Mainstay

Privacy policy

What Mainstay collects, what it doesn't, and how analytics and affiliate links work. Plain language, last reviewed October 9, 2026.

Mainstay is a static informational website, and we collect as little as possible. This policy explains what that means in practice. It was last reviewed on October 9, 2026; if it changes materially, we'll update the date here.

What we collect

We don't ask you to create an account, and we don't sell data. If you email us, we keep your message so we can reply. If you subscribe to our price-change notifications, we store the email address you give us solely to send those updates, and you can unsubscribe at any time. We also use Google Analytics 4 to understand which pages are useful — the next section explains what it records and how to say no.

Analytics and cookies

Google Analytics 4 is provided by Google LLC and Google Ireland Ltd. On Mainstay it records the pages you view, the site that referred you, your approximate location to city or country level, your device and browser type, and the timing of your session. It does not log or store IP addresses. We've left advertising features, Google signals and ad personalisation turned off, so the data isn't used for advertising, and we don't sell it.

If analytics is allowed, GA4 sets the first-party cookies _ga and _ga_<ID>, which can remain for up to two years; until then, neither is set. Visitors in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland are asked first with a banner, and no data goes to Google unless they click Accept. For everyone else, analytics runs by default and can be switched off at any point. We honour the Global Privacy Control signal: a browser that sends it is treated as opted out. Your preference is stored in your browser's local storage (under analytics-consent), not as a cookie.

You can change your analytics choice at any time — the link brings the banner back. For Google's side of things, read Google's privacy policy; Google also offers an add-on that opts your browser out of Google Analytics.

Some outbound links are affiliate links. When you click one, the hosting company or its affiliate network may set a cookie to attribute a later purchase to us, which is how we earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Those cookies are controlled by the destination site under its own privacy policy, not ours. You can clear or block cookies in your browser settings. See our affiliate disclosure for how this affects our recommendations (it doesn't).

Your choices

You can browse the whole site without creating an account or giving us your name or email. You can unsubscribe from notifications using the link in any email we send, and you can ask us to delete a message you've sent us by replying to it. If you have a question about your data, email [email protected] and we'll help.