Marketing Policy

This policy covers the emails Open Web Directory sends, how an address ends up on our list, and how to leave it. It sits alongside the privacy policy, which explains the personal data behind all of it.

1. The two kinds of email

Messages about your own account and activity. Sign-in codes and password resets, the decision on a listing you submitted or claimed, a reply from a curator, and the record of a purchase. These are part of the service you asked for: every account holder receives them and a member cannot switch them off.

Campaigns. Occasional emails about what is in the directory — entries worth knowing about, sectors that have grown, articles we have published, and guidance for listed businesses. These are marketing. We send them only to people who asked for them, and every one carries a one-click way to stop.

2. How you join the list

• When you create an account. The sign-up form has a marketing box. It is unticked, and leaving it alone means no campaigns — your account, your listing and any purchase work exactly the same either way.
• From your account page. The Marketing emails switch turns campaigns on or off, and it reflects the choice you made at sign-up. Changing it applies to future campaigns.
• From a curator, occasionally, where someone has asked us in person to add them.

We record what you chose and when, so we can tell you if you ask.

3. What we do with an address

• Campaigns go only to addresses that opted in. The audience is worked out on our own server from those opt-in records; it is never assembled by hand from listings, submissions or contact messages.
• An address is used to send you the email and nothing else. We do not sell, rent, trade or loan it, and we never pass it to another company for their own marketing.
• We use no bought or rented lists, and a business is not added to campaigns merely because it is in the directory.
• Delivery is handled by our platform provider's email service, which necessarily handles the address to deliver the message.
• Campaigns carry no tracking pixels. We do not record whether an email was opened or which links were clicked inside it — we count only how many were sent and how many failed.

4. What campaigns contain

Campaigns are written by our curators, sometimes with the help of our own drafting tooling, and always describe the directory itself: new entries, sectors, published articles, or how to get listed. We send them occasionally rather than to a fixed schedule, and each email stands alone — there is no automated drip sequence. Every campaign points at a page on this site, and we do not run promotions for other companies' products.

5. How to stop receiving campaigns

• The stop link. Every campaign carries a Stop these emails link in its footer. One click, no sign-in, and you do not have to give a reason.
• Your account page. Switch Marketing emails off. If you have already used the stop link, the switch shows that.
• Email us at privacy@openwebdirectory.co.uk if you would rather we did it for you, or if you want your account and listing removed as well.

A stop request is actioned as soon as it reaches us. It does not affect the account messages described in section 1, and it does not by itself delete your account, your listing or your payment records — ask us and we will do that separately under the privacy policy.

6. If a campaign arrives that you did not ask for

Use the stop link in its footer, then tell us at privacy@openwebdirectory.co.uk — we will look into how the address reached the list and take it off. You can also simply ask us to erase everything we hold about you.

7. Why we are allowed to send them, and for how long

Campaigns are sent on the basis of your consent — the box you ticked, the switch you turned on, or a request you made to a curator — as required by UK data protection law and the rules on electronic marketing. You can withdraw that consent at any time by any of the routes above, without affecting anything done beforehand.

We keep your address and the record of your consent while you hold an account or while you are happy to hear from us, so that we can show the choice was yours. If you opt out, the address is kept on a suppression list for one purpose only: making sure no campaign reaches it again. Opting out removes you from campaigns immediately; it never stops a sign-in code or a message about your own listing.

8. Changes to this policy

If we change how marketing email is handled, this page and its date change with it, and material changes are flagged on the site.