Cookies! They are not just something we eat. This site uses cookies so we can provide you the best user experience and deliver advertising and offers that are relevant to you. To read more about our cookie policy, including how to change your cookie settings, please read our Privacy and Cookie Policy. By continuing to use the site you are agreeing to our cookie policy.
I accept

Traveling Spoon Privacy Policy

Last Updated: May 31, 2018

Protecting your privacy is really important to us. Accordingly, this Privacy Policy applies to the Traveling Spoon, Inc.’s ( “Traveling Spoon”, “we”, “us”, and “our”) Websites (travelingspoon.com; our mobile website; and any other web-based platforms (collectively, the “Websites”) and governs our data collection, processing and usage. Access to and use of the Websites, and the services provided on the Website (collectively, the “Service”), will be subject to this Privacy Policy as set forth below.


Any information that we collect is subject to this Privacy Policy. We may, however, modify and revise this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make any material changes to this Privacy Policy, we’ll notify you of those changes by posting them on the Services or by sending you an email or other notification, and we’ll indicate when those changes will become effective. Also, please note that, unless we define a term in this Privacy Policy, all capitalized words used in this Privacy Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms of Service.

How do we collect and use information?

Our primary goals in collecting information are to provide and improve our Services, to administer your use of the Services (including your Account, if you are an Account holder), and to enable you to enjoy and easily navigate our Services.

Account Information.

  • If you create an Account directly on our Websites, we’ll collect certain information that can be used to identify you, such as your name, email address, and year of birth (“PII”).
  • If you create an Account using your login credentials from one of your SNS Accounts, we’ll be able to access and collect your name and email address and other PII that your privacy settings on the SNS Account permit us to access. We don’t receive or store passwords for any of your SNS Accounts.
  • If you create an Account and you are a host, we will collect additional information from you which will be used to create your host profile. This host profile and your information is used to provide our Services. This information may include: your name, email address, date of birth, home address, telephone number, and biographical information that you choose to share in order to create your Host Profile.

Booking Process. In addition to creating an account, you may also decide to create a booking to use our Services. When creating a booking, we collect additional information needed to process and provide our Services as follows.

  • If you create a booking directly through our Websites, we may collect the names of your guests, your local telephone number or hotel address, any request for transportation as an additional service, and allergy and dietary restriction information. Payment for these Services will be processed through Stripe, a third-party processor (described below). Traveling Spoon does not store your credit card information in our database. Your credit card is only charged when your host confirms your booking.
  • You may create a booking through one of our third party providers (described below), including a travel agent, tour operator, or online tour and activity provider. If your booking is created through a third-party provider, they may provide us with your name, age, email and contact telephone number. This information will be used to process your booking and provide you and your host information needed to render our Services.

Marketing Information. You have the option, when creating an Account with us or by providing your email address for a newsletter subscription, to consent to the receipt of newsletters and other information that may be of interest to you. If you decide at any time that you no longer wish to receive such communications from us, please follow the Opt-Out procedure described in this policy below (see the “Marketing Communication” section under “Your Privacy Rights”).

Information Related to Use of the Services. Our servers automatically record certain information about how a person uses our Services (we refer to this information as “Log Data” )including both Account holders and non-Account holders (either, a “User” ). Log Data may include information such as a User’s Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type, operating system, the web page that a User was visiting before accessing our Services, the pages or features of our Services to which a User browsed and the time spent on those pages or features, the links on our Services that a User clicked on and other statistics. We use this information to administer the Services and we analyze (and may engage third parties to analyze) this information to improve and enhance the Services by expanding their features and functionality and tailoring them to our Users’ needs and preferences. We may use a person’s IP address to fight spam, malware and identity theft. We also use the IP Address to generate aggregate, non-identifying information about how our Services are used. You consent to the tracking of this information through our Cookie Banner, which is more fully outlined below.

Information Collected Using Cookies and other Web Technologies. Our Websites may use “cookies” and other tracking mechanisms to collect information about you when you visit our Websites. Insofar as those cookies are not strictly necessary for the provision of and our affiliated websites, we ask you to consent to our use of cookies when you first visit our website.

