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Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2026-06-02

1. Introduction

WiseStockTrader.com ("we", "us", "our") is a community website that provides a free community database of technical analysis indicators, oscillators, and trading systems for popular charting platforms. This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, how we use and protect it, and the rights you have over your data.

This policy is drafted primarily to comply with widely-accepted principles of data protection. For visitors in the European Economic Area (EEA) or United Kingdom, we additionally acknowledge obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and UK GDPR, and we describe your relevant rights in Section 9 below.

By using this website you agree to the practices described in this policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the site.

2. Who We Are

Website
WiseStockTrader.com
Operator
Operated by an individual
Privacy contact
support@wisestocktrader.com — or submit a message via the Feedback Form.

3. What Information We Collect

3.1 Account Data (registered users only)

  • Username — displayed publicly next to your contributions.
  • Email address — used for account activation, password reset, and optional notifications. Not displayed publicly.
  • Password — stored as a salted SHA-1 hash; the plain-text password is never retained.
  • Reward points, account status, group membership — internal moderation metadata.
  • Registration timestamp and last-visited timestamp — used for dormant-account review and security analysis.

3.2 User-Generated Content

  • Indicators — title, description, formula code, screenshots and attachment files (via Paperclip/file storage). These are displayed publicly once approved.
  • Comments — text of comments left on indicators, trading platform listings, and news posts.
  • Ratings — numeric star ratings attached to indicators and trading platform listings.
  • Favourites — which indicators you have bookmarked (private to your account).
  • Trading platform listing submissions — including any review text you submit.
  • Indicator Paste Bin — short formula pastes submitted through the paste bin feature.

3.3 Technical / Log Data

  • IP address — recorded in our ips table and linked to your account via user_ips for security, abuse-prevention, and rate-limiting purposes.
  • Browser user-agent string — captured alongside the IP for abuse-pattern detection.
  • HTTP referer header — captured alongside the IP to understand inbound traffic sources.
  • Page-view timestamps — stored as activity metadata on your account record.

3.4 Cookies

  • Session cookie (_wisestocktrader_session) — essential. Keeps you logged in during a browser session.
  • CSRF token cookie — essential. Protects against cross-site request forgery attacks.
  • Consent cookie (wst_consent) — essential. Stores your cookie preferences so we can honour them on each page load. 1-year TTL.
  • Google Analytics cookies (_ga, _gid, etc.) — only set with your consent. Used by Google to measure sessions, page views, and aggregate site usage. See Google's Privacy Policy.
  • Google AdSense cookies — only set with your consent. Used by Google to serve and personalise advertisements. See Google's Advertising Policy.

4. How We Use Your Information

  • Operating the service — authenticating your account, displaying your submitted content, enabling search and browsing of indicators.
  • Communication — sending account-activation emails, password-reset emails, and (if you opt in) notification emails. Sent via our own mail server; we do not use third-party email-marketing platforms.
  • Security and abuse prevention — correlating IP addresses across accounts to detect ban evasion, spam, and other misuse. IP data is used to enforce rate limits on form submissions.
  • Site improvement — where you have consented to Analytics cookies, we review aggregated, anonymised pageview and session data via Google Analytics to understand which features are used most and to improve navigation.
  • Advertising — where you have consented to Advertising cookies, Google AdSense serves display advertisements in the site's rail columns. Revenue from advertising helps us cover hosting costs.
  • Legal compliance — retaining records as required by applicable law.

We do not sell your personal information to third parties, nor do we use it for automated profiling or decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects on you.

5. Third-Party Services

5.1 Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics (Universal Analytics / GA4) to collect anonymised data about how visitors use the site (pages viewed, session duration, approximate geography). This service is disabled until you consent to Analytics cookies. When enabled, data is transmitted to Google's servers and subject to Google's Privacy Policy. You can opt out globally using the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

5.2 Google AdSense

We use Google AdSense to display advertisements. AdSense may use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this or other websites. This service is disabled until you consent to Advertising cookies. You can manage Google's ad personalisation at adssettings.google.com.

