Privacy Policy

Pétanque Central
Last Updated: September 27, 2026
Effective Date: September 27, 2026

Pétanque Central (“we,” “us,” or “our”) operates the website petanquecentral.com (the “Site”). We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal information. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose and safeguard your information when you visit our Site.

Your privacy choices: in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Canada, analytics and advertising tools on this Site run only with your permission. Elsewhere they are active unless you switch them off. Change your privacy choices at any time.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. If you do not agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy, please do not access the Site.

We reserve the right to make changes to this Privacy Policy at any time and for any reason. We will alert you about any changes by updating the “Last Updated” date of this Privacy Policy. You are encouraged to periodically review this Privacy Policy to stay informed of updates. You will be deemed to have been made aware of, will be subject to and will be deemed to have accepted the changes in any revised Privacy Policy through your continued use of the Site after the date such revised Privacy Policy is posted.

Information We Collect

We may collect information about you in a variety of ways. The information we may collect on the Site includes:

Personal Data You Provide Directly

We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide to us when you:

Register for an Account

When you create a Pétanque Central account, we collect:

Full name
Email address
Password (encrypted)
Location (city, state/province, country)
Optional profile information (bio, profile photo, pétanque experience level)

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

When you sign up for our email newsletter, we collect:

Email address
First name (optional)
Pétanque experience level (optional)
Location (optional)
Content preferences (optional)

Download Resources

When you download lead magnets or other gated content, we collect:

Email address
Name
Additional information relevant to the specific resource

Submit Content

When you submit content to our Site (club listings, stories, photos, forum posts), we collect:

Your name or username
Email address
The content you submit
Any additional information included in your submission

Contact Us

When you contact us through our contact form or email, we collect:

Your name
Email address
Phone number (if provided)
The content of your message
Any attachments you include

Participate in Surveys or Contests

When you participate in surveys, contests or promotional activities, we collect:

Contact information
Demographic information
Survey responses
Any other information you choose to provide

Club Directory Submissions

When you submit a club listing for our directory at https://petanquecentral.com/clubs/, we collect:

Club name
Club location and address
Contact person name
Contact email and phone number
Club website and social media links
Meeting schedules and playing times
Facility descriptions
Photos of the club or playing area

This information becomes publicly visible on our Site to help players find clubs in their area. Contact information for clubs will be displayed according to the preferences indicated during submission.

Community Participation

When you participate in our community features, we collect:

Forum Posts and Comments

Username or display name
Content of your posts and replies
Timestamps
Any media you upload

Stories and Spotlights

When you submit your pétanque story, we collect:

Your name (or preferred display name)
Email address
Location
Your written story
Photos (with your permission to publish)

Event RSVPs

When you RSVP to events through our Site, we collect:

Your name
Email address
Number of attendees
Any special requirements or notes

Information Collected Automatically

When you access our Site, we automatically collect certain information about your device and your visit:

Device Information

Device type (desktop, mobile, tablet)
Operating system
Browser type and version
Screen resolution
Device identifiers

Log Data

IP address
Pages visited
Time spent on pages
Links clicked
Date and time of visits
Referring URLs
Exit pages

Location Information

We may collect general location information based on your IP address to provide location-relevant content (such as clubs near you). We do not collect precise GPS location data without your explicit consent.

Cookies and Tracking Technologies

We use cookies, browser storage and similar technologies. If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Switzerland or Canada, or if we cannot tell where you are, anything that measures how the Site is used or supports advertising stays off until you allow it in our privacy choices banner. Everywhere else, these tools are active unless you switch them off. You can change your choice at any time.

Strictly necessary (always on)

pc_consent (Pétanque Central, 12 months): stores your privacy choices and a random consent ID.
pc_geo (Pétanque Central, browser session storage, deleted when you close your browser): notes if the privacy banner applies where you are, so your browser checks your country with Cloudflare only once per visit. We do not store your country.
pcml_pref (Pétanque Central): remembers the language you picked.
Security cookies (Cloudflare and SiteGround): short-lived cookies that help filter automated and abusive traffic.

Analytics (with your consent in the EEA, UK, Switzerland and Canada)

Google Analytics 4 (Google): _ga and _ga_* cookies, which last up to 2 years.
Microsoft Clarity (Microsoft): _clck and _clsk cookies on our domain, plus Microsoft cookies, including CLID and MUID, on Microsoft domains.

