Privacy policy

The amount, term and rate you enter are used to render the result on your screen. The calculation happens in the page itself, so the figures are not sent to a server, not written to storage, and not retained after you close the page.

One anonymous statistic is reported to Google Analytics when you change the amount or the term: which of six broad bands the amount falls in (under $5,000, $5,000 to $10,000, $10,000 to $25,000, $25,000 to $50,000, $50,000 to $100,000, or above $100,000) and the term in years. The amount itself is never sent, and neither is the rate or the compounding you chose.

That band is what tells us which sizes of deposit this calculator is actually used for, which decides what gets built next. It is not tied to a name, an email address or anything you have typed elsewhere on the site, and a band covering thousands of readers cannot identify any of them.

We collect only what is necessary to run the site and understand whether it is useful. If you email us, we hold that correspondence so we can reply to it.

The site uses Google Analytics 4 to count visits. It records the pages you view, the approximate location and device type your browser reports, two kinds of click (a click out to an institution’s own rate page, and a click into the rate-alert signup), and the banded calculator statistic described above. It does not receive the amount you type into the calculator, or anything you type into a form.

Google is a United States company and processes this data outside Canada. Blocking the googletagmanager.com domain, or using Google’s own opt-out browser extension, stops the site reporting to it, and the site works exactly the same without it.

The contact form asks for an email address and a message, and optionally your name. If you are reporting a wrong rate it also offers four fields for the institution and term, the correct rate, the date you saw it, and a link to the issuer’s own page.

Submissions are delivered and stored by Netlify, which hosts this site, and are emailed to the editor. Netlify is a United States company, so a message sent through the form is processed outside Canada. Emailing the address on the contact page directly avoids that.

Your address is used to reply and is not added to any mailing list. Submissions remain in the form store until they are deleted, so a message is not erased the moment it has been answered.

The rate alert form asks for an email address and which of the two emails you want: the monthly rate alert, the reminder before your GIC matures, or both. If you ask for the reminder you can also give the date your GIC matures, so the reminder can arrive thirty days before it. That date is optional and the alert works without it.

A submission goes first to Netlify, which hosts this site and stores it, and is then passed to MailerLite, which holds the list and sends the emails. Your address, your maturity date if you gave one, and which emails you chose are the only things passed on. Both companies are American, so subscribing means your address is processed outside Canada.

Every email carries a one-click unsubscribe, which removes you from the list at MailerLite. The address is used for these two emails and nothing else: it is never sold, and no institution listed on this site is given access to it.

Where we do hold information, it is used to:

• provide and maintain the calculator and rate tables
• improve the site and understand which pages are useful
• respond to your enquiries and corrections
• detect and prevent technical problems

We apply appropriate measures to protect any information we hold. No method of transmission over the internet is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

We may update this policy. Any change will be posted here with a revised date at the top of the page, rather than applied silently.

Published by Croton Holdings LLC. Questions about this policy go to daniel@crotoncontent.com.