5.3 Hosting Infrastructure

The site is hosted on a virtual private server provided by Akamai / Linode, located in the cloud infrastructure. Linode acts as a data processor on our behalf and does not independently access application-level data. See Linode's Privacy Policy.

5.4 Transactional Email

Account-related emails (activation, password reset) are sent via a mail server we operate on the same infrastructure. We do not use third-party email-marketing or transactional-email SaaS providers.

6. Data Retention

  • Active accounts — account data and associated content are retained for as long as your account remains active.
  • Deleted accounts — when you delete your account, your data is soft-deleted immediately (no longer accessible to other users). Backup copies are purged within 12 months.
  • IP and technical logs — IP address records are retained for up to 90 days for security purposes. After 90 days, individual IP data is aggregated and/or anonymised.
  • Inactive accounts — accounts with no login activity for more than 5 years are subject to periodic dormant-account review and may be anonymised or removed.
  • Consent cookie — retained for 1 year from the date you set your preferences.

7. International Data Transfers

Your data is stored and processed on Linode infrastructure. When you consent to Analytics or Advertising cookies, data is also transmitted to Google's servers, which may be located in the United States or other countries. Google's transfers rely on Standard Contractual Clauses and other mechanisms approved under applicable data-protection law. See Google's Privacy Policy for details.

8. Data Security

We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, interference, loss, and unauthorised access, modification, or disclosure. Measures include:

  • HTTPS / TLS encryption in transit.
  • Passwords stored as salted SHA-1 hashes — we cannot recover your plain-text password.
  • CSRF protection on all state-changing requests.
  • IP-based abuse detection and rate limiting.
  • Server access restricted to authorised personnel via SSH key authentication.

No method of transmission over the internet is 100% secure. In the event of a data breach that is likely to cause serious harm, we will notify affected individuals and your local supervisory authority where required by applicable data breach notification laws.

9. Your Rights

Under applicable data-protection law (including the GDPR where it applies to you), you have the following rights regarding your personal information:

  • Right of access — you may request a copy of the personal data we hold about you. Contact us at support@wisestocktrader.com.
  • Right of rectification — you can update most account information directly via your profile page. For other corrections, contact us.
  • Right of erasure ("right to be forgotten") — you may request deletion of your account and associated personal data. We will honour requests subject to any legal retention obligations.
  • Right to restrict processing — in certain circumstances you may ask us to restrict how we process your data.
  • Right to object — you may object to processing based on legitimate interests.
  • Right to data portability — you may request an export of your personal data in a machine-readable format where technically feasible.
  • Right to withdraw consent — you can change your cookie preferences at any time by clicking "Cookie Preferences" in the footer. Withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.
  • Right to complain — if you believe we have not handled your personal information properly, you have the right to lodge a complaint with:
    • Your local data-protection supervisory authority (for EEA/UK visitors).

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at support@wisestocktrader.com or use the Feedback Form. We will respond within 30 days (or within the statutory period required by applicable law).

10. Cookie Management

When you first visit WiseStockTrader.com, a cookie consent banner allows you to individually enable or disable Analytics and Advertising cookies. Essential cookies (session, CSRF, consent storage) cannot be disabled as they are required for the site to function.

You can review and change your cookie preferences at any time by clicking "Cookie Preferences" in the site footer. This deletes your stored preference and re-displays the banner on the next page load.

You can also control cookies through your browser settings. Note that disabling certain cookies may affect site functionality (e.g., you may be logged out).

11. Children

This site is not directed to children under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If you believe a child under 16 has provided us with personal information, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. For significant changes we will post a notice on the site. Continued use of the site after changes are posted constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy.

13. Contact Us

For any privacy-related questions, requests, or complaints, please contact us by:

We aim to respond to all enquiries within 30 days.