Effective: 14th August 2023
SpicyTourist values your privacy and employs the highest standards of security practices to protect your valuable information. We are committed to protecting you and the trust you have instilled in SpicyTourist. In this regard, we request you carefully read this Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions, Affiliate Disclosure, and Disclaimer to familiarise yourself with our information, accumulation and promulgation practices.
Our travel blog recommends must-visit tourist destinations, travel gear, restaurants, holiday rentals, car rentals, flight bookings, hotels and other accommodations, etc. These are collectively referred to as our services in this Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, Affiliate Disclosure and Disclaimer. By using our website, you accept and agree to this Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, Affiliate Disclosure and Disclaimer.
This page discloses the Privacy Policy, Terms and conditions, Affiliate Disclosure and Disclaimer for SpicyTourist, all of which are incorporated under the same title, entitled “Privacy Policy”.
If you disagree with the Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, Affiliate Disclosure and Disclaimer, we cordially ask you to stop browsing and not access or use our website.
We deeply respect and appreciate the exceptional trust you’ve bestowed upon us. In this regard, the following Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions, Affiliate Disclosure and Disclaimer entail the practices we adopt relating to collecting, protecting, and revealing your personal data.
1. Images
SpicyTourist contains images to let you have a closer look at tourist attractions, hotels, and restaurants. We use free stock images from sites like Unsplash, Pexels, & Pixabay. The website also contains paid images from Shutterstock & Canva. We also use images from Creative Commons, Wikimedia Commons, & WordPress Openverse, and image credits are duly given to the concerned owner. Apart from these, SpicyTourist uses images from Websites & Facebook pages to showcase hotels, restaurants & tourist places.
The Website and Facebook Page owner is not intimidated before publicising their images on our website. Still, suppose they are willing to not associate with us for any personal or professional reasons. In that case, the owner can contact us here, and we will immediately take action to remove the Facebook image belonging to the concerned owner.
2. Cookies
SpicyTourist makes use of cookies to provide you with an enhanced browsing experience. The “cookies” technology logs user information on the user’s device, such as the date and time of blog visits, browsing preferences, etc. Users can either allow or disable the use of this technology in their browser settings.
Cookies can save information regarding the user’s interaction with the blog. Third-party cookies may also be used for referral tracking and conversion purposes whilst the website uses sponsored adverts, affiliate links or other referral programs. Apart from this, no personal data would be saved or collected by any means.
3. External Links
SpicyTourist contains external links to other websites that are safe and relevant to the context. (External links could be in the form of text, rolling banners, images, etc., directing you to another website.) However, we encourage users to be mindful before clicking these links.
The owners of SpicyTourist cannot be held liable and are not responsible for harmful indications or any kind of damage caused by other sites mentioned throughout this website.
We put our best efforts into including reliable and authentic links but, nonetheless, cannot guarantee or take ownership of the content produced by these external sites. Users are hereby informed to click on the external links and visit these sources at their own risk.
4. Website Security
SpicyTourist employs uncompromising security measures to safeguard your personally identifiable data from misuse, damage or alteration to the integrity of your collected personal data, unaccredited access to your data or accidental loss.
We make use of a firewall for the secure transfer of data and adhere to encrypting all communication using SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Technology. You can feel confident and safe whilst surfing through our content as appropriate technical, physical and administrative policies have been implemented to secure your personal data.
5. Children’s Privacy
SpicyTourist curates content for the general public and does not consider minors as the target audience. No section of our website is meant to attract individuals under 14 years of age, and thus, we do not intend to collect or conserve any information about those under 14 years of age.
If you fall into this age group, we request you refrain from providing any information about yourself on this website, including your name, mobile number, residential address, email address, or any other username that belongs to you. Making purchases through SpicyTourist or interacting in public comments is also prohibited since we believe in protecting the very young’s privacy.
Suppose it comes to our notice that an individual below the age of 14 has provided us with their personal information. In that case, we will immediately delete or remove this information.
6. Accuracy of Information
SpicyTourist does not indulge in imprecise or inaccurate information. Our writers take time to research and work diligently to produce top-notch travel content for our target audience. However, if any information or statements mentioned on our website are considered inaccurate, we request you to contact us here. We will look into the matter and revert as soon as possible.
Website visitors and users are requested to submit accurate, up-to-date and complete personal or demographic information as asked or required. Your information will be stored and used in the ways explained below, and thus, we will encourage you to review and correct your personal information, in case of errors, before submission.
7. Anti-Spam Policy
SpicyTourist does not engage in Spam, an unaccepted or unsolicited promotional technique. All of our communications, advertisements, and marketing practices are permission-based, and we have made all efforts on our behalf to forbid the sending of spam.