Marketing (with your consent in the EEA, UK, Switzerland and Canada)

No marketing or advertising pixels run on the Site today. If we add pixels from social media or advertising platforms, they will follow the Marketing setting: off until you switch it on in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Canada, and active elsewhere unless you switch it off or your browser sends Global Privacy Control. We will list them in this policy first.

Tools that do not set tracking cookies

Cloudflare Web Analytics: counts page views without cookies.
UserWay: our accessibility menu stores the settings you pick in your browser.

Managing your choices

Use Privacy choices to change or withdraw your consent. Withdrawing consent removes the analytics and marketing cookies set on our domain and stops these tools right away.
Your browser settings let you block or delete cookies.
If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, marketing stays off.

Information from Third Parties

We may receive information about you from third parties, including:

Social Media Platforms

If you interact with us on social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc.), we may collect information that you make publicly available.

Analytics Providers

We receive aggregated and anonymized data from analytics providers about how users interact with our Site.

Email Service Providers

Our email marketing platform provides us with information about email engagement (opens, clicks, unsubscribes).

How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for several purposes:

Providing and Improving Our Services

To operate, maintain and improve the Site
To process your account registration
To deliver requested content and resources
To respond to your inquiries and provide customer support
To display and maintain the club directory
To publish community content (stories, photos, forum posts)
To send you event notifications and updates
To personalize your experience on the Site

Communications

To send you our newsletter (if you’ve subscribed)
To send you updates about your account
To respond to your comments and questions
To send you information about new content, features or resources
To request your feedback or participation in surveys
To send you information about events and tournaments in your area

Analytics and Research

To understand how people use our Site
To identify trends and patterns in user behavior
To measure the effectiveness of our content
To conduct research to improve our offerings
To create aggregated, anonymized statistics

Legal and Safety

To comply with applicable laws and regulations
To enforce our Terms of Service
To protect our rights, privacy, safety or property
To protect against fraudulent, harmful or illegal activity
To respond to legal requests and prevent harm

Legal Basis for Processing (For EU/EEA/UK Users)

If you are located in the European Union, European Economic Area or United Kingdom, we process your personal data on the following legal bases:

Consent: analytics tools (Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity), any marketing pixels, newsletter sign-ups and stories you submit. You can withdraw consent at any time.

Contract: when processing is necessary to provide a service you asked for.

Legitimate interests: keeping the Site secure and available (Cloudflare and our host), offering the accessibility menu (UserWay) and answering your messages, where your rights do not override these interests.

Legal obligation: when processing is necessary to comply with the law, including keeping records of the consent choices you make.

How We Share Your Information

We do not sell your personal information. We may share your information in the following situations:

With Your Consent

We may share your information when you have given us explicit permission to do so.

Public Content

Information you choose to make public on our Site will be visible to other users:

Club directory listings
Forum posts and comments
Community stories and photos
Public profile information (if you create an account)

Service Providers

We share information with service providers who work on our behalf:

Hosting: SiteGround hosts the Site and its database.
Security and content delivery: Cloudflare delivers our pages and protects the Site from attacks and abuse.
Analytics: Google (Google Analytics 4) and Microsoft (Clarity), with your consent where the law requires it (see the Cookies section).
Accessibility: UserWay provides the accessibility menu.
Email marketing: an email service provider sends our newsletter and messages.
Form processing: form handling services process contact messages and club submissions.

These providers may use your information only to perform tasks for us and must protect it.

Business Partners

We may share information with trusted partners for:

Co-sponsored events or content
Joint promotional activities
Research collaborations

We will only share your information with partners when we have your consent or when it’s necessary to provide a service you’ve requested.

Legal Requirements

We may disclose your information when required to do so to:

Comply with a legal obligation
Respond to lawful requests from public authorities
Protect and defend our rights or property
Prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing
Protect the personal safety of users or the public

Business Transfers

If Pétanque Central is involved in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you of any such change in ownership or control of your personal information.

Aggregated or De-Identified Data

We may share aggregated or de-identified information that cannot reasonably be used to identify you. For example, we may share general statistics about pétanque participation in different regions.

