Privacy Policy

Last updated: 4 October 2026

Who we are and how to contact us

This Privacy Policy explains how HotSpringsGuides.com (“HotSpringsGuides”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) collects, uses, and shares information when you visit hotspringsguides.com and its pages (the “Site”). It applies only to information we collect through the Site. It does not apply to third-party websites or services that we link to or that serve content through our Site — each of those has its own privacy practices (see “Other websites and services we link to”).

For the purposes of the EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), HotSpringsGuides is the “controller” of the personal data described here — meaning we decide why and how it is processed. We operate from within the European Union, so the GDPR applies to all of our processing of personal data. Depending on where you live, US state privacy laws may also apply and give you additional rights. Given our scale and the nature of what we do, we are not required to appoint a Data Protection Officer or an EU representative.

If you have any questions, requests, or complaints about this policy or your personal data, contact us at:

Email: hello@hotspringsguides.com

We aim to respond to privacy requests within the time limits required by applicable law — generally within one month under the GDPR and within 45 days under most US state laws.

Information we collect

We collect information in three ways: information your browser sends automatically, information you choose to give us, and information collected through cookies and similar technologies.

Information collected automatically. Like almost every website, when you visit the Site our hosting provider and analytics tools automatically receive and log certain technical information, including:

• Your IP address, which indicates your approximate location (such as your city or region) — not your precise location
• Your device type, operating system, and browser type and settings
• The pages and listings you view, searches you perform on the Site, and links you click (including clicks on outbound booking and directions links), with the dates and times of your visits
• The website or source that referred you to us (for example, a search engine or another site)
• Diagnostic data such as page load times and errors

Information you provide to us. If you contact us through our feedback or contact form, we collect the information you choose to include — typically your name, email address, and the content of your message. We use this only to read and respond to you.

Information from cookies and similar technologies. We and our partners use cookies, pixels, local storage, and similar technologies to make the Site work, to measure how it is used, and to serve and measure advertising. The next section explains these and how you can control them.

We do not intentionally collect special-category or sensitive personal information (such as health, religious, or financial details), and we ask that you not send such information to us through the contact form.

Cookies and similar technologies

Cookies are small text files stored on your device; pixels and local storage work similarly. We group them into three categories:

Your consent. Where the law requires it, we show a consent banner the first time you visit. Where your consent is required, we do not use analytics or advertising cookies — or load the third-party tools that rely on them — until you have given it. You can accept all, reject all, or choose categories, and you can change or withdraw your choice at any time using the Cookie settings link in our footer or by clearing cookies in your browser.

Managing cookies in your browser. Most browsers let you block or delete cookies through their settings. Blocking strictly necessary cookies may stop parts of the Site from working. Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge all provide instructions in their help pages.

Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control. Some browsers can send a “Do Not Track” signal or a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal. Where the law requires us to honor an opt-out preference signal such as GPC, we treat it as a valid request to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of your personal information (see “Your privacy rights”). There is no common industry standard for “Do Not Track,” so we do not separately respond to it.

How and why we use your information

We use the information described above for the purposes below. For visitors protected by the GDPR, the table also shows the legal basis we rely on for each purpose.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have weighed those interests against your rights, and you can object at any time (see “Your privacy rights”). Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time, which does not affect processing that already took place.

We do not use your personal information to make decisions about you by solely automated means that produce legal or similarly significant effects.

Third-party services and data sharing

We use a small number of service providers and partners to run the Site. Each receives only the data it needs for its role, and each has its own privacy policy. We are not responsible for how these third parties handle data, but we choose them carefully.

Do we sell your data? We do not sell your personal information for money. However, when advertising or analytics cookies are active, sharing online identifiers with advertising partners for interest-based advertising can be treated as a “sale” or “sharing” (for cross-context behavioral advertising) under some US state privacy laws. You can opt out — see “Advertising and your choices” and “Your privacy rights.”

We may also disclose information where required by law, or where necessary to protect our rights, safety, or property or those of others.

Advertising and your choices

We show third-party display advertising on the Site to help fund it. Our advertising is managed by Mediavine, which serves ads together with its advertising partners and provides the consent tool on our Site.

How it works. Advertising partners use cookies and similar identifiers to serve ads and measure their performance. Where you have consented (or where the law otherwise permits), some ads may be personalized — chosen based on information about your browsing over time and across sites. Where you have not consented, or where you opt out, you may still see ads, but they will be non-personalized — based only on general context such as the content of the page and your approximate location.

Mediavine and its advertising partners use cookies and similar identifiers to serve ads and measure their performance, including ads based on your activity on this and other sites where you have allowed it. Mediavine participates in the IAB Transparency & Consent Framework; you can see its advertising partners and privacy information at the Mediavine Legal Center.

Your ad choices. You can control or opt out of personalized advertising in several ways:

• Our consent banner — reject the “advertising” cookie category at any time.
• Google’s ad settings — manage or turn off personalized Google ads at myadcenter.google.com.
• Industry opt-out tools — opt out of many participating companies at once:
  • United States: the Digital Advertising Alliance at youradchoices.com/control and the Network Advertising Initiative at thenai.org/how-to-opt-out
  • Europe: youronlinechoices.eu
• Your browser or device — block advertising cookies, use the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout, or send a privacy signal such as Global Privacy Control, which we honor where the law requires.

Opting out stops personalized ads but does not stop ads altogether, and you may need to repeat some opt-outs if you clear cookies or switch browser or device.

Affiliate links and disclosure

Some links on the Site are affiliate links. If you click one and book or buy something, we may earn a commission. This comes at no additional cost to you and does not change the price you pay — affiliate commissions help keep the Site free to use.

