The State

A Western Australian newspaper for news, public life, business and sport, with food, property, culture, travel, community information and useful classifieds.

Privacy policy

The State

This policy explains how Mafia Publishing (ABN 37 709 073 991) handles personal information as the owner and publisher of The State and operator of the Mafia account console at mafia.net.au. Its address is 252 Annerley Road, Dutton Park QLD 4102. The public masthead uses privacy-safe server-side aggregate measurement and Google Analytics in advanced consent mode. Analytics and advertising storage remain denied: the site does not set analytics cookies, advertising cookies or browser identifiers.

What we collect

When you read a public masthead, Cloudflare receives the connection information needed to deliver and protect the site. The masthead itself does not set cookies. For eligible human requests, we record aggregate page views, internal listing opens, searches, whether a search returned results, and outbound advertiser-link clicks. A record may include the masthead, listing, page path, whether the listing was paid, country, and whether the visit came directly, from that masthead, from its search, or from an external website. An external source is reduced to its hostname; we do not keep its full referring URL.

We do not put your IP address, name, email address, device identifier, cookie identifier or search terms in these analytics records. These counts describe requests and activity, not unique people or proof that content appeared in a person's viewport. Advertisers receive aggregate summaries for their own content and no visitor-level information.

Google Analytics receives a cookieless page measurement. We send the page origin and path without its query string, the page title, a referring origin rather than a full referring URL, the time, browser information and the denied consent state. We disable Google signals and advertising personalisation. Google receives an IP address as part of the network connection and says Google Analytics does not log or store IP addresses; it may derive coarse location information before discarding the address. Google Analytics reports may use aggregate modelling where storage is denied.

If you use the Mafia console, we may collect:

  • your email address and any name or contact details you provide;
  • your listings, community-event eligibility and final dates, directory details, images, bids and moderation history;
  • Stripe payment references, amounts, status and transaction dates;
  • hashed sign-in, session, IP-address and browser information used to authenticate accounts and prevent abuse; and
  • email delivery records, support messages, commercial-email preferences, consent or other contact-basis evidence, and operational logs; and
  • Frankie assistant conversations, requested actions, decision records, handoffs and reviewed learning proposals.

Card numbers and security codes go directly to Stripe and do not pass through our servers.

How we collect and use it

We collect information from you, from your browser when you use the service, and from service providers such as Stripe when they confirm a payment. For carefully reviewed business outreach, we may also record permission supplied directly by a recipient, an existing relevant business relationship, or the source and relevance of a conspicuously published work address. Publication of an address alone does not automatically make it suitable for marketing.

We use information to sign you in, operate and secure the service, review and publish listings, process payments, issue invoices, send service and renewal messages, measure masthead usage, growth, traffic sources, listing opens, searches and advertiser click-throughs, prepare private performance summaries, answer support requests, prepare and audit actions requested through Frankie, and—with a recorded lawful basis and relevance—send offers about Mafia Publishing mastheads. Commercial messages identify the sender and include an easy unsubscribe. Unsubscribe requests, complaints and delivery failures are recorded so further commercial mail can be suppressed.

Information placed in a listing is intended for publication. A directory entry may publicly show a business phone number, email address, service area and website. Do not submit personal information that you do not have authority to publish.

Cookies, analytics and bot protection

Public mastheads set no analytics or advertising cookies. Google Analytics runs with analytics and advertising storage denied and sends cookieless measurements. The Mafia console uses essential, secure cookies to keep an account signed in and to complete passwordless login. Its sign-in page may use Cloudflare Turnstile to distinguish people from automated abuse. These features are necessary to provide and protect the account service; they are not used by us for advertising.

Who we disclose information to

We disclose only what is reasonably needed to providers that help run the service:

  • Cloudflare for hosting, storage, security and Turnstile;
  • Google Analytics for cookieless, aggregate website measurement with analytics and advertising storage denied;
  • Stripe for payment processing; and
  • Resend for transactional and individually approved commercial email.

We may also disclose information where required by law, or where reasonably necessary to investigate fraud, abuse or a threat to safety. We do not sell personal information.

These providers operate internationally. Personal information may be disclosed to or processed by recipients outside Australia, including in the United States. Their practices are described in the Cloudflare privacy policy, Stripe privacy policy and Resend privacy policy.

Storage, security and retention

We use access controls, restricted service credentials, secure cookies and cryptographic hashing for sign-in codes and session identifiers. No internet service can promise absolute security.

We keep personal information only for as long as it is needed for the purposes above or required by law. Financial and transaction records may be retained after an account closes. Suppression records may be kept so we can continue respecting a request not to receive commercial email. Expired sign-in and session records are removed as part of routine housekeeping.

Access, correction and deletion

Email frankie@thestate.au to ask what personal information we hold about you, request a correction, close an account or request deletion. We may need to verify your identity first, and may retain records that the law requires us to keep.

Archiving a listing removes it from the generated masthead after the next publish. Copies may remain temporarily in caches, search indexes or independent web archives.

Privacy complaints

Send a complaint to frankie@thestate.au with enough detail for us to investigate. We will acknowledge it and respond within a reasonable time. If you are not satisfied, you may contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.

You can also write to Mafia Publishing (ABN 37 709 073 991), 252 Annerley Road, Dutton Park QLD 4102.

Changes to this policy

We will update the date above when this policy changes. If a change materially affects advertisers, we will also notify affected account holders where reasonably practicable.