PRIVACY POLICY

At chasingplaces.com, we highly value and respect the privacy of our visitors. We value the trust of our readers and partners place in us. We are very much committed to protecting and safeguarding our users’ personal and/or sensitive information.

This Privacy Policy enumerates the types of personal information that is received and collected by our site and how we used such information.  

We would like to inform our visitors that we strive to make our Privacy Policy compliant with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This program was created to protect personal data and digital privacy of EU Nationals.

We regularly review and revise our  Privacy Policy to show accurate and timely information. Please feel free to revisit this page to check for updates and changes in our Privacy Policy.

Please take note that your use of this website, in any and all forms, constitutes an acceptance of this Privacy Policy.

WHO WE ARE

Our website address: https://www.chasingplaces.com. This travel guide blog is managed by P. A. Cybulskie.  We are using WORDPRESS as our content management system.

Based on the  GDPR program, Chasing Places is considered the Data Controller and thus, we have to carry out certain responsibilities with any personal data we collect and process.

WHAT PERSONAL DATA DO WE COLLECT AND WHY WE COLLECT IT

1. SUBSCRIPTIONS AND NEWSLETTERS

We maintain an email subscription list of users who are interested in receiving newsletters, special announcements or curated content from our site. Subscribers are asked to provide their:

• name ( first name will do)
• email address

Providing this information means that the subscriber/visitor is giving us permission to receive email communication from Chasing Places.

Take note that with regards to our subscriptions and newsletter program, we do not collect any other personal information from our subscribers.

We utilize a secure opt-in subscription system. By signing up to this subscription list, the user gives us the right to contact them with information related to this website.

Subscribers have the right to unsubscribe at any time and every email delivered from us will contain an “Unsubscribe” link.

Visitors to our site have the right request access to information about them that Chasing Places possess. They can also request to:

• correct this information
• delete this information

To make such requests, or to ask more questions regarding our privacy policy (including collection and storage of data), please contact us by email at [email protected]

To process the requests stated above, we may ask you to verify your identity. We will execute requests through email correspondence.

2. COMMENTS

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

3. COMMENT COOKIES

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to save your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

4. USE OF GOOGLE ANALYTICS

Like many blogs/websites, you can visit our website without giving away your personal information.  Chasing Places makes use of the Google Analytics program through the plug-in Google Analytics MonsterInsights. 

By activating the MonsterInsights plugin, we give access to Google Analytics to our site.  Google Analytics then stores cookies on users’ PCs to keep track of usage data.

The information the Google Analytics usually take include:

• Language of Users
• Browser type
• Number of views, users, and clicks to specific content
• Device Information
• Gender

We use Google Analytics to gather data stated above in order to:

•  improve user experience
•  improve our website’s functionality
• determine which of our content are useful and popular with our visitors.

Our purpose is to gain more viewer traffic and increase user loyalty, so we need all the information stated above to make improvements and adjustments to our site in order to achieve such goals.

We DO NOT USE  the Google Analytics to collect personally identifiable information from you that do not serve our purpose and undermine your privacy. We don’t seek nor store sensitive and personally identifiable information like specific address, full name, and particular interests.

As a website user, you can prevent your data from being collected by Google Analytics by using this opt-out browser add-on

5. THIRD PARTY ADVERTISERS AND USE OF COOKIES

Chasing Places makes use of third-party advertisers so we can earn a living and continue to run our website.  Please review the individual privacy policies of all third-party ad servers to get more information on their data collection practices and to learn the process of opting out if you wish to.

Chasing Places is partnered with  Google Adsense to serve ads on our site.

The advertising program Google Adsense uses cookies to serve ads based on user’s prior visits not only to our site but also other websites.

For more information, please click: How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps

Every user has the right may opt out of the use the Google cookie. This can be done by visiting Google’s Content Network Privacy Policy or Ads Settings.

6. AFFILIATE PARTNER COOKIES

Chasing Places is an affiliate partner of companies and brands that are offering products and services that are in line with our niche/industry.  We have carefully chosen companies and brands based on reputability and product quality. Most of the brands we partnered with are ones that we personally used during our travels.

Affiliate partnership is a business partnership whereby we refer certain brands on our website to our readers.  These brands give us a small commission for every sale or lead made through our site at no additional expense to the buyer/visitor. 

Some of these companies/brands mentioned on our site use cookies to track user behavior and to fulfill the terms of our affiliation partnership agreement. Cookies are only activated when you, the user, click on an affiliate text link or banner.  

Once the cookie is activated, the affiliate partner  can then determine if a lead or sale has been made through our website. This will eventually help them decide if they should grant us a commission. Thus, affiliate cookies are important to us because it allows us to make revenue out of Chasing Places and keep it running. 

Every visitor to our site has the right may opt out of the use of affiliate cookies. For more information about the individual affiliate cookies and how to opt out, please visit the corresponding links below:

• Agoda Privacy Policy
• Hotelscombined Privacy Policy
• BookingBuddy UK Cookie Policy
• Momondo Cookie Policy
• CheapoAir.com Cookie Policy
• World Nomads Privacy Policy
• Lonely Planet Cookie Policy

HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR DATA 

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can request to edit or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

WHAT RIGHTS DO YOU HAVE OVER YOUR DATA 

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

SHARING AND PROTECTING YOUR DATA

Data collected from our WordPress Platform are stored on a WordPress user profile and our hosting platform Hostgator.com. As mentioned, Chasing Places only stores your username, first name you (what is provided), website (if provided) and email address.   We use MailChimp Email Marketing service to store our subscribers’ emails and given name/username.

We use MailChimp because it enables to conveniently send mass email campaigns to all of our willing subscribers.

Other than the platforms and services mentioned, we do not actively share your data with any third party.

More Information on MailChimp’s Privacy Policy. 

DATA BREACH

If in the case of a data breach, and someone has obtained your data from our site unlawfully, we will take the necessary steps for your protection.

• We will inform you through email that your data has been obtained unlawfully.
• We will use legal means, within our capacity, to seek the perpetrator and bring him/them to justice.

Nevertheless, Chasing Places like to emphasize that we store in our own records minimal personal data (username, first name  (what is provided), website (if provided) and email address._

Last Updated: May 2018