Privacy Policy

Last updated 31 October 2026

This policy explains what personal data advert.bid collects, why, who we share it with, and your rights under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the laws of Malta.

1. Who is responsible

advert.bid is the controller of the personal data described here. Contact us about privacy at hello@advert.bid.

2. What we collect

• Account: name, email address, username, password (stored only as a secure hash), account type, and optionally phone, website, address and a short description.
• Company: company name, VAT number, address, website, phone, description, and who belongs to it.
• Sign-in with Google or Facebook: your name and email address from that service, if you choose to use it.
• Listings: billboard details, location, photos, prices, availability, and investment figures you choose to enter (only you see those).
• Messages and bookings: conversations, requests and offers, bookings, artwork and other files, proof photos, and the handover steps.
• Payments: handled by Stripe. We receive confirmation that a payment was made and its amount, never your full card details. Owners give their payout and identity details to Stripe directly.
• Usage: how many times each billboard page is viewed per day (a count, not who viewed it), and the technical data our hosting provider needs to run and secure the website, such as IP addresses in security logs.
• Feedback: what you send with the “Help us improve” form, with your name and email.

3. Why we use it, and on what basis

• To provide advert.bid (accounts, listings, messages, bookings, payments, handover): to perform our contract with you.
• To keep advert.bid safe and fair (preventing fraud and abuse, hiding contact details, resolving disputes): our legitimate interests.
• To send emails about your account and bookings (email verification, password resets, new messages and booking updates): to perform our contract with you.
• To improve the service from feedback and aggregate figures: our legitimate interests.
• To meet legal obligations, such as tax and accounting records, and lawful requests from authorities.

4. Who sees what

• Other Users: billboard owners see the name of an advertiser (and their company) who contacts them. Advertisers never see an owner’s name, company or contact details. Neither side sees the other’s email address or phone number.
• Your company: members of your company see its billboards, conversations, bookings and library files.
• advert.bid staff: may access accounts, conversations and bookings to support Users, resolve disputes, prevent abuse or meet legal obligations.
• Service providers who process data for us: Cloudflare (hosting, database, file storage, and receiving email to hello@advert.bid), Plunk (sending our emails, on Amazon Web Services in the EU), Stripe (payments), Google (the map on billboard pages when you choose to show it, and Google sign-in), Meta (Facebook sign-in), and OpenStreetMap-based services for map tiles and place search.
• Authorities where the law requires it. We never sell personal data.

5. Transfers outside the EU

Some providers process data outside the European Economic Area. Where they do, the transfer is protected by an adequacy decision or the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses.

6. How long we keep it

We keep account data while your account is open. When it is closed we delete or anonymise it, except what we must keep longer, such as booking and payment records for accounting and tax purposes (generally up to 10 years), or what we need to deal with a dispute.

7. Your rights

You have the right to access, correct, delete or move your personal data, to restrict or object to how we use it, and to withdraw consent where we rely on it. Email hello@advert.bid; we will reply within one month. You can also complain to the Information and Data Protection Commissioner in Malta (idpc.org.mt).

8. Security

Data is encrypted in transit, passwords are hashed, and private files such as artwork are only available to the people they belong to. No system is completely secure, so please keep your login safe.

9. Cookies

We only use the cookie needed to keep you logged in. See our Cookie Policy.

10. Changes

We may update this policy and will post the new version here with its date.