Privacy Policy

Welcome to Bhaktapur City ("we," "us," or "our"), accessible at bhaktapur.city. We are a travel information portal dedicated to showcasing the hiking destinations, cultural festivals, traditional cuisine, mountain peaks, and travel resources of Bhaktapur. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and protect your personal information when you visit our website, in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), Nepal's applicable data protection framework, and the requirements of Google AdSense and other third-party advertising and analytics providers.

By using this website, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, please discontinue use of the site. We encourage you to review this policy periodically, as it may be updated to reflect changes in our practices or applicable law.

1. Information We Collect

We may collect the following categories of information:

• Personal Identification Information: Name, email address, and any other details you voluntarily provide when submitting our contact or inquiry forms.
• Usage & Log Data: IP address, browser type and version, operating system, referring URLs, pages visited on our site (e.g., hiking trail guides, festival calendars, cuisine listings), time and date of visit, and time spent on pages.
• Device Information: Device identifiers, screen resolution, and hardware model collected automatically via browser APIs and analytics scripts.
• Location Data: General geographic location (country, city) inferred from your IP address or, with your consent, more precise location data used to show relevant travel content for Bhaktapur.
• Cookies & Tracking Technologies: First-party and third-party cookies, web beacons, pixels, and similar technologies as described in Section 5 below.
• Communications: Any messages you send us via the contact form, including travel inquiries, feedback, or partnership requests.

2. How We Collect Your Information

• Directly from you — when you complete and submit forms on our website (e.g., contact us, travel inquiry, newsletter sign-up).
• Automatically — through cookies, server logs, analytics tools, and advertising SDKs when you browse our content.
• From third parties — including Google Analytics, Google AdSense, advertising partners, and Cloudflare (for bot protection and performance).

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for the following purposes:

• To operate, maintain, and improve our travel information platform.
• To display relevant hiking guides, festival schedules, cuisine discoveries, and mountain information tailored to your location and preferences.
• To respond to your inquiries, feedback, and contact form submissions.
• To serve personalised and contextual advertisements through Google AdSense and other advertising partners.
• To analyse site traffic and user behaviour using Google Analytics and similar tools, helping us understand which travel content is most valuable to our visitors.
• To detect, prevent, and address technical issues, spam, and fraudulent activity (including via Cloudflare Turnstile CAPTCHA).
• To comply with our legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Use.
• To send you requested communications (newsletters, travel updates) where you have opted in.

4. Legal Basis for Processing (GDPR)

For users in the European Economic Area (EEA), we process your personal data under the following legal bases:

• Consent — for cookies (especially advertising and analytics cookies), newsletter subscriptions, and location-based personalisation where required by law.
• Legitimate Interests — for website analytics, fraud prevention, security monitoring, and improving our travel content offering.
• Contract Performance — to respond to inquiries and provide the information services you request.
• Legal Obligation — where processing is necessary to comply with applicable laws and regulations.

5. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

Our website uses cookies and similar tracking technologies to enhance your browsing experience, analyse site usage, and serve personalised advertising. Cookies are small text files stored on your device by your browser. We use the following categories of cookies:

• Essential Cookies: Necessary for the website to function correctly (e.g., session management, security). These cannot be disabled.
• Analytics Cookies (Google Analytics): We use Google Analytics to collect aggregated, anonymised data about how visitors interact with our site — including which hiking trails, festival pages, and food guides are most visited. This data helps us improve our content. Google Analytics may set cookies such as _ga, _gid, and _gat.
• Advertising Cookies (Google AdSense & Partners): We use Google AdSense to display advertisements on our website. Google and its advertising partners may use cookies — including the DART cookie — to serve ads based on your visits to our site and other sites on the internet. This is known as interest-based or behavioural advertising. The DART cookie is set by doubleclick.net and enables Google to serve ads to users based on their browsing history.
• Third-Party Advertising Cookies: Other advertising networks and demand-side platforms (DSPs) may also set cookies when ads are displayed on our site, subject to their own privacy policies.
• Preference Cookies: Used to remember your settings and preferences (e.g., currency display, location context) to personalise your experience on our Bhaktapur travel portal.

You can manage your cookie preferences through your browser settings. However, disabling certain cookies may affect the functionality of our website and the relevance of advertisements shown to you.

