RTM Privacy Policy
This notice explains what personal information Read The Market (“RTM”, “we”, “us”) holds about you, why we hold it, who else processes it, and what you can do about it. It covers readthemarket.com, the member forum at forum.readthemarket.com, and the email we send you.
The data controller is If Guilfoyle, Ireland. You can reach us about anything in this notice at admin@readthemarket.com.
1. What we collect
You give us
- (a)your name, email address and password when you register — the password is stored as a one-way hash and we cannot read it;
- (b)your country, and any profile details you choose to add on the forum;
- (c)everything you post: topics, replies, journals, charts, screenshots, uploaded images, and private messages to other members or to us;
- (d)anything you write to us by email.
We collect automatically
- (e)IP address, browser and device information, and timestamps, in web server and security logs;
- (f)when you last logged in, and which content you have read on the forum, which the forum software records in order to work;
- (g)whether emails we sent you were delivered and opened.
We receive from our payment providers
- (h)the fact, amount, date and status of your payments, and the billing details you gave them. We never see or store your full card number. Card details are entered on Stripe’s systems, not ours.
2. Why we hold it, and our lawful basis
| Purpose | Lawful basis |
|---|---|
| Giving you the membership you bought — account, login, access to lessons and the forum | Performance of our contract with you |
| Taking payment, issuing renewals, handling refunds | Contract; legal obligation |
| Keeping tax and accounting records | Legal obligation |
| Service email — password resets, renewal notices, changes to terms, forum notifications you have enabled | Contract |
| Keeping the sites secure and available, blocking attacks and abuse | Our legitimate interests in protecting our business and our members |
| Translating forum content so members can read each other (clause 4) | Our legitimate interests in running a multilingual community |
| Marketing email about RTM | Your consent, which you may withdraw at any time |
| Defending or bringing legal claims | Our legitimate interests |
3. Who else processes it
We use the following service providers. Each processes your information on our instructions, under a contract that requires them to protect it.
| Provider | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Hetzner Online GmbH | Hosting — our servers, the website, the forum and their backups | Germany |
| Stripe | Payment processing and subscription billing | Ireland / United States |
| PayPal | Payment processing for earlier memberships | Luxembourg / United States |
| Brevo | Sending our email — service messages and any newsletter | France |
| Cloudflare | Domain name service and protection against attacks | United States |
| Google (Gemini API) | Machine translation of forum content — see clause 4 | United States |
| Defiant, Inc. (Wordfence) | Website firewall and malware scanning | United States |
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with advertisers.
4. Automatic translation of forum content — please read this one
Our members read and write in several languages. So that they can read each other, content posted in the member areas of the forum — including journals — is translated automatically into the forum’s other languages. To do that, the text is sent to Google’s Gemini API.
We use the paid tier of that service, deliberately. Under its terms Google does not use the content to train or improve its models; it is retained only briefly for abuse detection, and is processed under data-processing terms. On the unpaid tier that is not the case, which is why we do not use it.
Private messages between members are not translated and are not sent to Google.
If you would rather your journal were not translated, tell us and we will keep it within your own section.
5. Transfers outside the EEA
Some of the providers in clause 3 process data in the United States. Where that happens, the transfer is covered by the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses, by the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified under it, or by both. You can ask us for details of the safeguards that apply to a particular provider.
6. How long we keep it
- (a)Your account: for as long as you are a member, and afterwards until you ask us to remove it.
- (b)Payment and tax records: for the period Irish tax law requires, currently six years from the end of the relevant period.
- (c)Forum content: indefinitely, unless you ask — see clause 8.
- (d)Server and security logs: 30 days, after which they are overwritten.
- (e)Email delivery records: as long as our email provider retains them, currently 12 months.
7. Your rights
Under the GDPR you have the right to ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you; to have it corrected if it is wrong; to have it erased; to restrict or object to how we use it; to receive it in a portable form; and to withdraw consent where we relied on consent. We will answer within one month.
Write to admin@readthemarket.com. We may ask you to confirm your identity first, because we are not going to hand somebody else your journal.
If you think we have handled your information badly, you can complain to the Irish Data Protection Commission at dataprotection.ie, or to the supervisory authority in the EU country where you live.
8. Closing your account, and what happens to your posts
Ask us and we will close your account and remove your name and email address from it.
Your forum posts are a more complicated matter, and we would rather be straight with you about it than pretend otherwise. Threads are conversations: deleting one person’s posts years later leaves other members’ replies answering nothing. Our normal approach is to anonymise — your posts stay, your identity does not. If you want particular posts removed rather than anonymised, ask, and we will remove them unless there is a good reason not to, which we will explain.
9. Cookies
We use cookies that are necessary for the sites to work: keeping you logged in, remembering your language, and letting our security provider distinguish you from an attacker. These cannot be switched off without breaking the sites.
We also use Google Analytics to understand which pages are read, which sets cookies in your browser. These are not set unless you accept them.
We do not use advertising or tracking cookies, and we do not run advertising on our sites.
10. Children
Our sites and our membership are for adults. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has registered, tell us and we will remove the account.
11. Changes to this notice
We will update this notice when what we do changes. The version date is at the top. Where a change materially affects you, we will email the address on your account.
Questions about this notice, or any request under clause 7: admin@readthemarket.com (support in English).