Privacy and cookies

Privacy and cookies

The Aetherweb privacy notice below explains how personal information is handled across our websites. You can also read the central Aetherweb privacy notice.

Aetherweb privacy notice

Updated 16 September 2026. This notice explains how Aetherweb Ltd handles personal information in connection with its own websites, apps and services, including Whitby Online, Hotels & Lodging, Whitby Events and the legacy Bitcoin Gift Vouchers website.

Who is responsible for your information?

Aetherweb Ltd is responsible for the personal information it handles for these services. Contact us at info@aetherweb.co.uk, telephone +44 (0)7846 122129, or write to Aetherweb Ltd, Cleveland House, Linden Lane, Newholm, Whitby, North Yorkshire, YO21 3QX, United Kingdom.

This notice covers Aetherweb's own processing. A business, accommodation provider or event organiser that receives your enquiry or booking is responsible for its own use of your information. Websites we host or maintain for other organisations may have their own privacy notices and controllers.

Information we collect and where it comes from

• Information you provide: your name, email address, telephone number, postal address, enquiry, account details, listings, photographs or other material you choose to submit. The fields requested depend on the service.
• Customer and transaction records: correspondence, invoices, payment references and details needed to provide support or deal with a previous purchase. Bitcoin Gift Vouchers is no longer accepting new purchases; historical records may still be needed to handle enquiries and existing obligations.
• Technical and security information: IP address, browser and device information, requested pages, dates and times, and information about errors, suspicious requests, access restrictions and delivery of messages.
• Cookie and similar information: session and preference information, and information processed by analytics, advertising or embedded services where those features are used. The services present vary between our websites.
• Information from other people or organisations: for example, a business representative submitting a listing, a person referring an enquiry to us, public business details, or a service provider supplying delivery or security information.

Information submitted for a public listing or contribution can be seen by other visitors and search engines. Please do not include private information that you do not intend to publish, or information about another person that you are not entitled to provide.

Why we use information and our lawful bases

• Enquiries, accounts and requested services: to respond, administer the service and deal with support or complaints. Where necessary to enter into or perform a contract with you, we rely on that contract. For ordinary business enquiries and communications outside such a contract, we rely on our legitimate interests in responding and running the service.
• Listings and contributions: to publish and maintain material supplied for that purpose, make corrections and moderate misuse. We rely on our legitimate interests in providing a useful and accurate directory or information service, or on a contract where that applies.
• Security and administration: to operate the website, investigate faults, filter spam, prevent abuse or fraud and protect visitors and systems. We rely on our legitimate interests in maintaining a secure and reliable service, and on legal obligations where applicable.
• Accounting and legal matters: to maintain records required by law, respond to lawful requests and establish or defend legal claims. We rely on legal obligations or, for handling claims, our legitimate interests as appropriate.
• Optional cookies, advertising, analytics and marketing: where consent is required, consent is the basis for that processing. Permission to use the website or acceptance of its terms is not consent to optional tracking or marketing.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, those interests must be balanced against your rights and reasonable expectations. You can object to this use of your information. If information is needed to answer an enquiry or provide a requested service, we may be unable to do so without it; you can ask which details are necessary.

Cookies, advertising and external features

Cookies and similar technologies can support sign-in, sessions, preferences and security. Some websites also use Google advertising or analytics, maps, video, search or other externally provided features. Those providers can receive technical information when their content is loaded and may use cookies or other identifiers.

Where a site offers cookie settings, use those controls to review or change your choices. You can also manage cookies through your browser, although blocking essential cookies may prevent some features from working. A provider's advertising opt-out is separate from the choices offered by an individual website.

Cloudflare helps protect and deliver some of our websites. Depending on the features in use, it processes request and security information and may use security cookies. We do not describe its service as using only one fixed cookie. See Cloudflare's cookie information, Google's information about partner sites, and Google's advertising controls.

Who may receive information?

