At TravelLatte World HQ, we’re committed to privacy. That’s why we have tinted windows on the limo and a strict No Papparazzi policy. (And by “limo” we mean vintage Toyota 4Runner.) More importantly, that’s why we have this handy Privacy Policy that’s all about you. Only, not in a creepy way. So grab another cup, and settle in for some fun legalese (ish).

Privacy Ethos

Seriously, your privacy is as important to us as our own. For that reason, we operate with a few Guiding Principles:

• We are thoughtful about the personal information we ask you to provide, and collect only what is necessary in the course of doing business.
• We try hard to limit the amount of personal information necessary. Most data collected is anonymized as much as possible, and is meant to ensure a positive user experience.
• What information we do collect, we store for only as long as we have a reason to keep it.
• We aim to make it as simple as possible for you to control what information on your website is shared publicly (or kept private), indexed by search engines, and permanently deleted.
• We aim for full transparency on how we gather, use, and share your personal information.

Information We Collect

You may be wondering exactly what information we collect. While we enjoy getting to know you, there’s no reason we need to know all of your deepest, darkest secrets. Seriously, unless it involves cool places to travel to, or the classic “What I Did on Summer Vacation,” it’s probably best left unsaid.

We only collect information about you if we have a reason to do so – for example, to provide our Services, to communicate with you, or to improve your experiences with TravelLatte. Towards that end, we collect information in three ways: if and when you provide information to us, automatically when you interact with our website, or through other sources. Here’s what that includes:

Information You Provide to Us

We really only ask you for information on two occasions: When you leave a comment, and when you sign up for our newsletter or email communications. Here is what we ask for, and how we use it:

Name

You can tell us your real name, your pseudonym, or a really cool Tiki name. However you want to be known, that’s what you should put in there. (Bonus points for creativity, btw.)

Email

If you’re expecting us to send a newsletter, followups to your comments, or our famous Double Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe, we need your email address. You shouldn’t use a fake one because that sort of defeats the purpose. Note: We do not release this to anyone, and we don’t use it for anything other than email updates that you ask for, or to respond to questions or comments from you, the readers. Cool?

Website

If you have one, you can include your own website URL. Be aware, we won’t always publish these; if it looks spammy or scammy (in our own estimation), we may post your comment without that link. Including your URL is entirely optional.

Information We Collect Automatically

We do use services that collect some information automatically. For the most part, this is analytical data we use to help us identify who (generically) is visiting TravelLatte, from where (location), and using what sort of device and operating system. That helps us improve and refine the user experience. This information is held in aggregate, meaning that it does not identify individual users.

When you visit TravelLatte, our analytics keep track of what page you start on, what other pages you visit, and the last page you click on. We keep track of how long you stay on each page, and anything on that page you click on. For more details, see the section below on cookies.

Information from Other Sources

That sounds nefarious. We picture men in trench coats, hiding in dark alleys and whispering the words dark web. That’s not at all what we’re talking about.

“Other Sources” includes companies and services we both use, such as Twitter, Facebook, and WordPress. For example, if you have a Gravatar profile, it will appear with your comments.

InfoSharing

TravelLatte is all about sharing travel stories, tips, and news. That’s where the sharing ends, though. When it comes to your personal information, we do not share it with anyone. Not even your mom when you’re late for dinner. It’s like we don’t even know you.

Third Parties

We’d love to say this is your ticket to George and Amal Clooney’s Oscars After-After Party. It’s not. (We’re sad, too.) As you probably guessed, we’re talking about other companies and services we use, like Google Analytics. Here’s what we can tell you about their data use:

Google Analytics

This service tracks website usage and provides information such as referring websites and user actions. Google Analytics may capture your IP address, but no other personal information is captured. Your IP address will be made anonymous prior to anything being stored.

Third Party Advertising

TravelLatte works with various companies to serve ads and/or collect certain anonymous information when you visit our website. These companies may use non-personally identifiable information (e.g., click stream information, browser type, subject matter of advertisements clicked or scrolled over, etc.) during your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of greater interest to you. These companies typically use a cookie or web beacon to collect this information. To learn more about this behavioral advertising practice or to opt-out of this type of advertising, you can visit Network Advertising.

Cookies: They don’t just come with coffee.

While we’re savoring a delicious cup o’ joe, we’re reminded that cookies go great with coffee. Or perhaps tea and biscuits are more your, uhm, cup of tea. Either way, there are special cookies you can only get on the web, and we serve them here at TravelLatte. They help us know who’s coming and going, and help us do “work-y” stuff like analytics. You can always turn them off, and you can learn more about them at All About Cookies. However, there are no cookie recipes there, much to our dismay.

To find out about the cookies employed, and opt in or out of some (or all but the essential), look through the report below by CookieBot, who helps us keep all our cookies in order. (Sooo many different flavors!)

Other Cookies Used

Gravatar Hovercards

Data Used: This feature will send a hash of the user’s email address (if logged in to the site or WordPress.com — or if they submitted a comment on the site using their email address that is attached to an active Gravatar profile) to the Gravatar service in order to retrieve their profile image.

Mobile Theme

Data Used: A visitor’s preference on viewing the mobile version of a site.

Activity Tracked: A cookie (akm_mobile) is stored for 3.5 days to remember whether or not a visitor of the site wishes to view its mobile version. Learn more about this cookie.

Protect

Data Used: In order to check login activity and potentially block fraudulent attempts, the following information is used: attempting user’s IP address, attempting user’s email address/username (i.e. according to the value they were attempting to use during the login process), and all IP-related HTTP headers attached to the attempting user.

Activity Tracked: Failed login attempts (these include IP address and user agent). We also set a cookie (jpp_math_pass) for 1 day to remember if/when a user has successfully completed a math captcha to prove that they’re a real human. Learn more about this cookie.

Data Synced (?): Failed login attempts, which contain the user’s IP address, attempted username or email address, and user agent information.

CookieBot Report

Clear as mud?

If all of this privacy stuff can be confusing. That’s the price we pay for having lawyers and governments involved, even though it’s meant to help protect us all. If you’d like us to clarify anything, feel free to email [email protected].