Nothing here was bought.
When someone asks how you got their details, this is your answer.
We never log in to a social site to pull data, and never run anything inside your accounts there.
We never swap address books between customers or re-use anything you upload. A fact we cannot trace, we do not sell.
Three places for contact details. That's all.
The public register
Companies House, the government's record of every UK company: names, addresses, trades, deadlines and directors. We read all of it: 5.1 million active companies. A company's registered office is also where a letter to it goes.
Their own website
Only what a company publishes about itself, such as the email on its contact page.
A normal web search
Public profile links, found by searching, the way you would. We never log in to look.
The dated reason on a lead can also come from a list the government publishes: Companies House's daily file of filed accounts, the Home Office's register of licensed sponsors, HMRC's list of importers, the Food Standards Agency's food hygiene ratings, the Care Quality Commission's directory of registered care services and their ratings, Contracts Finder, Find a Tender, the ICO's register of data protection fee payers and UKRI's list of Innovate UK projects. From these we keep the company and the day, never a person. We also read Companies House's record of filings as they are made: statements of capital, notifications of people with significant control, auditors' resignations, and strike-off and Gazette notices. From a filing we keep the company, the kind of filing and the day, never a person, even when the filing names one.
Contains information from the Care Quality Commission, under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Follow one fact all the way back.
Pick a line to see where it came from, how we checked it, and what to say if someone asks.
The legal part, in plain words.
01Is this allowed?+
Yes. UK law lets you email a limited company about something relevant to its business. It does not let you email a person at home, so sole traders and partnerships are held back automatically and never charged for. A letter is different: it goes to the company at its registered office, and only to an address our check reads as one a letter can go to.
02What goes in the email itself?+
Every email we draft carries a short note at the bottom saying where the reader's details came from and how to be removed. It is in the message itself, not hidden on a web page. Every letter says at its foot who sent it, that the address came from the public Companies House register, and how to stop letters.
03How long do you keep it?+
While a company is on the public record, re-checked on the 1st of every month. When it leaves the record, its personal details are deleted, never sold on.
04How does someone get taken off?+
Anyone can ask to be taken out, without an account, and it is done within 24 hours and holds for good.