About cookies. A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. Cookies may be either "persistent" cookies or "session" cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.


Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.

Cookies that We Use. As explained in more detail below, Traveling Spoon and third-party providers may send one or more cookies to your browser to help customize your experience on our Websites or Services or to provide you with ads that may be of interest to you.
 We use cookies for the following purposes:

  • Authentication and Personalization - we use cookies to identify you when you visit our Websites and as you navigate our Websites and Services and to store information about your preferences and to personalize our Websites and Services for you.
  • Security - we use cookies as an element of the security measures used to protect user accounts, including preventing fraudulent use of login credentials, and to protect our Websites and Services generally.
  • Location - in some cases, we collect and store information about where you are located, if you permit us to do so. We may use location information to improve and personalize our Services for you.
  • Advertising - we use cookies to help us to display content that will be relevant to you.
  • Analysis - we use cookies to help us to analyze the use and performance of our Websites and Services.

The Traveling Spoon and third party cookies you may encounter on our Websites include, but are not limited to:

You may review the cookies in use by third-party service providers at any time by viewing site information from your browser. This is typically displayed to the left of the address bar of your browser.


Managing cookies. Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies and to delete cookies. The methods for doing so vary from browser to browser, and from version to version. Blocking all cookies will have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites.

Traveling Spoon expressly requests that you consent to cookies when you visit its Website. In order to decline cookies from the Website, you will need to make adjustments at the browser level (i.e., by going to your browser’s settings regarding cookies).

Strictly Necessary Cookies: Traveling Spoon’s Websites use cookies that are strictly necessary to the provision of the Services. These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you on the Website. These cookies include:

Permissive Cookies: These cookies are not necessary to the functioning of the website and a visitor to the Websites must opt-in to the use of these cookies.

“Web Beacons” (also known as clear gifs). These are tiny graphics with a unique identifier that may be included on our Services for several purposes, including to deliver or communicate with Cookies, to track and measure the performance of our Services, to monitor how many visitors view our Services, and to monitor the effectiveness of our advertising. Unlike Cookies, which are stored on the user’s hard drive, Web Beacons are typically embedded invisibly on web pages (or in an e-mail). Similar to the cookies used on the Websites, you are expressly asked to consent to the use of these Web Beacons via our Cookie Banner.

What Information Do We Share With Third Parties?

We will not share any PII that we have collected from you except as described below:

Information Shared with other Account Holders: Each Traveler and their applicable Host will, upon receipt of a confirmation of Confirmed Booking, be made aware of each other’s respective identity and contact information. This means that if you are a Traveler, we will share your name and email address with the Host, and we may share your telephone number with the Host, and if you are a Host, we will share your name, home address, and email address with the Traveler, and we may share your telephone number with the Traveler. This is necessary in order to provide the Services.

Information Shared with Our Services Providers. We may engage third party service providers to work with us to administer and provide the Services, including payment processors (such as Stripe and Paypal), used to process payments for our Hosts and Travelers, database and web services companies (such as Amazon or Digital Ocean), used to securely store our data and act as web servers, and analytics companies (such as Google Analytics), used to improve our website performance. These third-party services providers have access to your PII only for the purpose of performing the Services on our behalf and are expressly obligated not to disclose or use your PII for any other purpose.

Information Shared with Our Partners. We may work with partners that operate guided tour services in locations in which we offer our Services. Such partners will promote our Services, and we may share information about Hosts located in those locations to allow these partners to make Host bookings. These partners include travel agents, tour operators, and online tour and activity providers. To the extent possible, we will notify you as a Host if your information will be shared with a partner. We will not share any information about Travelers with such partners. Partners, if they choose to make a booking with us, may also provide us information on their Travelers. This information will be limited to name, age, email address and local telephone number, which will only be used to conduct the Services; this information will also be shared with the relevant Host that Traveler has booked in order to deliver the Services they have signed up for.

Information Shared with Third Parties. We may share aggregated information and non-identifying information with third parties for industry research and analysis, demographic profiling and other similar purposes.

