Privacy Policy

Last updated: 12 October 2026

Best Christmas Markets (bestchristmasmarkets.co.uk) is run by Bobble Ventures, a trading name of Bobble Solutions Ltd (registered in England and Wales, company no. 10371802, registered office Ossington Chambers, 6-8 Castle Gate, Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, NG24 1AX). We are the data controller for this website. Contact: [email protected].

The Short Version

• You don't need an account, and we set no cookies unless you vote on a market (then one, to remember your vote).
• We count visits with privacy-friendly analytics that don't identify you.
• We don't sell or share your data.

What We Collect and Why

Visit statistics. We use Umami, hosted on our own server, to count page views, which pages are popular and roughly where visitors come from (country, referring site, device type). Umami doesn't use cookies or store your IP address, and it can't identify you. Lawful basis: our legitimate interest in knowing which pages are useful.

Server logs. Like every website, our server records requests (IP address, date and time, page, browser type) to keep the site secure and working. We keep these logs for 14 days, then delete them. Lawful basis: legitimate interest (security).

Email. If you email us, we use your message and address only to reply, and keep them as long as needed to deal with your query.

Votes on markets. Each market page lets you say whether the market was worth the trip. If you vote, we set one cookie on your device, bcm_voter, holding a random identifier that lasts a year. It is there so that each browser has one vote per market and so that you can change or withdraw yours; it is not used for anything else and is not linked to your name, your email or any other record. We store the identifier, the market and your vote. We do not store your IP address with a vote: to stop one person casting hundreds, we keep a scrambled, one-way code made from it, which changes every day and is deleted the next day. If you don't vote, no cookie is set. To remove the cookie, clear this site's cookies in your browser. Lawful basis: the cookie is needed to provide the vote you asked to cast; the daily limit is our legitimate interest in keeping the tally honest.

We don't run forms, newsletters or user accounts on this site. If that changes, we'll update this page first.

Other Companies Involved

• Cloudflare delivers this website and protects it from attacks. It processes your IP address to do so (privacy policy).
• Postcodes.io turns a postcode into a rough location when you type one into the market finder: your browser sends the postcode to their service (postcodes.io). If you press "Use My Location" instead, your position stays in your browser and is not sent to us.
• OpenFreeMap supplies the map tiles on pages that show a map: your browser requests tiles from their servers when the map comes into view (openfreemap.org). The map code itself is served from this site.
• Stay22 supplies the hotel map on market pages. It loads only if you press "Show Hotels on a Map": your browser then connects to Stay22's servers, which see your IP address and may set cookies, and the booking sites it shows (such as Booking.com and Expedia) may do the same if you click through (privacy policy). Until you press the button nothing is sent to them.
• Partners we link to (for example holiday cottage and hotel booking sites) may set their own cookies after you click a link to their site. See our affiliate disclosure.

Your Rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, or object to how we use it. Email [email protected]. If you're unhappy with our answer you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).

Changes

We'll update this page if anything changes, with a new date at the top.