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Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Plain-English Summary

This plain-English summery is meant to provide a general summary of our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. The complete policy is included below.

Please note: Travel Addicts is written in the United States, hosted in the United States, and is intended for audiences in the United States. However, recent changes to European privacy laws (known as the General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR) require us to share how we use data in operation of our sites.

Furthermore, the adoption of AB-375, the so-called California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), has changed Internet access for residents of the State of California in the United States.  If interested, California Residents may further view our CCPA Compliance Policy.  Please note:  These special restrictions to Internet access only apply to residents of California.

As travel writers and website publishers, we may or may not use data provided through third-party service providers such as analytics software, ad network, social media pages/profiles, and through our mailing list.

At no time do we have access to your personal data, unless you voluntarily provide it (such as voluntarily subscribing to our e-mail list, voluntarily commenting on our website, or voluntarily engaging on social media). Our personal access to your data is minimal, but these third-party services may use your data via your profiles, cookies, location, etc. in order to operate – most all of which is transmitted automatically purely because you are on this site (this would be true just about everywhere online).

But as we believe in full disclosure, we want to dive into greater detail on how data from these services is used on our sites.

Use of Personal Data

To put it simply, we do not require registration for you to use our site. You are free to use our site and read our articles without submitting your name, email, mailing address, or other personal information to us at all.

If we were to pass you on the street tomorrow, we’d have no way of knowing you were on our site unless you made an effort to tell us so by emailing, talking to us on social media, etc.

However, we do use 3rd party programs which do track some data including demographics and cookies that we want to outline below. As mentioned above, virtually all websites use services like these – not just us! That’s how the Internet works.

1) We use analytics software to monitor our site performance and growth and we do have access to ancillary data about each visitor (Examples: Google Analytics and StatCounter).
The data we have access to here can be read roughly as follows:
“Someone from [IP hosted by Company A] in [City/State] came to our site from [a Pinterest pin] on [date]. They viewed article X, then Y, and then Z. They were on an iPad and spent 15 minutes on our site.”
At no point in time do we know your name, address, email, phone number, or other comparable information from sources above.

If you comment on a blog post, we will see the information you voluntarily submit (i.e., name, e-mail address) as well as your IP address. We do not use this data beyond having access to it. You will not be signed up for further notifications unless you check the boxes below the comment area to opt-in for further emails.

We only share broad demographic data when speaking to partners, and only personally use the data to provide a better user experience for you over time.

2) We may use a third-party advertising network (Examples: Google AdSense or Mediavine) that deliver image-based ads to you in part based on our site’s content, your demographics (see #1 above), and your web usage (via cookies saved on your device from other websites you have visited). We do not receive any data from our ad network regarding this, and we do not know what ads are explicitly delivered to you at any time.

3) We use 3rd party social media networks (Examples: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others) and a mailing list service (ConvertKit). To use these features of our site you must explicitly opt-in by liking a social media profile or submitting your email address. Links and sign up forms for these are available on our site, but they are not required for use.

By opting in, we may have access to your name, email address, and other associated data based on the individual site’s policies. We do not use personal data (name, email, mailing address, phone number) in any capacity beyond its intended use (i.e. delivering newsletters to subscribers).

4) We may participate in third-party party affiliate programs (Examples: Amazon as well as travel, tourism, hotel, and related websites, etc) that may track referral data once you leave our site.

Much like how we can see that someone clicked a link to Amazon from our site (noted in #1 above), these sites can see that we referred you to them and may track this based on their own specific data policies.

Through the affiliate relationship, these sites may send some data back to us over time (such as how many total clicks we’ve sent, what pages/links have resulted in sales, products sold, product cost, timestamp, etc.). We keep this data separate from our general analytics (see #1) at this time. To put it simply, we can see when users leave our site, and we can see when we’ve made sales, but we do not attempt to connect the two on the user level at this time. At no time is this information identifiable to an individual person.

Right to Be Forgotten

Pursuant to privacy regulations, you have the right to be forgotten on the sites you visit. If you are following Travel Addicts on social media or via our newsletter, you can unsubscribe or unfollow at any time, for any reason. You can remove cookies by clearing your browser history at any time. We do not use your names/emails or data associated with any specific individual outside of their designated third-party party services as noted above.

If you would like us to remove any further data, please email us and we’ll be happy to discuss our data policies further and see if we have any further data that can be removed. But please note that by emailing us to discuss this, you have to tell us more data about yourself than we typically have access to in the first place.