Information Disclosed in Connection with Business Transactions. Information that we collect from our users, including PII, is considered to be a business asset. As a result, if we go out of business or enter bankruptcy or if we are acquired as a result of a transaction such as a merger, acquisition or asset sale, your PII may be disclosed or transferred to the third-party acquirer in connection with the transaction. Information Disclosed for Our Protection and the Protection of Others. We cooperate with government and law enforcement officials or private parties to enforce and comply with the law. We may disclose any information about you to government or law enforcement officials or private parties as we, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate: (i) to respond to claims, legal process (including subpoenas); (ii) to protect our property, rights and safety and the property, rights and safety of a third party or the public in general; and (iii) to stop any activity that we consider illegal, unethical or legally actionable activity.

The Security of Your Information

We take into account the state of the art, the costs of implementation and the nature, scope, context and purposes of processing as well as the risk of varying likelihood and severity for the rights and freedoms of natural persons, and implement appropriate technical, physical and organisational measures to ensure an appropriate level of security to protect the personal information that we collect and process, both while in transit and while in storage. No method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure, however. Therefore, while we use reasonable security safeguards to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Links to Other Sites

Our Services may contain links to other websites and services. Any information that you provide on or to a third-party website or service is provided directly to the owner of the website or service and is subject to that party's privacy policy. Our Privacy Policy does not apply to such websites or services and we’re not responsible for the content, privacy or security practices and policies of those websites or services. To protect your information we recommend that you carefully review the privacy policies of other websites and services that you access.

Your Privacy Rights


You can always opt not to disclose information to Traveling Spoon. However, some information may be needed to use our Services.

Cookies

You can accept or reject cookies through clicking on the banner image visible on the homepage or other site navigation pages. You can also do so by adjusting your web browser controls.

Marketing Communications

At any time, you can withdraw your consent and opt-out of receiving promotional or marketing communications from S2M at any time, by using the unsubscribe link in the emails communications or by emailing us at privacy@travelingspoon.com

If you have any account for our Services, Traveling Spoon will still send you non-promotional communications, like service related emails.


Exercising Your Data Subject Rights


You have the right to access, review, update, rectify, and delete any personal information that Traveling Spoon holds about you, or exercise any other data subject rights available to you under applicable data protection laws. You can access and modify the PII associated with your Account through the profile page in your Account. If you want to delete your PII and your Account, you can do so through the Settings page in your Account, or you can contact us at privacy@travelingspoon.com with your request. Traveling Spoon’s Privacy Team will review any request and respond within a reasonable time.

Please note that we may still use any aggregated and de-identified Personal Information that does not identify any individual. Traveling Spoon will also retain any Personal Information to the extent necessary to comply with Traveling Spoon’s legal obligations, resolve disputes, provide Services, and enforce Traveling Spoon’s agreements, as outlined in this Privacy Policy.


International Data Transfers

Personal Information you submit on the Websites or through the Services is sent to the United States and will be primarily processed by us in the United States. If you choose to use our Websites or Services from regions outside the United States that have laws governing data collection and use that differ from U.S. law, you acknowledge and agree that you are transferring personal information outside of that region to the United States and, by providing such information, you consent to the use of your personal data as identified in this Privacy Policy and the transfer of your personal data to the United States. Further, Traveling Spoon will continue to follow all applicable data protection laws, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation 2016/679) (“GDPR”).

California Residents

California residents are entitled to ask us for a notice identifying the categories of Personal Information which we share with our affiliates and/or third parties for marketing purposes, and providing contact information for such affiliates and/or third parties. If you are a California resident and would like a copy of this notice, please submit a written request to: privacy@travelingspoon.com

Our Policy Toward Children

Our Services are not directed to children under 16 and we do not knowingly collect PII from children under 16. If we learn that we have collected PII of a child under 16, we will take steps to delete such information from our files as soon as possible. If you believe that a child under 16 may have provided us personal information, please contact us at privacy@travelingspoon.com

Questions?

Please contact us at privacy@travelingspoon.com if you have any questions about our Privacy Policy.