6. Google AdSense & Third-Party Advertising

Bhaktapur City participates in the Google AdSense programme. Google AdSense uses cookies to display advertisements that are relevant to your interests. Key facts about our advertising practices:

• Interest-Based Advertising: Google uses your browsing data (from our site and other sites you have visited) to show you personalised ads. This includes travel-related advertising relevant to Nepal, hiking, tourism, and related categories.
• DART Cookie: Google's DART cookie allows it to serve ads based on your visit to our site and prior visits to other websites. You may opt out of Google's use of the DART cookie by visiting Google's Advertising & Privacy Policy.
• Non-Personalised Ads: Where required by law or where consent has not been given, we may serve non-personalised (contextual) advertisements instead.
• Third-Party Vendors: Other third-party vendors, including but not limited to advertising networks and measurement companies, may use cookies and web beacons to serve ads and measure ad performance on our site. These vendors' use of cookies is governed by their own privacy policies.

We comply with the IAB Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) where applicable to ensure that user consent is properly obtained and communicated to all advertising partners.

7. Your Advertising Choices & Opt-Out Rights

You have several options to control how your data is used for advertising:

• Google Ads Settings: Manage or opt out of personalised Google advertising at adssettings.google.com.
• Network Advertising Initiative (NAI): Opt out of interest-based advertising from NAI member companies at networkadvertising.org/choices.
• Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA): Opt out via aboutads.info/choices.
• European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance (EDAA): EU users may opt out at youronlinechoices.eu.
• Browser Controls: You can block or delete cookies through your browser settings. Note that blocking advertising cookies does not remove advertisements — it means the ads you see will be less relevant to you.
• Do Not Track: Some browsers support a "Do Not Track" (DNT) signal. While we respect your privacy, standardised DNT response is not yet uniformly supported across all our third-party partners.

8. Data Sharing & Disclosure

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties for their own marketing purposes. We may share your information in the following circumstances:

• Service Providers: Trusted third-party providers who assist us in operating our website, including hosting services, analytics platforms (Google Analytics), advertising networks (Google AdSense), content delivery networks (Cloudflare), and email service providers. These partners process data only on our behalf and under our instructions.
• Advertising Partners: As described above, advertising cookies allow third-party ad networks to collect data about your visits to our site. This enables interest-based advertising across the web.
• Legal Requirements: We may disclose your information if required by law, regulation, legal process, or governmental request, including to cooperate with law enforcement agencies in Bhaktapur and internationally.
• Protection of Rights: We may disclose information where we believe it is necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of our users, ourselves, or the public.
• Business Transfers: In the event of a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or a portion of our assets, your personal information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you via prominent notice on our website.

9. International Data Transfers

Our servers and some of our service providers (including Google) may be located outside of Bhaktapur, including in the United States and the European Union. By using our website, you consent to the transfer of your information to countries that may have different data protection standards than your home country. Where such transfers involve EEA data, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs).

10. Your Data Protection Rights

Depending on your location, you may have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• Right to Access: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Right to Rectification: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Right to Erasure ("Right to be Forgotten"): Request deletion of your personal data, subject to certain legal exceptions.
• Right to Restrict Processing: Request that we limit how we use your data.
• Right to Data Portability: Receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format.
• Right to Object: Object to processing based on legitimate interests, including for direct marketing and profiling.
• Right to Withdraw Consent: Where processing is based on consent, withdraw it at any time without affecting prior processing.
• CCPA Rights (California Residents): Right to know what personal information is collected, right to delete, right to opt out of sale (we do not sell personal information), and right to non-discrimination.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us via our Contact Page. We will respond within 30 days.

11. Data Security

We implement industry-standard technical and organisational security measures to protect your personal information against unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. These measures include SSL/TLS encryption for data in transit, secure server infrastructure via Cloudflare, access controls, and regular security reviews.

However, no method of transmission over the internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

12. Data Retention

We retain personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, unless a longer retention period is required by law. Contact form submissions are retained for up to 12 months. Analytics data is retained per Google Analytics' default retention settings. You may request deletion of your data at any time.

13. Children's Privacy

Our travel information website is not directed at children under the age of 13 (or 16 in the EEA). We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe we have inadvertently collected data from a child, please contact us immediately and we will take steps to delete such information.

14. Third-Party Websites & Links

Our website may contain links to third-party websites, including official tourism boards, trekking permit authorities, airline booking platforms, and travel agencies. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those external sites. We encourage you to review the privacy policy of every site you visit.

15. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements, or for other operational reasons. When we make changes, we will update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this document. Material changes will be communicated via a notice on our homepage. Your continued use of the website after any changes constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy.

16. Contact Us

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us through our Contact Page or write to us at privacy@bhaktapur.city.