If you have any questions regarding how we use data on our sites, please email us at [email protected]

Advertising Disclosure

This blog accepts forms of advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions, affiliate marketing links or other forms of compensation. This blog abides by word of mouth marketing standards. We believe in honesty of relationship, opinion and identity. The compensation received may influence the topics covered or posts made in this blog, but not the ultimate content. The owner(s) of this blog is compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner(s) of this blog may receive compensation for our posts or advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers’ own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question. We are committed to conducting our business in accordance with these principles in order to ensure that the confidentiality of personal information is protected and maintained.

Terms and Conditions

1. TERMS
By accessing this web site, you are agreeing to be bound by these web site Terms and Conditions of Use, all applicable laws and regulations, and agree that you are responsible for compliance with any applicable local laws. If you do not agree with any of these terms, you are prohibited from using or accessing this site. The materials contained in this web site are protected by applicable copyright and trademark law.

2. USE LICENSE
a. Permission is granted to temporarily download one copy of the materials (information or software) on Travel Addicts web site for personal, non-commercial transitory viewing only. This is the grant of a license, not a transfer of title, and under this license you may not:
i. modify or copy the materials, including text and photography;
ii. use the materials for any commercial purpose, or for any public display (commercial or non-commercial);
iii. attempt to decompile or reverse engineer any software contained on Travel Addicts web site;
iv. remove any copyright or other proprietary notations from the materials; or
v. transfer the materials to another person or “mirror” the materials on any other web server.
b. This license shall automatically terminate if you violate any of these restrictions and may be terminated by LL-Squared LLC or Travel Addicts at any time. Upon terminating your viewing of these materials or upon the termination of this license, you must destroy any downloaded materials in your possession whether in electronic or printed format.

3. DISCLAIMER
The materials on Travel Addicts web site are provided “as is”. LL-Squared LLC, the owner and publisher of Travel Addicts, makes no warranties, expressed or implied, and hereby disclaims and negates all other warranties, including without limitation, implied warranties or conditions of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement of intellectual property or other violation of rights. Further, LL-Squared LLC does not warrant or make any representations concerning the accuracy, likely results, or reliability of the use of the materials on its Internet web site or otherwise relating to such materials or on any sites linked to this site.

4. LIMITATIONS
In no event shall LL-Squared LLC or its suppliers or partners be liable for any damages (including, without limitation, damages for loss of data or profit, or due to business interruption,) arising out of the use or inability to use the materials on the Travel Addicts site, even if LL-Squared LLC or a Travel Addicts website authorized representative has been notified orally or in writing of the possibility of such damage. Because some jurisdictions do not allow limitations on implied warranties, or limitations of liability for consequential or incidental damages, these limitations may not apply to you.

5. REVISIONS AND ERRATA
The materials appearing on Travel Addicts web site could include technical, typographical, or photographic errors. LL-Squared LLC does not warrant that any of the materials on its web site are accurate, complete, or current. LL-Squared LLC may make changes to the materials contained on its web site at any time without notice. However, LL-Squared LLC does not make any commitments or assurances to update the materials.

6. LINKS
LL-Squared LLC has not reviewed all of the sites linked to its Internet web site and is not responsible for the contents of any such linked site. The inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement by LL-Squared LLC or Travel Addicts of the site. Use of any such linked web site is at the user’s own risk.

7. SITE TERMS OF USE MODIFICATIONS
LL-Squared LLC and the Travel Addicts website may revise these terms of use for its web site at any time without notice. By using this web site you are agreeing to be bound by the then current version of these Terms and Conditions of Use.

8. GOVERNING LAW
Any claim relating to LL-Squared LLC and the Travel Addicts web site shall be governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania without regard to its conflict of law provisions.

Privacy Policy

9. PRIVACY POLICY
Your privacy is very important to us. Accordingly, we have developed this Policy in order for you to understand how we collect, use, communicate and disclose and make use of personal information. The following outlines our privacy policy.
• Before or at the time of collecting personal information, we will identify the purposes for which information is being collected.
• We will collect and use of personal information solely with the objective of fulfilling those purposes specified by us and for other compatible purposes, unless we obtain the consent of the individual concerned or as required by law.
• We will only retain personal information as long as necessary for the fulfillment of those purposes.
• We will collect personal information by lawful and fair means and, where appropriate, with the knowledge or consent of the individual concerned.
• Personal data should be relevant to the purposes for which it is to be used, and, to the extent necessary for those purposes, should be accurate, complete, and up-to-date.
• We will protect personal information by reasonable security safeguards against loss or theft, as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification.
• We will make readily available to customers information about our policies and practices relating to the management of personal information.