Our affiliates and partners are strictly prohibited from promoting our services via any means to comply with this Anti-Spam Policy. If they are found to be advertising our services as spam, our partnership contract will be voided immediately.
8. Newsletter Policy
Website visitors and users may subscribe to our newsletter, which may be used for informational and promotional purposes. If you subscribe to SpicyTourist’s newsletter, you will receive our newsletters in your mail inbox that may contain tracking pixels.
Tracking pixels are usually embedded within newsletter emails to indicate which emails you open and which external links you click mentioned within the email. These behavioural interactions are not passed on to any third-party websites or sources by any means. The sole purpose of newsletters is to adapt our content based on our users’ interests.
MailChimp is used for sending newsletters and other email updates if you’ve subscribed to our communication channels prior to delivery. Your name and email address are required to carry out these services via MailChimp. We request you get familiarised with MailChimp’s privacy policy for additional information.
9. Advertisement Policy
SpicyTourist displays targeted ads on the services offered throughout this website by collaborating with digital advertising companies. The advertisements shown may be based on your browser experiences and preferences or your activities on our services or may be based on the information you deliver on this website.
Google Adsense helps manage the display of relevant ads in our blog’s advertisement space. The advertisements displayed may be based on your browser experiences and preferences or your activities on our services or may be based on the information you deliver on this website.
Clicking on these adverts may redirect you to the advertiser’s website, which may use cookies to keep a record of the total number of referrals received from our website. We put our best efforts into including reliable and authentic links but, nonetheless, cannot guarantee or take ownership of the content produced by these external sites. Users are hereby informed to click on the external links and visit these sources at their own risk.
Retargeting Ads
Apart from displaying ads, as mentioned above, SpicyTourist may also be involved in remarketing with third-party companies such as YouTube, Google, Instagram and the like, with the sole purpose of marketing our website. These third-party companies use cookies to display advertisements based on a user’s previous visits to the website.
Third-party Advertising
SpicyTourist may use Google Adsense, Mediavine and the like to facilitate all kinds of third-party advertising on our website. These websites may, in turn, use cookies to track your activities and interactions with the website features and content.
10. Transactional Information
SpicyTourist is bound to collect certain transactional information from you if you purchase any product or service from us. This information may include your name, residential address, email address, mobile number and information related to the product or service purchased.
Our website may use Stripe, WooCommerce, etc., to collect payments to sell products or services. Therefore, we hereby advise you to get familiarised with the applicable payment processor’s Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions to garner additional information about purchases or transactions executed through our website.
11. Use of your Personal Data
SpicyTourist collects demographic and personal data from users to continually serve them with effective and relevant service offerings on our website. Your demographic information is collected by virtue of your IP address which assists us in identifying you and diagnosing problems, if any, with our server.
You may also be asked to fill out online surveys on our website from time to time which will be optional and may require your personal and demographic information to tailor our content according to your preferences to revamp your browsing experience on our website.
SpicyTourist does the following with your collected information, with your consent:
- Provides user support.
- Monitor our travel blog usage.
- Discovers and addresses technical issues, if any.
- Allows the user to be a part of the newly added website features.
- Tracking and estimating advertisements on the website to better suit you.
- Sends promotional information, advertisements and updates using the concerned email.
- Sends security alerts, confirmation emails, policy changes and other technical updates using the concerned email.
12. Protection of your Personal Data
We employ commercially standard security protocols to safeguard your personal and demographic information. Some of your submitted information may be transmitted, via a secure mode referred to as SSL (Secure Socket Layer), to one of the most reputable and trusted third-party vendors. However, sensitive information such as your Credit Card details will never be shared precariously.
SpicyTourist may indulge in software programs that assist in generating summary statistics related to assessing which information is the most and least relevant to our users, the number of site visitors belonging to different regions, determining problematic domains and identifying the performance of the system. These software programs also prevent unauthorised access or attempt(s) to change your information or cause any kind of damage by monitoring the network traffic for security purposes.
13. Third-party Service Providers
Once you definitively authorise us to share your collected information with third-party service providers, the website may then share your information to facilitate a myriad of aspects related to the website, imposed by their respective privacy policies.
SpicyTourist presently uses the following third-party service providers:
Google Analytics
Google Analytics may require your IP address to track your website usage and provide us with valuable information such as your interactions or actions and other referring websites whilst you are surfing through our website. No other personal information is shared here.