Third-Party Services

Our Site uses the following third-party services:

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics 4 to understand how people use the Site, for example which pages they read and how they found us. Where your consent is required, Google Consent Mode stays set to “denied” and the Google Analytics script does not load until you allow it.

Google Analytics sets the _ga cookies and receives your IP address, device and browser details and the pages you view. We do not combine this data with information that identifies you, and Google keeps it for the retention period set in our account, no longer than 14 months.

See Google’s Privacy Policy and how Google uses information from sites that use its services.

Microsoft Clarity

We use Microsoft Clarity to see how our pages work for readers. Clarity records clicks, taps, scrolling, mouse movement and page layout to build session replays and heatmaps.

Clarity always masks what you type into form fields, and that content never leaves your browser. Microsoft keeps recordings for 30 days and heatmaps for up to 9 months, and it keeps a sample of recordings for up to 9 months.

See the Microsoft Privacy Statement.

Cloudflare

Cloudflare delivers the Site and protects it from attacks and abuse, which requires processing your IP address and request details. We also use Cloudflare Web Analytics, which counts page views without cookies.

See Cloudflare’s Privacy Policy.

UserWay

UserWay provides the accessibility menu (the round icon in the bottom corner of the screen). The menu loads for everyone so that accessibility features are always available.

When it loads, UserWay’s servers receive your IP address and technical details about your browser, and the settings you pick are stored in your browser. See the UserWay Privacy Policy.

Advertising and Social Media Pixels

We may add pixels from social media or advertising platforms, for example Meta, TikTok, Pinterest or LinkedIn, to measure our ads. They will follow the Marketing setting described in the Cookies section, and we will name each one here before it goes live.

Email Service Provider

We use a third-party email service to send newsletters and communications. When you subscribe to our email list, your information is stored on their servers. Our email service provider is contractually obligated to protect your information and use it only for the purposes we specify.

Social Media Platforms

Our Site includes social media features, such as sharing buttons and links to our social media profiles. These features may collect your IP address and which page you are visiting on our Site. Social media features are governed by the privacy policies of the respective platforms:

Embedded Content

Our Site may include embedded content from other websites (such as YouTube videos). Embedded content from other websites behaves exactly as if you had visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies and monitor your interaction with the embedded content.

Maps and Location Services

Our club map uses Leaflet with map tiles from OpenStreetMap. When the map loads, your browser requests tiles from OpenStreetMap servers, which receive your IP address.

See the OpenStreetMap Foundation Privacy Policy.

Data Retention

We retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, including to satisfy any legal, accounting or reporting requirements.

Account Information: We retain your account information for as long as your account is active. If you close your account, we will delete or anonymize your personal information within 90 days, unless we are required to retain it for legal reasons.

Email Subscriptions: We retain your email subscription information until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete it.

Club Directory Listings: Club listings remain on the Site until the submitter requests removal or we determine the information is outdated or inaccurate.

Community Content: Forum posts, stories and other community content remain on the Site unless you request removal or we remove it for violating our community guidelines.

Analytics Data: We retain analytics data in an aggregated, anonymized form indefinitely for research and analysis purposes.

Contact Form Submissions: We retain contact form submissions for up to 2 years to maintain a record of our communications with you.

Consent Records: When you make a choice in the privacy banner, we record the date and time, a random consent ID, your choices, the banner version, the language and page, your browser’s Global Privacy Control signal and a one-way hash of your IP address. We keep these records for 36 months to show that we respect your choices.

Privacy Choices: the pc_consent cookie lasts 12 months, after which we ask again.

Your Privacy Rights

Depending on your location, you may have certain rights regarding your personal information:

Rights for All Users

Access: You can request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.

Correction: You can ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information.

Deletion: You can ask us to delete your personal information, subject to certain exceptions.

Opt-Out of Marketing: You can unsubscribe from our marketing emails at any time through the unsubscribe link in any email or through contacting us directly.

Rights for EU/EEA/UK Residents (GDPR)

If you are located in the European Union, European Economic Area or United Kingdom, you have additional rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):

Data Portability: You can request a copy of your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.

Restriction of Processing: You can ask us to restrict how we use your data in certain circumstances.

Objection: You can object to our processing of your personal data based on legitimate interests.

Withdraw Consent: Where we rely on your consent to process your data, you can withdraw that consent at any time.

