Last updated · 2 October 2026
Who I am
This site is run by Maklain Partners Limited, a company registered in England and Wales, number 17381124, with its registered office at 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9JQ, trading as The Marketing Blind Spot. Maklain is the data controller for everything described here, and is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under reference ZC215976.
For anything on this page, email alan@themarketingblindspot.com.
The short version
I collect as little as I can get away with. I don't sell anything to anyone, I don't run advertising trackers, and every email I send has a working unsubscribe link in it.
The rest of this page is the detail, because you're entitled to it.
What I collect, and why
If you subscribe to the letter. Your email address. I use it to send you one letter a month and nothing else. The lawful basis is your consent, given when you enter your address, and you can withdraw it at any time by clicking unsubscribe.
If you use the contact form. Your name, email address and whatever you write in the message. I use it to reply to you and, if it turns into a commercial conversation, to keep track of that conversation. The lawful basis is legitimate interests, specifically running a business and answering people who get in touch.
If you book the course. Your name, email address, delivery address, and a company name and VAT number if you enter them. Payment is taken by Stripe, and I never see or store your card details. I use what I hold to give you access to the course, post you a book, and keep the accounting records I'm legally required to keep. The lawful basis is performance of a contract, and legal obligation for the accounting records.
Booking the course also puts you on the letter, which is said at checkout. You can leave in one click and it makes no difference to your place on the course.
If you use Calibrate, the free self-assessment. Calibrate runs on its own site and collects your answers, your score and, if you give it, your email address so it can send your results. The lawful basis is consent. Your answers tell me about your business, not about you personally, and I don't publish or share them.
If you read a page. The server records the usual technical information: the page requested, the time, a rough location derived from your IP address, and what browser you used. This is how a website works. It's kept briefly and used to keep the site up.
Analytics. No analytics product is installed. The site sets no advertising or tracking cookies, so there's no banner, because there's nothing to consent to.
Who else touches it
I use a small number of suppliers to run the site. Each of them only processes data on my instructions and under a contract.
| Netlify | Hosts the site and receives form submissions |
| Neon | The database holding course enrolments and Calibrate results |
| Resend | Sends the letter, the Calibrate results and course emails |
| Stripe | Takes course payments. They're a controller in their own right for payment data. |
| Pipedrive | Holds commercial conversations that come out of enquiries |
That's the list. Nobody else gets your data, and none of it is sold, rented or shared for anyone else's marketing.
Where it goes
Some of those suppliers process data outside the UK, mostly in the United States. Where that happens it's covered by the safeguards UK law requires, either an adequacy decision including the UK extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, or standard contractual clauses with the UK addendum.
How long I keep it
The letter. Until you unsubscribe. After that I keep a record that you unsubscribed, indefinitely, so you don't get added back by accident.
Enquiries. Two years from our last exchange, unless it becomes a client relationship.
Course records. Seven years, because that's how long the accounting records have to be kept.
Calibrate results. Two years, then deleted.
What you can ask me to do
You can ask me for a copy of what I hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, to stop using it for a particular purpose, or to hand it to someone else. You can withdraw consent at any time. None of it costs anything and I'll respond within a month.
Email alan@themarketingblindspot.com and say what you want. I'd rather you asked than wondered.
If you think I've handled your data badly, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk. I'd appreciate the chance to fix it first, but that's your call and not a condition.
Cookies
The site sets no advertising or tracking cookies, and nothing that sets a cookie is installed, so there's no banner and nothing to consent to.
Changes
If I change how any of this works, I'll change this page and update the date at the top. If the change is significant and you're on the letter, I'll tell you in it.