Skip to content

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 21 September 2026

This policy explains what information Lisbon Tourism Guide (www.lisbontourism.org) collects when you visit the site, why we collect it, who else receives it, and what you can do about it. We are the data controller for the processing described here. You can reach us through our contact page.

The short version

  • You can read every guide on this site without giving us any personal information.
  • We don’t run a newsletter, sell anything, or ask you to create an account.
  • Comments are switched off site-wide, so we hold no commenter data.
  • The only information you actively give us is what you type into the contact form.
  • Google Analytics measures which guides are read. Where the law requires your permission first, it does not run until you give it.
  • Some links to hotels and booking sites earn us a commission through our booking partner, Stay22, which recognises your device without using a cookie. That is the main privacy consideration on this site, and it is covered in detail below.
  • The site shows no display advertising.

Information we collect

Information you give us

If you use the contact form we receive the name, email address and message you enter, so that we can reply. We use it for that purpose only. We do not add it to a mailing list, sell it, or share it with anyone else, and we delete correspondence once it no longer serves a purpose — normally within 24 months.

Information collected automatically

Like almost every website, our hosting provider records standard server log data when a page is requested: IP address, browser type and version, operating system, the page requested, the referring page, and the date and time. These logs are used to keep the site running, diagnose faults and detect abuse. They are held for a short period by the host and are not used to build a profile of you.

Cookies and similar technologies

A cookie is a small text file a site asks your browser to store. The cookies and similar technologies used on this site fall into four groups, the same four the cookie settings use, and the cookie policy lists every one of them, generated from the services actually running here.

  • Strictly necessary. Set by WordPress, our caching layer and Cloudflare, which delivers the site, to serve pages correctly and keep it secure — plus cookie_consent_1a5071, which records your answer to the cookie dialog or bar, and cookie_consent_1a5071_loc, which remembers for a day which country you are reading from. The site does not function properly without them.
  • Functional. The site’s typefaces are loaded from Google Fonts. No cookie is involved, but fetching them gives Google your IP address and browser details, so where the law requires it they wait for your permission, and the page uses fonts already on your device until then.
  • Analytics. Set by Google Analytics to tell us, in aggregate, which guides are read and how people arrive at them.
  • Advertising. This is where Stay22, the booking partner, sits. It uses your browser’s storage rather than a cookie; see “Booking links and commission” below. No display-advertising network runs on the site.

You can delete cookies and block future ones in your browser settings, but on this site the cookie settings are the more complete control: blocking cookies cannot stop a partner that does not use one. Refusing analytics, functional or advertising storage does not stop you reading anything here; blocking strictly necessary cookies may break parts of the site.

Advertising

Lisbon Tourism Guide does not display advertising at the time of writing, and no ad network runs on it. The booking links described in the next section are a separate arrangement, and they are running now.

Booking links and commission

Some links on this site earn a commission. Links to hotels, apartments and booking sites are handled by Stay22, a booking-link partner whose script turns them into commission-tracking links as the page loads. If you book after following one, the booking site pays us a commission; the price you pay is the same either way. Every guide says so at the top, and the affiliate disclosure sets out the arrangement in full.

What that means for your data needs spelling out, because it is not what a cookie notice usually describes. Stay22 does not set a cookie. It recognises your device from the characteristics of your browser — fonts, screen, language and similar details — and keeps an identifier in your browser’s local storage under the names visitor_id_id22 and cache_id22, so that a booking made later can be credited here. Like any service your browser connects to, it also receives your IP address and browser details when it loads, and it processes data outside the EU. Blocking third-party cookies does not stop any of this; the cookie settings on this site do.

Stay22 sits in the Advertising group of those settings and does not load at all until that group is allowed. We never see your name, your travel dates or your payment details — what comes back is a count of clicks and, sometimes, the fact that a booking happened. Once you are on a booking site you are under its privacy policy, not this one.

Analytics

We use Google Analytics to understand which guides are read, how visitors find the site, and where pages fall short. Google Analytics sets cookies and processes data including a truncated IP address, device type, approximate location and pages viewed. We look at this only in aggregate — it tells us that a guide is popular, not who read it. Google’s own explanation of this processing is at policies.google.com/privacy, and you can prevent it entirely by switching analytics off in this site’s cookie settings, or with the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. Whether it runs before you have made a choice depends on where you are reading from; see “Your choices” below.

Who your information is shared with

We do not sell personal information. Information is processed on our behalf, or collected directly, by the following providers: our web host, which stores the site and its server logs; Cloudflare, which delivers the site and handles each request on its way through; Google, for analytics and for the site’s typefaces, as described above; Stay22, the booking partner, once you allow it; and the plugin that delivers the contact form, which passes your message to our inbox. Because the booking partner receives information about your visit, the site treats that as potential “sharing” under US state law and offers a Do not sell or share control; see “If you are reading this in the United States” below. Some of these providers operate outside the European Economic Area, including in the United States; where that happens, transfers rely on the safeguards those providers put in place, such as the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and standard contractual clauses.

