Privacy policy  

TripAdvisor has provided this privacy policy because we value your right to privacy. This policy describes the types of information TripAdvisor gathers from its users and how that information is used. Please read this policy carefully before providing us with any personal information. If you have questions about this policy, contact us.

Information we collect

1. Unregistered users

We encourage you to register with us in order to take advantage of TripAdvisor's many personalization features. However, you may choose not to register and still have full access to our site.

If you do not register, then the information we collect from you is limited. We log your IP address in order to help diagnose problems with our server, administer our Web site and track usage statistics. Your IP address may vary each time you visit, or it may be the same, depending on whether you access our site through an always-on type of Internet connection (e.g., cable modem or DSL), or through a dial-up connection (e.g., AOL or Earthlink). Either way, it would be extremely difficult for us to identify you through your IP address, and we make no attempt to do so. If you reached our site by clicking on a link or advertisement on another site, then we also log that information. This helps us to maximize our Internet exposure, and to understand the interests of our users. All of this information is collected and used only in the aggregate; that is, it is entered into our database, where we can use it to generate overall reports on our visitors, but not individual reports.

We also place a small file known as a "cookie" on your computer's hard drive. A cookie may contain information that allows us to track your path through our Web site and to determine whether you have visited us before. However, unless you register with us, it contains no personally identifiable information that would allow us to identify you. Cookies cannot be used to read data off of your hard drive, and cannot retrieve information from any other cookies created by other Web sites. We use cookies in this manner to help us understand how visitors use our site, and to help us to improve our site. You may refuse to accept a cookie from us by following the procedures specific to your Web browser. Although you may do so, you may find that your browser reacts strangely when visiting not only our Web site, but other Web sites as well. Since cookies don't provide us with any information from which we can identify you, we suggest you allow us to place one on your computer.

If you visit our site by "clicking-through" from a site operated by one of our partners, and you have registered with that partner, then certain information about you that you have provided to that partner may be transmitted to us. You should review the privacy policy of the Web site from which you reached our site in order to determine what information was collected and how you agreed that our partner could use that information. Regardless of what information was transmitted to us, however, we don't keep it unless you register with us.

2. Registered users

If you choose to register with us, you'll benefit from the ability to personalize your TripAdvisor experience. The benefits of registering will increase over time as we get to know you better. Among other things, these benefits include a personalized browsing experience tailored to your profile and interests. We encourage you to register so that you can experience everything that TripAdvisor has to offer!

If you register with us, we will collect personal information from you. That information may include your name, mailing address, telephone number, travel preferences, user name and password. The information we collect may vary, but we only collect the information that you manually enter into our forms. We may store all or some of that information in a cookie file on your hard drive, so that our system will recognize you each time you visit our site. In that way, we can save your preferences from visit to visit and present you with a customized Web site, without requiring you to log into our site every time you visit.

If you visit our site by "clicking-through" from a site operated by one of our partners, and you have registered with that partner, then certain information about you that you have provided to that partner may be transmitted to us. You should review the privacy policy of the Web site from which you reached our site in order to determine what information was collected and how you agreed that our partner could use that information. We may or may not retain that information; if we do, then we will only use it in accordance with our privacy policy, regardless of the policy of the partner site from which you came to us.

If you reach our site through one of our partners (whether or not you have registered with our partner), and you choose to register with us, we may be required to give our partner some or all of your registration information. We will only do so in accordance with this policy, but we cannot control how our partner uses the information. If you have questions about our partner's privacy policy, you should review their policy before providing information to us.

Of course, you can ensure that the personal information you provide to us is not shared with our partners (except in accordance with this policy), by visiting us directly instead of clicking-through from one of our partners.

How we use the information we collect

We use the information we collect to help both of us! As we mentioned above, registering with us allows you to personalize our Web site so that it is most useful to you. It also allows you to log into our site automatically each time you visit, rather than manually typing your user name and password every time. Once you have familiarized yourself with our Web site and all it has to offer, you may decide that you would like us to provide you with additional information automatically. For example, if you are interested in information on a particular vacation locale, you may want us to notify you if we locate any additional information about it. We would do that by sending you an e-mail. We might also use the information to enable us to notify you of special offers, to tell you about opportunities available from our partners, and for similar reasons. However, we will do so only if you specifically authorize us to. You can control whether you receive such e-mails by following the instructions elsewhere on this Web site, and we will make every reasonable effort to honor your request. We may also use the information you provide to allow us to contact you for administrative purposes, for example, to tell you about changes to our privacy policy.

We may also use certain information that you provide in order to present you with advertising that you may find interesting. This benefits both of us. It benefits us because advertising helps pay the bills, and we can charge our advertisers more if they know that their ads will be seen by somebody more likely to find it useful. It benefits you because you see advertising that may actually be interesting to you, rather than annoying.

You can cancel your registration with us by e-mailing us, and placing your screen name in the subject of the e-mail. We will send you an e-mail to confirm your request. After we receive confirmation, we will remove your information from its active database, but some information may remain in our archives. We may not be able to remove your information from our partners' databases, if we have transmitted any information to them.

Disclosure of your information

TripAdvisor does not sell or rent any personally identifiable information to any third party, other than our partners, as discussed in this policy. We may aggregate personal information from all of our users and provide that information in the aggregate to other parties, including advertisers, for marketing and promotional purposes. However, if we do so, that information will not be in a format that will allow any third party to identify you personally.

As you might expect, TripAdvisor must cooperate with legal authorities, and may in some circumstances be required to disclose personally identifiable information in response to requests from law enforcement authorities, or in response to a subpoena or other legal process. We don't expect this to happen, but if it does, we will provide only the information required. In other words, we will not simply turn over our database in response to a specific legal requirement. We can also turn over information about you if we believe we must in order to prevent a violation of the law, and by accepting this policy, you consent to our doing so, in our sole discretion. You also consent to our disclosing information about you in the course of legal proceedings if we are legally required to do so, if we reasonably believe that doing so may mitigate our liability, or if doing so will assist us in enforcing our legal rights.

Although at the moment, TripAdvisor has no related companies, we may at some point. If that should happen, then we may disclose the information you provide us to them, in which case we will request them to abide by this policy. We may also disclose some information to a potential acquirer, although such disclosure would be subject to restrictions on use.

Of course, TripAdvisor will take reasonable measures to secure the information you provide us, using industry-standard methods. However, there is a remote possibility that internet transmissions containing your personal information may be intercepted by others. There is no way for us to ensure the privacy of your information before it arrives at our site or after it leaves our site.

We reserve the right to change this policy should we deem it advisable to do so. If we make significant changes, we will make reasonable efforts to notify you of the changes and to give you the opportunity to cancel your registration.