Disclosure · Privacy · Terms
The fine print, written so you can actually read it.
The disclosure comes first and is not a draft: the research earns nothing, and that is what lets it say when a program is a bad deal.
How we make money, and how that affects what you read
The research pays us nothing
The offer index, the offer pages and the traffic reviews carry no ads and no affiliate links. Every link out of them goes to the company’s own page. Nothing published there earns Ancaster money, which is why it is able to say when a program is a bad deal.
A publisher’s pages carry their link
When a publisher shares an Ancaster page of their own, the button uses their affiliate or referral link and they earn a commission if you buy. It costs you nothing extra, and the page says so at the top, before anything else.
Where Ancaster’s money comes from
One rule. If the publisher brought the deal, Ancaster takes 0%. If Ancaster brought the brand, it takes 10% of that placement, capped at $250 per deal — out of the publisher’s price and never on top — and both sides see the same receipt. Affiliate commissions are never touched. No company can pay to be listed, ranked higher, or reviewed more kindly.
Our own products
Aldershot, a video-editing tool, is made by the same people as Ancaster. Wherever it appears it is labelled as ours.
Endorsement rules
Publishers using Ancaster must disclose that they earn a commission, in line with the FTC’s Endorsement Guides and each program’s own terms. The pages and ad formats include that disclosure automatically and will not render without it.
What data we collect
Draft · needs legal reviewWhen you click an Ancaster link
We record the click: which link, which page, where the click came from — a podcast, a video, a newsletter, or direct — and when. The publisher’s credit travels in the link itself, in the program’s own sub-ID field, per placement — Ancaster sets no cookie on you. That is all.
What we never collect
No third-party cookies, no tracking across other websites, no device fingerprinting, and no profile of who you are or what else you read. We do not sell data, and there is nowhere in the system to store an identifier that would follow you between sites.
If you have an account
Your email, your handle, the links you create, and any feeds you connect. We read your published work to suggest offers; we never read who your audience is, and nothing about an individual reader ever appears on a page a brand sees.
If you subscribe to email
Your email address, used only to send what you signed up for. Every email has an unsubscribe link. On a publisher’s page, saving something adds you to that publisher’s list, not ours.
Who sees what
Advertisers see totals — clicks per publisher and per channel — never individual visitors. When you continue to a company’s site, their own affiliate program receives the click as it normally would.
Your rights
You can ask for a copy of your data or for it to be deleted, and publishers can export their links and their data at any time.
Terms of use
Draft · needs legal reviewWho these terms are for
Anyone using Ancaster: publishers who share links, advertisers who run offers, and readers who visit a publisher’s pages.
What Ancaster is
A link, page and tracking service. For an outside affiliate program your agreement is with that program, which pays you directly; Ancaster is not a party to it.
What is not allowed
Gambling, crypto and get-rich schemes; spam; fake or automated clicks; misleading claims; and anything that breaks a program’s own terms. Accounts that break these rules are closed.
Publishers
You are responsible for disclosing that you earn a commission and for following each program’s rules, such as bans on bidding for a brand’s name. Your links and your data are yours and you can take them with you.
Advertisers
Your terms must be accurate and honoured. You do not approve reviews and you do not choose which publishers promote you: anyone who meets your published terms may.
A placement, and the invoice for it
A placement is an agreement between the publisher and the advertiser. Ancaster introduces them, records what was agreed, tracks the link and issues the invoice in the publisher’s name — and is not a party to it. The money moves directly between the two of you by whatever means you already use; Ancaster does not take that payment, does not hold it, and does not guarantee it. Our fee applies only when Ancaster brought the brand: 10% of the placement, capped at $250 per deal and shown on the same receipt to both sides.
Your own domain
If you point a hostname at Ancaster we serve your links and your pages on it, and nothing else. Remove it and the hostname stops answering; every link keeps working at its anc.st address, so nothing you have already sent out breaks.
Our research
Anyone may quote the index, as long as the figure keeps its source and the date it was checked. Figures change without notice; check the company’s own page before acting on one.
Changes
If these terms change, the new version and its date are published here before it takes effect.
Two of the three sections above are drafts and say so. They describe how the product is built and intended to work, and they have not been reviewed by a lawyer; where money moves between an advertiser and a publisher, that review has to happen before it moves. Nothing here is legal advice.