What we collect
TheGearSports Scuba Diving is a content site. You do not need an account, and we do not ask you to submit personal information to read it. The data collected is limited to standard website analytics, a log of clicks on our product links, affiliate-referral tracking, and the questions you choose to send to Ask The Gear, all described below. We do not sell your personal information.
Analytics
We use Google Analytics (GA4) to understand how visitors use the site: which pages are read, general traffic patterns and aggregate usage. Google Analytics sets cookies and may collect data such as your approximate location, device and browsing behavior on our site, governed by Google's own privacy policy. We use this only in aggregate to improve the site.
Product link clicks
Our gear links pass through our own short-link service (go.veryation.com) before reaching the retailer. For each click it records the link, the page you clicked from, the time, your browser type, your country and a one-way hashed form of your IP address (not the address itself). We use this to see which guides and links are useful and to filter out automated traffic.
Ask The Gear
If you use the Ask The Gear button (the gear icon), your question is sent to our server and to Anthropic, which provides the AI model that writes the answer. We store the question, the page you asked it from, the date and time, your country as reported by Cloudflare, and details of the answer (its length, the pages it drew on, any gear links it suggested, and how well our pages covered the question), so we can see what readers ask, improve the site and limit daily use. We do not store your IP address with your question; Cloudflare uses it briefly to limit how many questions can be sent per minute. Answers can be wrong, so check the linked pages, and please do not include personal information in your questions.
Affiliate tracking
When you click an affiliate link, the retailer or affiliate network may set a cookie to credit a referral if you make a purchase. That tracking is handled by those third parties under their own privacy policies; we receive aggregate commission data, not your personal purchase details.
Site preferences
If you switch between light and dark mode, your choice is saved in your own browser so the site remembers it. It is never sent to us. Your browser also remembers for up to 10 minutes whether Ask The Gear is available, so the site does not have to check on every page.
Your choices
You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, and you can opt out of Google Analytics with Google's browser add-on. Questions about this policy can go to hello@thegearsports.com.