Privacy policy

This page explains what Top Ten Wonders collects when you visit toptenwonders.com, why, and what you can do about it. It is written to be read rather than to be impressive.

You do not need an account

There is no sign up on this site and no login. You can read everything without giving us anything at all.

What we collect

When you simply read a page. We keep a first party record of the page visited, the site that sent you, an approximate country, whether you are on a phone or a computer, roughly how long you stayed and how far you scrolled, and a short random session identifier that lets us tell one visit from two. This is stored on our own server. It is used to see which guides are useful and which are not.

When you leave a comment. We keep the name you type, the comment itself, your IP address, your browser's user agent string and an approximate country. The name and the comment are shown publicly. The IP address and user agent are never shown; they exist so that spam and abuse can be blocked. An email field is optional and, if you fill it in, it is not published.

When you write to us. We keep what you send and the address you sent it from, so we can reply.

What we do not do

• We do not sell your personal information.
• We do not build advertising profiles of you ourselves.
• We do not ask for your date of birth, your address or any payment details. If a page ever asks you for a card number, it is not us.

Other companies involved

Some parts of the site involve other companies, and they handle data under their own policies rather than ours.

• Advertising networks, including Google, may set cookies or similar identifiers to choose and measure adverts. Google's use of advertising cookies is described in its own advertising policies, and you can control personalised advertising through Google's ad settings.
• Affiliate partners such as booking and tour companies set a cookie when you click one of their links, so that a booking can be attributed to us. What they do afterwards is governed by their own privacy policies.
• Wikimedia serves the photographs, which means your browser requests those images from Wikimedia's servers.

How long we keep things

Reading records are kept for up to two years and then removed. Comments stay for as long as the page they are on. Messages sent to us are kept for as long as they are useful for dealing with the matter raised.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to ask what we hold about you, to have it corrected, to have it deleted, or to object to how it is used. Residents of the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom have these rights under the GDPR; residents of California have comparable rights, including the right not to be discriminated against for using them. To exercise any of them, write to hello@toptenwonders.com.

In practice, if you want a comment removed, the fastest route is to email us the page address and the name you used. We will not ask you to prove anything elaborate.

Legal basis, if you are in Europe

Where the GDPR applies, we rely on legitimate interests for basic reading measurement and for blocking spam, on your consent for advertising and analytics cookies where consent is required, and on the necessity of performing the action you asked for when you send us a comment or a message.

Children

This site is meant for adults and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child has left a comment containing personal information, tell us and we will remove it.

Security, honestly stated

The site is served over an encrypted connection and access to the server is limited. No website can promise perfect security, and we will not pretend otherwise. Please do not send us anything sensitive.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that matters, the date at the top of this page will change with it. Continuing to use the site after that means you accept the current version.