashed IP address — against your business's record.
Why we are allowed to
Our lawful basis is legitimate interests: contacting businesses whose web presence suggests they would benefit from what we do. We weighed that against your interests. The data is business contact information already published, the contact is occasional and easy to stop, and we do not profile individuals or make automated decisions about anyone. If you think the balance is wrong in your case, tell us and we will stop.
How to make it stop
Use the unsubscribe link in anything we sent you, or go to https://tradesplace.co.uk/unsubscribe. You can also email [email protected] and ask us to remove you. We suppress the record rather than delete it outright, so that our own outreach cannot pick your business up again — that suppression entry holds only what is needed to recognise you and stop.
Your rights
You may ask for access to what we hold, correction, erasure, restriction or portability, and you may object to processing at any time. Email [email protected]. If you are not satisfied you may complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).