Our main affiliate partner is Stay22, which powers the “Stay Nearby” booking buttons on hot spring pages (linking to accommodation and activity partners such as Booking.com, Vrbo, Expedia, Hotels.com, KAYAK, Agoda, and GetYourGuide). When you click one of these links or use the booking tools, Stay22 and the destination site may set cookies and process data to attribute the booking to us and to run their own services. This is governed by Stay22’s Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy and by the privacy policy of the site you are sent to.

We only point to places and services we consider genuinely useful, and our editorial choices are not driven by affiliate commissions. You are never obligated to use our links.

International data transfers

We are based in the European Union, and some of the service providers and advertising partners described above are located in the United States or operate globally. This means your personal data may be transferred to, stored in, or processed in countries outside your own — including the United States — whose data-protection laws may differ from those where you live.

When personal data is transferred out of the European Economic Area or the UK, we and our providers rely on legal safeguards designed to protect it, such as the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses, the EU–US Data Privacy Framework (where a provider is certified), or an adequacy decision covering the destination country. The main providers we use (Google, Microsoft, and Webflow) publish the specific safeguards they apply in their own privacy policies linked above.

How long we keep your information

We keep personal information only for as long as we need it for the purposes described in this policy, and then delete or anonymize it.

• Analytics data is retained according to our analytics settings. Google Analytics is configured to retain user- and event-level data for a limited period (for example, between 2 and 14 months, depending on configuration), after which it is deleted automatically; aggregated statistics may be kept longer.
• Advertising data is retained by our advertising partners under their own policies, typically for a limited period measured in months rather than years.
• Contact-form messages are kept for as long as needed to handle your enquiry and for a reasonable period afterward (generally up to 24 months) in case you follow up, then deleted.
• Server and security logs are kept for a short period (typically a few weeks to a few months) for security and troubleshooting, then deleted or rotated out.

If you ask us to delete your information, we will do so unless we are required or permitted by law to keep it.

Your privacy rights and choices

The rights you have depend on where you live. We honor the rights below for the people they apply to, and we offer the core choices — cookie controls and ad opt-outs — to everyone.

How to exercise your rights. Email us at hello@hotspringsguides.com with your request. We may need to verify your identity before acting, usually by confirming you control the email address or data involved. We will not charge you or discriminate against you for exercising your rights, and you may use an authorized agent where the law allows. Some of the data we collect (such as analytics and advertising identifiers) does not, on its own, let us identify you by name; where we genuinely cannot link data to a person, we may be unable to act on a request unless you give us information that lets us locate the relevant records, and we will tell you if that is the case.

If you are in the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland (GDPR)

You have the right to:

• Access a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• Rectify inaccurate or incomplete data
• Erase your data (“right to be forgotten”) in certain circumstances
• Restrict or object to our processing, including processing based on legitimate interests and any direct marketing
• Data portability — receive certain data in a portable format
• Withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent
• Lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. Because we are established in the EU, you may also complain to our lead supervisory authority, the Lithuanian State Data Protection Inspectorate (Valstybinė duomenų apsaugos inspekcija), at vdai.lrv.lt.

If you are in California (CCPA/CPRA)

To the extent the CCPA applies to us, you have the right to:

• Know what personal information we collect, use, and disclose
• Access and receive a copy of it
• Delete it, subject to legal exceptions
• Correct inaccurate information
• Opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising
• Limit the use of sensitive personal information (we do not use sensitive personal information for such purposes)
• Non-discrimination for exercising your rights

We do not sell personal information for money, and we do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16. To opt out of the advertising-related “sale”/“sharing” described above, use the ad opt-out tools in “Advertising and your choices,” reject advertising cookies in our banner, or send a Global Privacy Control signal, which we treat as a valid opt-out request where required.

If you are in another US state with a privacy law

A growing number of US states — including Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, Oregon, Montana, and others — give residents rights similar to those above, such as the rights to access, correct, delete, and obtain a copy of their personal data, and to opt out of targeted advertising and the sale of personal data. If you are a resident of such a state, contact us as described above to exercise the rights your state grants, and we will honor recognized opt-out preference signals (such as Global Privacy Control) in the states that require them.

Appeals

If we decline your request and the law in your state gives you a right to appeal, you may reply to our decision and we will reconsider it.

Children’s privacy

The Site is intended for a general, adult audience and is not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16 (or the minimum age set by the law that applies to you, such as 13 under the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act). If you believe a child has given us personal information, please contact us at hello@hotspringsguides.com and we will delete it.

How we protect your information

We take reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your information — for example, serving the Site over encrypted HTTPS connections and relying on reputable providers that maintain their own security safeguards. However, no method of transmitting or storing data over the internet is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. If a data breach affects your personal information and the law requires it, we will notify you and the relevant supervisory authority without undue delay. You can help by not including sensitive details in messages you do not need to send.

Other websites and services we link to

The Site contains links to other websites — including booking and affiliate partners, map providers, and external resources about the hot springs we list. We do not control these sites and are not responsible for their content or their privacy practices. When you follow a link off our Site, the privacy policy of the destination site applies. We encourage you to read the privacy policy of any site you visit.

Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time — for example, if we add features, use new providers, or to reflect changes in the law. When we do, we will update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page, and if the changes are significant we will give a more prominent notice on the Site. We encourage you to review this policy periodically. Changes take effect when we post them; where a change involves new processing that needs your consent, we will ask for that consent separately rather than relying on your continued use of the Site.

Questions? Contact us any time at hello@hotspringsguides.com.