Privacy and Cookie Policy

About Us

Advanced Media Solutions (trading as oilprice.com) takes your privacy seriously and this includes our commitment to looking after the personal data you share with us. We respect your privacy and we want you to be confident that any personal data we hold is secure and processed in a lawful and professional way.

In this Policy we use the terms “we”, “us”, and “our” (and other similar terms) to refer to Advanced Media Solutions; we act as a data controller responsible for your personal data.

This privacy policy (the “Policy”) explains how we collect, store and process your personal data, whether it is provided by telephone, via our website, through correspondence, or where you may otherwise communicate with us in the course of the services we provide. It also explains the rights you have in relation to your personal data.

This Policy applies to anyone whose data we hold (including visitors to our website and people who do business with us or register for our services) but it does not apply to:

• Our employees; or,
• Services we provide as a data processor, which will be governed by a written agreement with the third party data controller and their own privacy policy.

We may change this Policy from time to time, so please check back regularly to keep informed of any updates.

Information we collect about you

Personal data means any information about you from which you can be identified. The personal data we collect depends on the nature of the services we are providing but can include:

• Identification data (including name, date of birth);
• Contact details (including postal address, email address and telephone number);
• Financial information (including bank account details and payment card details);
• Details of visits to our website (including your IP address, login information, and other analytical information); and,
• Any other personal data we collect in the course of providing services or in the course of operating our business, including posts in the Community pages of our website.

We will collect personal data about you by various means, including:

• Via our website;
• By telephone;
• By correspondence (including by post, text, email or otherwise);
• Networking events;
• Publicly accessible sources; and,
• Third parties.

If you provide us with personal information about another person, you must ensure that:

• You have the authority to give us that information; and,
• All personal data disclosed is complete, accurate and up to date.

If you are a business you must ensure that the disclosure is made in accordance with all applicable data protection or privacy law.

Our use of cookies

When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. Where services are delivered on the internet, this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your device, for example, your computer or mobile phone. These include small files known as cookies. They cannot be used to identify you personally.

We will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you. However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by our website, or indeed any other website, you can do this through your browser settings. The 'Help' function within your browser should tell you how.

Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your machine as well as more general information about cookies.

Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of our website. If you wish to view your cookie code, just click on a cookie to open it. You’ll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the server that gave you the cookie. For information on how to do this on the browser of your mobile phone you will need to refer to your handset manual.

To opt-out of third-parties collecting any data regarding your interaction on our website, please refer to their websites for further information.

How will we use your information?

In general we use your personal data for the following purposes:

• To communicate with you (including via our agents and subcontractors) on any matters relating to the conduct of your subscription and the provision of our website and subscription service;
• For business management purposes (M.I. data);
• To facilitate marketing and business development (including updates, publications and details of events);
• Staff administration (including recruitment);
• To provide telephone support (including recording conversations for monitoring/quality purposes);
• To allow the billing of services provided and to obtain payment;
• To process and respond to any complaints;
• To comply with any other legal, professional or regulatory obligations imposed on us; and,
• To monitor website usage in order to help us develop our services.

We may also wish to:

• provide you with information about special features of our website or any other service or products we think may be of interest to you; or,
• provide you with information from third parties we think may be of interest to you.

If you would rather we did not process your data for these purposes, please send an email to [email protected]. If you agree to us providing you with third party marketing information, you can always opt out at a later date.

We currently use the PayPal checkout system for all payments. For details of how PayPal protects your financial information please visit https://www.paypal.com/.

We do not use your personal data for automated decision making.

Legal basis for processing your information (EU Members and Subscribers)

We rely on the following legal reasons for processing your personal data:

• Contractual necessity: We will process your personal data when it is necessary to perform a contract you have entered into, or in order to provide information you have subscribed to receive, or to take steps at your request prior to entry into a contract, or where the processing is relevant to a historic contract or subscription.
• Legal obligation: We will process your personal data when it is necessary to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
• Legitimate interests: We will process your personal data when we, or a third party, have a legitimate interest in processing it (e.g. responding to complaints, ensuring our business policies are adhered to, or improving our business by monitoring and recording information relating to our services). We only process for this reason if the legitimate interest is not overridden by your own interests or fundamental rights or freedoms. Please contact us if you would like more information on our, or a third party’s, legitimate interests and the balancing test we use to ensure processing is lawful.
• Consent: in some circumstances, we will ask for your consent to process your data for certain purposes. When we ask you for your consent, we will explain what those purposes are and explain your right to withdraw it. If you do not respond to our request we will assume that you wish any pre-existing consent or basis of processing to remain in place.

