Privacy
Many of the serial number decoders do not send serial numbers to my servers in order to decode them. For those that do, the serial number is not logged or stored, the serial number is decoded and displayed back to the user only. In some cases, when they have failed to decode, some information about them may be sent to me for the sole purpose of informing me where errors have crept in and providing me with a list of common models not currently in my database so that I can research and improve. Things like how many digits or perhaps the first few characters, purely to figure out where people are going wrong. In order to supply an affiliate link applicable to your country and to return local eBay/Amazon results in your currency my site uses IP based geotracking, your full IP address is never stored. Any statistics logging is done on my own server for the sole purpose of understanding my users and improving the service and is never passed to anybody for any reason whatsoever.
Security
No full or unique serial number data is stored on my servers. On some pages the model number may be logged. This is done so that I can check the site is working and to give me a list of commonly searched for items so that I can research them and add them to my database if they are missing. Some decoding requires a database so cannot be done directly in your browser, these are sent to my server for decoding, I do not store them or pass them to any 3rd parties including in the eBay link.
This site is available over both http and https and I would suggest using https.
Cookies
This site uses tracking which is done on my servers, no 3rd party has access to this data. It is used by me to find out things such as how visitors find my website, how long they spend here, which web pages they use and whether they leave with a result or a fail. Serial numbers are not logged and neither are full IP addresses.
Some pages have an affiliate link (at the bottom). After clicking on these links the landing page will drop a cookie which enables the fact that you came from my site to be tracked. The same is true of the "click to find out what it is worth" eBay link displayed after you have decoded a serial number. These sites will have their own privacy policies but apart from information about the item you looked up on my site (again, not the serial number) no personal data is passed from my site to these external sites. The same goes for any Amazon links to products from my site. Apart from the accuracy of the external links to get a value for your item, my site should work perfectly well with cookies blocked and as many security features active in your browser as you require.
Affiliate links
When you click on links to various merchants (including links to find resale values) on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. In all cases you pay no more for anything you purchase and the commission is taken from the program hosts profits. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network and Amazon associates. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Within this document the use of the term "site" refers to serial-number-decoder.co.uk, retroseiko.co.uk and car-vin-decoder.com. These are my domains.