Privacy Policy

Last updated: 8 July 2026

1. Introduction

This privacy policy explains how TakeRank ("we", "us", "our") collects, uses, and protects your personal data when you use the TakeRank website and services at takerank.com (the "Service").

For the purposes of the UK GDPR and the EU General Data Protection Regulation, TakeRank is the data controller responsible for your personal data. TakeRank is an independently operated service. You can contact us about your data or this policy at hello@takerank.com.

We are committed to protecting your privacy and handling your data responsibly.

2. Data We Collect

Account Data

When you register, we collect:

  • Email address
  • Display name
  • Password (stored as a bcrypt hash - we never store plain text passwords)
  • Profile information you choose to provide (profile picture, public/private preference)

If you sign in with Google, GitHub, or Spotify, we receive basic profile information from those services (name, email, profile image).

Payment Data

If you subscribe to TakeRank Pro, our payment processor (Stripe) collects and processes your payment details to take payment and manage your subscription. We do not store your full card number on our own systems.

Usage Data

When you use the Service, we collect:

  • Your album votes and rankings
  • Artists and albums you interact with
  • Voting session data (matchups completed, rounds played)
  • Share links you create

Technical Data

We automatically collect:

  • IP address
  • Browser type and version
  • Device information
  • Pages visited and time spent
  • Referral source

3. How We Use Your Data

We use your data to:

  • Provide and maintain the Service
  • Calculate personal and global album rankings
  • Display community activity and leaderboards
  • Send transactional emails (account verification, password reset, subscription receipts)
  • Send reminder, digest and re-engagement emails where you have not opted out (see the Email Communications section)
  • Take payment for and manage TakeRank Pro subscriptions
  • Improve the Service and fix issues
  • Protect against fraud and abuse

We do not sell your personal data to third parties.

4. Legal Basis for Processing

Under the UK GDPR and EU GDPR, we rely on the following lawful bases to process your personal data:

  • Performance of a contract - to create and maintain your account, provide the Service, and take payment for TakeRank Pro. Without this data we cannot provide the Service.
  • Legitimate interests - to operate community rankings, understand and improve the Service, keep the Service secure, prevent fraud and abuse, and send you service-related reminder and re-engagement emails about a Service you signed up for. Where we rely on legitimate interests we have considered your rights, and you can object at any time (see Your Rights).
  • Consent - for any optional marketing communications and for advertising cookies and similar technologies. You can withdraw your consent at any time without affecting processing carried out before withdrawal.
  • Legal obligation - to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations (for example, keeping records required for tax or accounting).

5. Analytics

We use Plausible Analytics, a privacy-friendly analytics tool that does not use cookies and does not track individual users. Plausible collects aggregate data about page views and traffic sources without storing personal information.

6. Cookies and Similar Technologies

We use cookies and similar technologies (such as web beacons, pixels and local storage) for the following purposes:

  • Authentication cookies - to keep you logged in
  • Theme preference - to remember your light/dark mode choice
  • Consent cookie - to remember your cookie consent choice
  • Advertising cookies and identifiers - set by Google and other advertising partners to serve ads, measure ad performance and limit the number of times you see the same ad (see the Advertising section below)

You can control or delete cookies through your browser settings. Disabling some cookies may affect how the Service works.

7. Advertising

We use Google, including Google AdSense, to serve ads on the Service. As a result of this:

  • Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies, web beacons, pixels, IP addresses and other identifiers to serve ads based on your prior visits to this site and other sites on the internet.
  • Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to the Service and/or other sites on the internet.
  • Third parties may place and read cookies on your browser, or use web beacons, pixels or IP addresses, to collect information as a result of ad serving on the Service.

For more information about how Google collects and uses data when you use our site, please see How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.

You can opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google's Ads Settings, or you can opt out of a third-party vendor's use of cookies for personalised advertising by visiting www.aboutads.info or youronlinechoices.eu.

8. Third-Party Services and Processors

We use the following third parties. Where they process personal data on our behalf, they act as our data processors under a data processing agreement:

  • Mailgun (Sinch) - sends our transactional, reminder and re-engagement emails (processes email addresses and message content). We use Mailgun's EU infrastructure so email is processed within the EU.
  • Stripe - processes payments and manages subscriptions for TakeRank Pro (processes name, email and payment details).
  • Hetzner - hosts the Service on servers located in Germany (EU) (processes all data needed to run the Service).
  • Cloudflare - provides bot protection via Turnstile (processes IP addresses) and object storage (Cloudflare R2) for images such as profile pictures and cover art.
  • Google - serves ads via Google AdSense and measures ad performance (processes cookies, IP addresses and other identifiers as described in the Advertising section above).
  • MusicBrainz - provides artist and album metadata (open database; no personal data shared).
  • Deezer - provides album cover art and streaming links (no personal data shared).
  • Cover Art Archive - provides album artwork (no personal data shared).

9. International Data Transfers

We aim to keep your personal data within the UK and European Economic Area (EEA). Our hosting (Hetzner, Germany) and our email provider (Mailgun EU) process data within the EU.

Some providers - in particular Google (advertising) and Cloudflare - may process data outside the UK/EEA, including in the United States. Where personal data is transferred outside the UK/EEA, it is protected by appropriate safeguards, such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, and, where applicable, the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and its UK extension.

10. Data Retention

We retain your data for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account:

  • Your personal data (email, display name, profile) is deleted immediately
  • Your votes and rankings are anonymised (disassociated from your identity)
  • Unverified accounts are automatically deleted after 7 days

We keep records required for legal, tax or accounting purposes for as long as the law requires, and we keep a suppression record of email addresses that have unsubscribed so we can honour your choice.

11. Your Rights (GDPR)

If you are in the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area, you have the right to:

  • Access your personal data
  • Rectify inaccurate data
  • Erase your data (delete your account)
  • Restrict processing of your data
  • Port your data to another service
  • Object to processing based on our legitimate interests, including direct marketing
  • Withdraw consent at any time where we rely on consent
  • Lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. In the UK this is the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk); in the EEA it is your local data protection authority.

You can exercise most of these rights through your account settings. To make a formal request, contact us at hello@takerank.com or through the contact page at takerank.com.

12. Data Security

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your data, including:

  • Encrypted connections (HTTPS) for all data in transit
  • Hashed passwords (bcrypt)
  • Access controls and authentication for all administrative functions
  • Regular security reviews

13. Children

The Service is not intended for children under 13. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has provided us with personal data, please contact us so we can remove it.

14. Email Communications

We send email through Mailgun (Sinch), acting as our processor, using their EU infrastructure. We may send you:

  • Transactional emails - account verification, password reset, subscription receipts and other messages needed to operate your account. These are essential to the Service and cannot be opted out of while you hold an account. We rely on performance of a contract.
  • Reminder, digest and re-engagement emails - for example, a nudge to finish a ranking session you started, or an invitation to come back after a period of inactivity. We rely on our legitimate interest in helping you get value from a Service you signed up for. You can turn these off at any time from your account settings, or by using the unsubscribe link included in every such email. We limit how often we send these and honour your opt-out promptly.

We do not sell or rent your email address, and we do not use it for third-party marketing.

15. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. We will notify registered users of significant changes via email. The "last updated" date at the top of this page indicates when the policy was last revised.

16. Contact

If you have questions about this privacy policy or your data, please contact us at hello@takerank.com or through the contact page at takerank.com.