Lodge a Complaint: You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority in your country of residence.

Rights for California Residents (CCPA/CPRA)

If you are a California resident, you have rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA):

Right to Know: You can request information about the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you.

Right to Delete: You can request that we delete your personal information, subject to certain exceptions.

Right to Correct: You can request that we correct inaccurate personal information.

Right to Opt-Out: You have the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information. Note: We do not sell personal information.

Global Privacy Control: We honor Global Privacy Control. When your browser sends it, marketing tools stay off, which opts you out of any sale or sharing of personal information for advertising. You can also switch analytics and marketing off at any time through Privacy choices.

Right to Non-Discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising your privacy rights.

Authorized Agents: You may designate an authorized agent to make requests on your behalf.

California Categories of Personal Information

In the past 12 months, we have collected the following categories of personal information:

Identifiers (name, email address, IP address)
Internet or network activity (browsing history, interactions with our Site)
Geolocation data (general location based on IP address)
Professional information (pétanque experience level, club affiliations)
Inferences (preferences and characteristics derived from other information)

Rights for Canadian Residents (PIPEDA and Quebec Law 25)

If you are a Canadian resident, you have rights under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA):

Access: You can request access to your personal information.

Correction: You can challenge the accuracy and completeness of your personal information.

Withdrawal of Consent: You can withdraw consent to the collection, use or disclosure of your personal information, subject to legal or contractual restrictions.

Quebec residents: Quebec’s Law 25 requires us to tell you about tools that can identify, locate or profile you and how to turn them on. Our analytics and marketing tools stay off until you switch them on, and you can switch them off at any time through Privacy choices.

You can ask how we use your personal information and file a complaint with the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec.

How to Exercise Your Rights

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at:

Email: [email protected]

Contact Form: https://petanquecentral.com/contact/

We will respond to your request within 30 days. We may need to verify your identity before processing your request. In some cases, we may need to collect additional information to verify your identity.

Data Security

We have implemented appropriate technical and organizational security measures designed to protect your personal information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration and disclosure.

These measures include:

Encryption of data in transit using SSL/TLS
Secure password hashing
Regular security assessments
Access controls limiting who can access personal information
Secure data storage with reputable hosting providers

While we strive to protect your personal information, no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee the absolute security of your data.

If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure, please contact us immediately at [email protected].

International Data Transfers

Our Site is operated in New York. If you are accessing our Site from outside the US, please be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored and processed in the United States where our servers are located and our central database is operated.

The data protection and other laws of the United States might not be as thorough as those in your country. If you are located in the EU/EEA/UK, we will ensure that your personal data receives an adequate level of protection through appropriate safeguards, such as standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission.

With your consent to this Privacy Policy, you agree to this transfer, storing and processing.

Children’s Privacy

Our Site is not intended for children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are a parent or guardian and you believe your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us immediately at [email protected].

If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a child under 13 without verification of parental consent, we will take steps to remove that information from our servers.

For users between 13 and 18 years old, we encourage parents and guardians to monitor their children’s online activities and to help us protect children’s privacy through instructing them never to provide personal information on our Site without their permission.

Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control

Browsers can send a “Do Not Track” signal, but no common standard defines how sites should respond. We rely on the choices you make in our privacy banner instead.

We honor Global Privacy Control (GPC). When your browser sends it, marketing tools stay off even if you click “Accept all”, and you can still allow analytics.

Links to Other Websites

Our Site contains links to other websites that are not operated by us. If you click on a third-party link, you will be directed to that third party’s site. We strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit.

We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third-party sites or services. These include links to:

Club websites
Federation websites (FPUSA, Pétanque Québec, Fédération Mexicaine de Pétanca)
Social media platforms
Equipment manufacturer websites
Event venues
External resources and articles

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by:

Posting the new Privacy Policy on this page
Updating the “Last Updated” date at the top
Sending you an email notification (for significant changes)
Displaying a notice on our Site

We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, your personal information or our privacy practices, please contact us:

Email: [email protected]

General Contact Form: https://petanquecentral.com/contact/

For privacy-specific inquiries, please include “Privacy Request” in your subject line to ensure your message is routed appropriately.

Thank you for trusting Pétanque Central with your information. We are committed to protecting your privacy while building a welcoming community for pétanque enthusiasts across North America.