MEC
Retail · mec.ca
16 out of 20 Trust-aware
A deletion form two clicks from the front door, and a privacy notice you have to open eleven times to read.
How many clicks to find the privacy policy from the homepage?
One click, from the footer. The privacy notice opens as a web page with an effective date of 10 April 2026, the most recently revised document in the retail set, with a separate cookie notice beside it.
Is there a meaningful choice about cookies and tracking before data is collected?
OneTrust, loaded and never shown. No banner on a first load, though a “Cookie settings” link does sit in the footer next to the cookie notice, so the mechanism is real and reachable and simply never offered. Eleven tracking identifiers are set on arrival, which is a heavy footprint for a co-operative.
How hard is the policy to read, how much of it is there, and can you get it in one piece?
Grade 13.9 across 3,768 words, in one place. Difficulty 1, length 3, access 3. Access is 3 rather than 4 because every section arrives collapsed: eleven accordions, and a visitor who wants to read the notice end to end has to open all of them. The document is complete and it is not presented as a document. Measure it yourself.
How many clicks to reach data settings, and can you delete your account yourself?
A form for deletion, two clicks from the front door. The notice links a form to close a membership and delete personal information, and names privacy@mec.ca beside it. No account needed to reach it.
Find the support page. How many clicks, and is there a way to speak to a human?
A help centre, a contact page and a live chat. All reachable from the homepage, with the chat widget present on the page rather than buried in a menu.
Overall finding
16 out of 20 Trust-aware
MEC does the substantive things well and the presentational things badly. There is a real deletion form, a named privacy address, a recently revised notice and a chat window open on the page. Then the notice is served as eleven collapsed accordions and the consent panel it already owns is never put in front of anyone. For a member-owned co-operative, the gap between what MEC has built and what it shows is the whole finding.
- Scored
- 8 August 2026
- Region
- Canadian site, private window
- Session
- Logged out throughout
Scored from public evidence only. No company can pay to change a score, and paid relationships are disclosed here. Read the independence statement.