Information is available to authorised Aetherweb personnel and to providers where needed for the relevant service. The recipients depend on the website and the purpose, and can include:

• Hosting, server administration, backup and technical support providers, including Krystal and cPanel where used.
• Email storage and delivery providers, including Google and Mailgun where used, and other providers used for the relevant mailbox or notification service. They process addresses, message content and delivery information as needed to handle email.
• Cloudflare and abuse-prevention services such as AbuseIPDB, which may receive relevant IP addresses and evidence of suspicious activity to support protection against misuse.
• Spam-detection services, including OpenAI where our mail filtering uses it. Relevant message headers and message content may be processed to help identify unwanted or malicious mail.
• Analytics, advertising and embedded-content providers, such as Google, when the relevant feature is used.
• Payment providers, such as PayPal in connection with historical voucher transactions, and professional advisers such as our accountants, Jane Ascroft Ltd, where needed for accounting or related obligations.
• A business or organiser to whom you ask us to send an enquiry, people who can view a public listing, or authorities and other recipients where disclosure is required by law or justified for a legal claim.

We do not sell or rent mailing lists or provide contact details to another organisation for its own direct marketing. This does not mean that third-party advertising or embedded services receive no information: their processing is described separately above and in their own notices.

Security systems may automatically restrict suspicious requests or filter messages. If you think legitimate access or correspondence has been blocked incorrectly, contact us so that we can investigate.

Where information is processed

Aetherweb operates in the United Kingdom. Some service providers operate internationally, so information may also be processed outside the UK, including in the European Economic Area or the United States. We require appropriate legal protection for restricted transfers, such as applicable UK adequacy arrangements or approved contractual safeguards. Contact us for information about the providers, locations and safeguards relevant to your information.

How long we keep information

• Routine browsing logs: automatically gathered browsing information on our servers is removed within 60 days.
• Enquiries, accounts and correspondence: retention depends on how long the service or account is needed, the nature and progress of the enquiry, and whether a complaint, dispute or other obligation remains outstanding. This is not a promise to retain everything indefinitely.
• Public listings and contributions: these may remain while relevant to the website, subject to corrections, removal requests and any legal requirements.
• Accounting and transaction records: relevant records may need to be kept for at least six years to meet accounting and tax obligations. A longer period may apply where a legal requirement or unresolved matter makes that necessary.
• Security incidents and claims: records kept specifically to investigate an incident, address continuing abuse or deal with a legal claim may be needed beyond the routine browsing-log period. Their retention depends on the incident, continuing protection needs and applicable legal requirements.

Deletion from active systems may not immediately remove a copy from a backup; backup copies are replaced through the applicable backup cycle. Third-party providers can have separate retention periods for their own processing. Contact us if you need the retention criteria for a particular record or wish to request deletion.

Keeping information secure

We use technical and organisational measures appropriate to the information and risks, including access controls and measures to protect our websites and email. No online system can be guaranteed completely secure. Keep your account credentials confidential and do not send us passwords, payment-card security codes or cryptocurrency private keys. This notice does not exclude responsibilities we have under data-protection law.

Your rights and choices

Depending on the circumstances, you can ask for access to your personal information, correction, deletion, restriction of its use, or a portable copy where that right applies. You can object to processing based on legitimate interests. You can object to direct marketing at any time, and withdraw consent where we rely on it; withdrawal does not change the lawfulness of processing before it was withdrawn.

Rights are subject to the conditions and exemptions in the law: for example, we may need to retain an invoice or information needed for a legal claim. We may ask for enough information to verify your identity and locate the relevant records, and will explain our response. Contact Aetherweb using the details above.

If you are unhappy with how we handle information, please contact us. You also have the right to complain directly to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK data-protection regulator, on 0303 123 1113. You do not have to complete our complaints process before approaching the ICO.

Changes to this notice

We will publish revisions on the Aetherweb privacy-policy page and show the updated date. Where a change to our use of information requires us to notify you or obtain consent, updating this page alone is not a substitute for doing so. Copies shown on our other websites are refreshed from the central notice periodically.