We may also disclose information where we are legally required to, or to protect our rights or the safety of others.

Your choices, and what runs before you make them

What runs before you choose depends on where you are reading from, because the law does. In the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, and in Brazil, Chile, China, Israel, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Thailand, Türkiye and Vietnam, nothing beyond the strictly necessary runs until you answer the dialog on your first visit — not analytics, not Stay22, not the typefaces loaded from Google — and Reject all sits on that first screen next to Accept all, not behind a second click.

In the United States you are shown a bar rather than a dialog, and it is not only a notice: analytics and the site’s typefaces start on arrival there, but advertising and booking-partner scripts stay switched off until you answer it. In Switzerland you get the dialog too, but analytics and the site’s typefaces start on arrival there and only advertising and booking-partner scripts wait for your answer. Readers in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mexico, Argentina, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates get a notice instead: everything described on this page starts when they arrive, the notice says so, and the same control switches it off. Everywhere else, and whenever we cannot tell where you are, the strictest setting applies: nothing beyond the necessary runs until you answer.

Your answer is kept on your own device, in a first-party cookie called cookie_consent_1a5071 that only this site can read, so you are not asked again on every page. An answer lasts up to a year, and a refusal given in the dialog six months, before you are asked again. The Cookie settings link in the footer of every page reopens the choice, and withdrawing is the same two clicks as agreeing: the scripts stop and what they stored on your device is cleared, including visitor_id_id22, cache_id22 and the thumbmark_* keys.

Refusing costs you nothing. Every guide here is readable in full either way, nothing is paywalled, and no part of Lisbon Tourism Guide is held back from readers who say no.

If you are reading this in the United States

Several US states give you the right to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of personal information, and those words are broader than they sound: letting an advertising or affiliate partner receive information about your visit can count as sharing even though no money changes hands for your data and we have never sold anything of the kind. Rather than argue the definition, Lisbon Tourism Guide treats it as covered.

So the bar shown to US readers carries a Do not sell or share button, and for US readers the Cookie settings link at the foot of every page reads Do not sell or share my personal information. The button switches off everything except the strictly necessary — Stay22 and any ad partner included — and clears what Stay22 stored on your device if you had let it run; the link reopens the full choice at any time.

This site also honours Global Privacy Control. If your browser or an extension sends a GPC signal, it is treated as a valid opt-out on arrival — you do not have to find the control and click it as well, and we do not ask again on later visits. Do Not Track is a different and long-abandoned signal, and to be straight about it: this site does not act on DNT, because nothing agreed what it ought to mean.

The record kept of your choice

Proving that a choice was offered and honoured means keeping a record of it. Each answer is logged with the date and time, the two-letter country the choice was made from, which of the rule sets above applied, a reference to the exact wording you were shown, and the choice itself, against a random identifier generated for your browser.

That record contains no name, no email address and no IP address. It holds a salted hash of your browser’s user-agent string, and the salt changes every day, so two visits on different days cannot be linked back together through it. Records are deleted after 26 months. If you want to see or delete the entries tied to your browser, ask through the contact form.

Legal bases for processing (UK and EU visitors)

  • Consent — for analytics, for the typefaces loaded from Google Fonts and for the booking partner. That is why, if you are in the EEA or the UK, none of them runs until you have agreed, and why you can withdraw that agreement at any time from the Cookie settings link.
  • Legitimate interests — for server logs and site security, where our interest in running a working, secure website is balanced against your privacy.
  • Legitimate interests — for answering a message you send us through the contact form.

Your rights

If you are in the UK, the EEA or Switzerland, you have the right to ask us for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to object to or restrict how we use it, to have it provided in a portable format, and to withdraw consent you have given. You also have the right to complain to the data protection authority where you live.

If you are a California resident, you have the right to know what personal information is collected and how it is used, to request deletion, and to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of personal information as those terms are defined by the CCPA and CPRA. We do not sell personal information for money; the booking partner described above receives information about your visit, which may count as “sharing”, and you can opt out with the controls described under “If you are reading this in the United States”. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights.

To exercise any right, write to us through the contact page. We will respond within one month.

Children

This site is written for adults planning travel and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has provided us with information, contact us and we will delete it.

Links to other sites

Our guides link out to transport operators, museums, official tourism bodies and other third parties. Those sites have their own privacy policies and we have no control over what they collect. This policy covers only what happens on lisbontourism.org.

Where a guide embeds something from another site — a map, a video, a post — that embed is held back behind a placeholder until the relevant category is allowed, so it cannot quietly set anything on your device before you have chosen. Clicking the placeholder loads that one item.

Changes to this policy

We update this policy when our practices or the services we use change. The date at the top shows the current version. Material changes will be flagged on the site rather than made quietly.

Cookie settings