10. COMMITMENT TO CHILDREN’S PRIVACY
Protecting the privacy of children is important to us. For that reason, we do not collect or maintain information on our site from those we know are under 18. No part of our site is structured to attract anyone under 18 years age.

11. DATA COLLECTION
LL-Squared LLC may employ the use of cookies and web beacons on the Travel Addicts website. A cookie is a small text file containing information that a web site transfers to your computer for record keeping purposes. We may use cookies to analyze traffic patterns on our site. A web beacon is a transparent, 1-pixel image in .gif format that helps us collect data about visitors viewing a web page — for example, to count the number of visitors to a page or to deliver a cookie to visitors’ browsers when they view that page. We may use web beacons on this site from time to time for these and other purposes.

Cookies and web beacons cannot give us access to your computer or to information beyond what you provide to us. Disabling cookies in your browser will prevent us from using cookies or web beacons to collect data about your visit to our site, but you will still be able to view the publicly available information on our web site. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies. Consult your browser’s manual or online help if you want information on restricting or disabling the browser’s handling of cookies. If you are using a shared computer and you have cookies turned on, be sure to log off when you finish.

We also collect personal data (e.g., names, e-mail address and IP addresses) on a voluntary basis when you initiate a specific action on our web site (e.g., commenting on a specific blog post or opting-in to our newsletter). Such actions are completely voluntary on your part.

12.  THE CALIFORNIA CONSUMER PRIVACY ACT (CCPA)
Residents of the State of California in the United States of America may have additional rights and responsibilities, as well as face additional limitations in using the Internet.  Residents of California may read our Do Not Sell My Information/CCPA Compliance page for more information about how law AB-375 may pertain to them.

13. ADVERTISING PARTNERS

Mediavine Programmatic Advertising (Ver 1.1)

The Website works with Mediavine to manage third-party interest-based advertising appearing on the Website. Mediavine serves content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use first and third-party cookies. A cookie is a small text file which is sent to your computer or mobile device (referred to in this policy as a “device”) by the web server so that a website can remember some information about your browsing activity on the Website.

First party cookies are created by the website that you are visiting. A third-party cookie is frequently used in behavioral advertising and analytics and is created by a domain other than the website you are visiting. Third-party cookies, tags, pixels, beacons and other similar technologies (collectively, “Tags”) may be placed on the Website to monitor interaction with advertising content and to target and optimize advertising. Each internet browser has functionality so that you can block both first and third-party cookies and clear your browser’s cache. The “help” feature of the menu bar on most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to receive notification of new cookies, how to disable existing cookies and how to clear your browser’s cache. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information at All About Cookies.

Without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of the Website content and features. Please note that rejecting cookies does not mean that you will no longer see ads when you visit our Site. In the event you opt-out, you will still see non-personalized advertisements on the Website.

The Website collects the following data using a cookie when serving personalized ads:

  • IP Address
  • Operating System type
  • Operating System version
  • Device Type
  • Language of the website
  • Web browser type
  • Email (in hashed form)

Mediavine Partners (companies listed below with whom Mediavine shares data) may also use this data to link to other end user information the partner has independently collected to deliver targeted advertisements. Mediavine Partners may also separately collect data about end users from other sources, such as advertising IDs or pixels, and link that data to data collected from Mediavine publishers in order to provide interest-based advertising across your online experience, including devices, browsers and apps. This data includes usage data, cookie information, device information, information about interactions between users and advertisements and websites, geolocation data, traffic data, and information about a visitor’s referral source to a particular website. Mediavine Partners may also create unique IDs to create audience segments, which are used to provide targeted advertising.

If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices to opt-in or opt-out of this data collection, please visit National Advertising Initiative opt out page. You may also visit Digital Advertising Alliance website and Network Advertising Initiative website to learn more information about interest-based advertising. You may download the AppChoices app at Digital Advertising Alliance’s AppChoices app to opt out in connection with mobile apps, or use the platform controls on your mobile device to opt out.

For specific information about Mediavine Partners, the data each collects and their data collection and privacy policies, please visit Mediavine Partners.

14. THIRD-PARTY PARTNERS
We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads and collect information when users visit our site. These companies may collect and use information about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements on our site, other websites and other forms of media, such as mobile apps, about goods and services that may be of interest to you, and to understand how users respond to advertising on our website and other websites. These companies may collect this information using technologies such as cookies and pixels. We may also share personal information such as your email address in hashed non-human readable form with these advertising companies. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, check out http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.

LL-Squared LLC and the Travel Addicts web site is a participant in the Amazon.com Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. If you purchase something through one of these links, LL-Squared LLC and the Travel Addicts web site may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Effective: February 17, 2017.
Updated: May 15, 2022.

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