We will only use your personal data for the purpose, or purposes, for which we have obtained it. If we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason we will only do so if that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will inform you and explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

We may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent where this is required by law.

Please contact us if you would like further information on the lawful basis for any specific data processing activity.

Sharing your information

We will share your personal data when:

• You specifically request it, or it is necessary for us to provide our services and fulfil our contractual obligations to you and/or our clients;
• We are under a legal or regulatory duty to disclose your information (e.g. money laundering and fraud prevention);
• As a result of any changes in business ownership or organisation; or,
• In the course of providing our services to you we believe it is in your best interests to use the products or services of a third party.

Who exactly we share your data with will depend on the nature of the service we are providing but can include:

• Our auditors;
• Law enforcement agencies;
• Public bodies;
• Other professional advisors or third parties who we instruct in the course of providing our services to you;
• Our external service suppliers who provide business support services (including IT, security,  data storage);
• Carefully selected third parties whose products and services we feel you may be interested in;
• Analytics and search engine providers who assist in improving our website; and,
• Any other third party you may ask us to share your data with.

If you would rather we did not process your data for these purposes, please send an email to [email protected]. If you agree to us providing you with third party marketing information, you can always opt out at a later date.

International transfers

The information you provide may be transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area ('EEA') that do not have similar protections in place regarding your data and restrictions on its use as set out in this policy. However, we will take steps to ensure adequate protections are in place to ensure the security of your information. The EEA comprises the EU member states plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

If you are a subscriber or member using our services within the EU, we will only transfer data outside the EEA where this is:

• done with your informed consent; or
• necessary for the performance of a contract between you and us or for pre-contractual steps taken at your request; or
• necessary for the performance of a contract made in your interests between the us and a third party.

Storage and retention of your personal data

Your information may be held at our offices or with our external service providers as outlined above. We are committed to the security of your data. All appropriate technological and organisational measures have been put in place to protect your data from unauthorised access.

How long we retain your personal data for will vary but will be determined in accordance will the following criteria:

• The length of time necessary to provide the services for which you have subscribed or the period of your membership;
• Any time limits for establishing or defending legal claims or responding to complaints;
• Any period necessary to comply with our legal obligations; and,
• Any period for retention that is recommended by regulators or professional bodies.

Please contact us if you would like further information on the retention period for your personal data.

Your rights

You have the right to obtain confirmation from us as to whether we are processing your personal data and, if we are, to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you. This is known as a ‘data subject request’. You also have the right to ask that we update any information we hold about you that may be incorrect. It is important that the information we hold about you is accurate and up to date. If any of your personal information changes please let us know.

In certain circumstances you have the right to request that we restrict the way in which we process your data, or that we erase all personal information that we hold about you.

You have the right to object to certain types of processing.

We will try our best to comply with any request to restrict, object or erase your personal data, however processing of some data may still be required for legitimate business purposes or to comply with legal obligations. Please note that if you want us to restrict or stop processing your data this may prevent us from providing our services to you.

You have the right to request that we send a copy of your personal data, that you have provided to us, to another organisation for your own purposes (e.g. if you wish to change service provider). This data must be provided in a structured and usable format. This right only applies to personal data processed by way of consent or in pursuant to our contract with you. If you wish us to transfer your personal data please let us know.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data or to exercise any of your other rights. However we may charge a reasonable fee should your request be clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. In order to prevent unauthorised access to information we may ask for proof of identity. We will do our best to respond to your request within one month, however if that is not possible due to the number or complexity of requests we will notify you and keep you updated.

Your Concerns

If you wish to raise a concern about how we have handled your personal data please contact us and we will be happy to discuss your concerns. We welcome your views about our website and our privacy policy. If you would like to contact us with any queries or comments please send an email to [email protected].

If you are a citizen of the EU, you have the right to raise a concern at any time with the Information Commissioner for the member state in which you reside.

Your Consent

By submitting your personal information you consent to the use of that information as set out in this policy. For members and subscribers in the EU, the basis of processing under the General Data Protection Regulation will only be ‘consent’ where this has been sought for a specific purpose.

Third-Party Advertising

We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our Web site. These companies may place cookies our use your IP address or other aggregated information (not including your name, address, email address or telephone number), about your visits to this and other Web sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here: http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.

This Site is affiliated with Freestar for the purposes of placing advertising on the Site, and Freestar will collect and use certain data for advertising purposes. To learn more about Freestar's data usage, click here: https://freestar.com/privacy-policy/.

Changes to privacy policy

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. If we change our privacy policy we will post the changes on this page, and place notices on other pages of the website, so that you may be aware of the information we collect and how we use it at all times. This privacy policy was last updated on 31st Jan 2023.