PRIVACY POLICY

We hope you will enjoy Smidgin craft gin and using the Smidgin website (our “website”) and we want to make sure your experience is as safe and useful as possible. Here you can find out how our website works, what data we collect from you, how we use it, conditions where we may disclose this data to others and how we keep it secure. By using our website you agree to be bound by the terms of this policy.

Skenderoski and Lowther DOO (“Smidgin”, “we” and “us”) takes the issue of security and data protection very seriously and strictly adheres to guidelines published in The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), agreed upon by the European Parliament 2016/679 which is in force since the 25th May 2018. We are the data controller of any personal data that you provide us.

Any questions relating to this policy and our privacy practices should be sent to info@smidgin.mk

A Smidgin gift box in kraft card, closed with twine and a coral Smidgin seal

How we collect information from you and what information we collect
We collect personal information that you give us by filling in forms on our website or purchasing products on our website. It includes information that you provide when you become a Gin Friend and place an order on our website.

We collect the following personal information about you: Name, e-mail address, shipping address, and clicks on our website from your use of our online services.

Why we need this information about you
We need your information and use the information we collect about you:

to enable us to supply you with products and services that you have requested;
to help us with understanding more about how our site is used;
to be able to send you communications that may be of interest to you, either electronically or otherwise;
for all other purposes consistent with the proper performance of our operations.

Marketing
It is your choice whether you receive information such as marketing from us. If you indicated that you are interested in receiving regular information about Smidgin Gin’s activities by signing up to become a Gin Friend, we will send you communications electronically. We will not contact you for marketing purposes unless you have given your prior consent. If, at any time, you no longer wish to receive this information, please send a written request to info@smidgin.mk.

Trustpilot Reviews
Skenderoski and Lowther DOO may contact you via email to invite you to review any services and/or products you received from us in order to collect your feedback and improve our services and products.

Cookies and analytics
A cookie is a small file a website leaves on your device so it can recognise the same browser on a later visit. We use two kinds, and we treat them differently.

The first kind is what makes the site work at all: remembering that you have confirmed your age, that you have already seen our subscription offer, and the security token that protects the forms you submit to us. These are set because the site cannot function without them, they carry no advertising value, and we do not ask permission for them.

The second kind is measurement. We use Google Analytics 4, a service of Google Ireland Limited, to count visits and to see which pages people actually read, so we know what is worth writing more of. It records the pages you open, roughly where in the world you are, the type of device and browser you use, and where you arrived from, such as a search engine or a link on Instagram. It does not record your name, your email address, or anything you type into a form, and we do not use it to advertise to you anywhere. Google uses your IP address to work out roughly which country you are in and then discards it: it is not logged and not stored, by Google or by us. The advertising features of the product are switched off in our configuration.

This second kind runs only if you agree. When you first arrive you are asked, in plain words, and nothing is stored on your device for measurement until you press accept. If you decline, or simply never answer, the site behaves in exactly the same way. Your answer is remembered for one year, after which we ask again. To change your mind sooner, clear this site's data in your browser settings and you will be asked afresh on your next visit. You can also install Google's own opt-out add-on, which blocks Analytics on every site you visit, from tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

We also use Microsoft Clarity, a service of Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited, and this one deserves a plain description because it does more than count. Clarity builds a map of where people click on each page, and it records a replay of how the page was used: the movement of the pointer, the clicks, the scrolling, and which pages were opened in what order. It is what tells us that a button nobody presses is in the wrong place, or that a page everyone abandons halfway is too long.

What it does not capture: anything you type. Every form on this site, the newsletter sign-up and the booking request alike, is marked in the page itself so its contents never reach a recording, and Clarity additionally hides numbers and email addresses by default. It does not read your camera, your microphone, your clipboard, or any other tab. The recording is of this site's own pages and nothing else on your screen. The administration area of this site is not instrumented at all.

Recording runs only if you press accept. Unlike the visit counting above, which sends an anonymous signal either way, the Clarity code is not loaded into the page at all until you agree, so a visitor who declines or never answers is never recorded, not even briefly. Clarity offers a mode that would allow a cookieless recording without asking; we do not use it.

Google processes this data on our behalf and may transfer it outside the European Economic Area. Those transfers are covered by the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and by the standard contractual clauses in our agreement with Google. Microsoft likewise acts on our behalf and may transfer data outside the European Economic Area under the same framework and the standard contractual clauses in its terms; Clarity keeps recordings for a limited period and then deletes them. Our lawful basis for measurement is your consent, which you may withdraw at any time by the means described above, and withdrawing it does not affect anything we lawfully did before you withdrew it. If you would rather not deal with any of this, writing to info@smidgin.mk works too.