14. Digital Millennium Copyright Act Compliance
This Digital Millennium Copyright Act policy applies to the SpicyTourist website and its services (or any of its related products). It restricts the procedure taken against any kind of copyright infringement and how you’re eligible to submit a copyright infringement complaint.
You can report any material that seems to be infringing on the Internet by filing a notification with us. In case of ambiguity, you may choose to contact an attorney before notifying us. Please be conscious of the fact that if you misinterpret the information listed on our website as an infringement of your copyrighted material, then you will be liable for damages that shall include hefty expenses and associated attorneys’ fees.
Any infringing material or activity can be immediately notified to us via our contact form. Please provide adequate contact details so we can reply via a valid email address. You shall receive an email response within 2-5 business days.
15. Visitor GDPR Rights
Website visitors and users within the European Union are entitled to certain rights under the General Data Protection Regulation Rights. Under these rights, your information with SpicyTourist can be retained until:
- You request us to delete your stored information.
- The cost of retaining your data outweighs the value it offers SpicyTourist.
- We terminate the usage of our existing data providers. If we stop using the services of our existing data providers, we can decide whether to or not to delete your information from our records.
You possess the right to hold back the portability and processing of your stored data and also request access to your collected data to either amend or delete your personal data. Suppose you have earlier agreed to our processing of your personal data. In that case, you can disengage that agreement at any time without impacting the lawfulness of the processing prior to your disagreement.
You are also entitled to file a complaint with a supervisory authority having jurisdiction over affairs regarding the General Data Protection Regulation. In case of entering into a contract with you, we will only ask for information that is judiciously required and will not involve you in any unnecessary processing.
16. California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is a law that aims at safeguarding data in the United States that pertains to a for-profit entity that collects personal information about customers in California, does any kind of business in California and determines the purpose of collecting consumers’ personal information that satisfies one of the below-stated criteria:
- Clocks an annual gross revenue of over $25 million,
- The sale of consumers’ personal information results in 50% or more of its overall annual revenue,
- Buying, selling and sharing more than 50,000 California customers’ personal information is carried out within the business.
SpicyTourist provides its services to viewers, suppliers, and other participating third-party agents who must comply with their obligations under the CCPA, which includes equipping the consumers of SpicyTourist with the right and adequate notices and being equipped to quickly respond to customers’ queries to know, access, delete or opt-out within the system.
17. Governing Laws
The Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, Affiliate Disclosure and Disclaimer that have been stated by SpicyTourist and your use of our website or any other service shall be governed by and construed with respect to the laws of the Chennai High Court, which shall act as the sole jurisdictional court unless otherwise stated.
You shall hereby consent to undergo such proceedings in the courts for exclusive jurisdiction related to both contractual and non-contractual disputes arising owing to the use of service on SpicyTourist by you or any other third party.
18. Disclaimer
SpicyTourist would not be held responsible for any technical issues or traffic congestion caused on the Internet, on account of mobile phone or computer equipment, computer systems, any malfunction of telephone service or network, email failures, etc., that could potentially cause harm to anyone’s mobile phone, computer, website or any other hardware whilst downloading items, uploading information, or merely using our website.
Our website may face downtime issues as it is prone to errors, bugs and other problems on the Internet. However, SpicyTourist and our associated affiliates will not be liable for your use of our website.
19. Affiliate Disclosure
SpicyTourist may participate in affiliate marketing which involves embedding external links into the website for tracking purposes. Once you click these tracking links, a cookie will be generated and stored on your hard drive to track any sales or orders placed with the affiliate partner for commission purposes.
Our website is associated with the following affiliate advertising programs:
- Booking.com Affiliate Partner Program.
- Amazon Affiliate Program or Amazon Associates Program.
These affiliate advertising partners use cookies to track sales made via referencing our website and provide a means for us to earn commission fees on these sales.
20. Consent
We encourage our website visitors to carefully read these Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions, Affiliate Disclosure and Disclaimer that constitute your use of our services and the website. You can continue using our services if you agree with our revised Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, Affiliate Disclosure and Disclaimer. If you disagree with our Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions, Affiliate Disclosure and Disclaimer, we request you not to access or use our website or related services.
By using our site, you consent to our Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, Affiliate Disclosure and Disclaimer.
21. Changes
Our Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions, Affiliate Disclosure and Disclaimer may change from time to time, and we will post all updates on this page. If we make amends to our Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, Affiliate Disclosure and Disclaimer, then the date of change will be reflected at the top of this page.
Contact Us
If you have any comments or questions about this Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, Affiliate Disclosure and Disclaimer, we kindly request you to contact us here. We take our users’ time and efforts seriously and will revert shortly.