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User Privacy Policy

1. Preamble

  1. EXPLORIST.CA IS A DIVISION OF GOSHOPLOCAL.COM INC (represented in this document as Explorist)
  2. EXPLORIST owns and operates a service that enables users to research, find, and book travel and event experiences in Canada, collectively referred to as our Services.
  3. SERVICES are specifically those provided by Explorist and other related sources including you, affiliated entities, business partners, and other independent third-party sources.
  4. STATEMENT Please review this privacy statement (“Statement”) carefully to learn about our privacy practices. This Statement describes how we obtain, use, and process your information

By visiting our website and mobile application, whether on a computer, phone, tablet, or similar device (each of these is referred to as a “Device”), you acknowledge and confirm that you have read this Statement.

2. Information Collected and Processed

When you access or use our Services, we collect and process information from and about you to provide the Services in a more personalized and relevant way. Some information we collect passively; for example, with our servers or with cookies or other similar tracking technologies. Some information we collect from different sources, including from you, affiliated entities, business partners, and other independent third-party sources. When you use our Services by “clicking-through” from a third-party website or when you visit third-party websites via our Services, those third-party websites may share information with us about your use of their service. Any information we receive from third-party websites may be combined with the information provided by you. Information collected may include the following:

  1. Contact information, including name, phone number and postal and email addresses (both hashed and unhashed)
  2. Billing and other payment information (such as your bank account information, credit card number, cardholder name, expiration date, authentication code and billing address)
  3. Documentation to support travel and planning, including identity verification documents, if you choose to provide it to us
  4. Username and password
  5. Photos, reviews, social posts, and videos you may have provided to us
  6. Geolocation information
  7. Device information, such as when you accessed our Services and information about the Device used (for example, IP address, software or internet browser used, preferred languages, unique Device identifiers and advertising identifiers)
  8. Online activity, including pages you have visited, content reviewed, and apps reviewed
  9. Purchasing and booking history
  10. Information about your travel and experience plans and preferences
  11. Communications when you contact our customer service team, including inbound and outbound calls
  12. Information that you have provided to third party companies for the purposes of logging into social media platforms. This includes publicly available information, such as name, age range as well as email addresses.

We may also collect, in instances where you have provided it, information about other travelers, including their email address and other travel-related information. If you are sharing information with us about other individuals, you must obtain their consent and ensure that they have understood and accepted how we will use their personal information (as described in this Statement).

In addition to the categories noted above, we may also collect certain location information if you have instructed your Device to send such information via the privacy settings on that Device, or, for example, if you have uploaded photos tagged with location information.

3. Information Uses and Purposes

To the extent possible, we want to provide you with relevant content and a tailored experience when you use our Services, and we use information about you to do that, including in the following ways:

a. Registration and other contracts

  1. Register and manage your account, including to allow you access to and use of our Services
  2. Facilitate your bookings
  3. Process payments or credits
  4. Make promotional offers to you that may include competitions, gift cards, rewards, cash back, and discounts

b. Improve our Services

  1. Use your information for analytical purposes and to enable us to improve our Services
  2. Provide you with a tailored/optimized experience by grouping users based on, for example, usage, interests, and demographics
  3. Send you survey or market research invitations

c. Individualization and customization

  1. Notify you about special offers, prize draws, competitions, and Services available from us, our affiliates, or our partners that may be of interest to you
  2. Tailor your experience, including by making inferences about your interests and preferences based on your activity, and customize the ads shown to you both on and off our website

d. Communication

  1. Notify you about special offers, prize draws, competitions, and Services available from us, our affiliates, or our partners that may be of interest to you
  2. Tailor your experience, including by making inferences about your interests and preferences based on your activity, and customize the ads shown to you both on and off our website

e. Legal Compliance

  1. Resolve disputes or troubleshoot problems
  2. Prevent fraud and other potentially prohibited or unlawful activities
  3. Comply with relevant laws, respond to legal requests, prevent harm, and protect our rights and the rights of other users and third parties
  4. Provide payment services, including to detect and prevent money laundering, fraud and security incidents, to comply with legal obligations, and to enforce payments terms of service

Please note, if we use automated decision-making to process your personal information, we will implement appropriate measures required to safeguard your rights and freedoms including your right to obtain human intervention.

4. Information Sharing

In order to provide some of our Services, we may need to share information with certain other third parties, including our group of companies, in the following circumstances:

  1. Experience Suppliers and travelers. We may share travelers’ personal information with suppliers of experiences to allow them to fulfil the bookings made through our Services. We may also share personal information of experience suppliers with travelers, including but not limited to where there is a dispute between the two parties.
  2. Service Providers. We share information with certain service providers used to facilitate our Services, including to help with transactions.
  3. Business Partners. We may share information about you, your Devices and your use of our Services with our trusted business partners. For example, we may share information so that we can facilitate payments for services you may see promoted on the websites of our partners. This sharing is generally pursuant to written agreements which include confidentiality, privacy and security obligations; please note, however, that we do not control the privacy practices of these third-party business partners.
  4. Social Media Sites. When you use our Services and elect to share information with third-party social media websites, the information you share will be governed by the privacy policies of those social media websites and the privacy settings you have set with those social media websites.
  5. Advertising Networks. We sometimes collect and share information about your interests with advertising networks and data aggregators.
  6. Fraud Detection Companies. Third parties may assist us by providing us with their fraud detection technologies.
  7. Other third parties, such as referring websites. Third parties may also assist us in collecting information by, for example, operating features of our website or facilitating the delivery of online advertising tailored to your interests. We may share audience segments and other information, such as hashed email addresses, with third parties that use that information for tailored advertising to you. Other third parties may also provide us with their content and contract generation, management, and hosting tools. Third parties may only collect or access information as needed to perform their permitted functions. If and to the extent these third parties only assist us to perform our processing operations, we have bound them contractually to only act on our behalf as so-called data processors.

Certain Device operating system versions permit you to opt out of certain types of information sharing, including to certain advertising networks. You can change the privacy settings of your Device at any time in order to turn off the functionality that collects and shares location information. Please check your Device settings if you want to limit such tracking. We also may share your information if we believe, in our sole discretion, that such disclosure is necessary:

  1. To comply with legitimate and enforceable subpoenas, court orders, or other legal processes; to establish or exercise our legal rights; to defend against legal claims; or as otherwise required by law. In such cases, we reserve the right to raise or waive any legal objection or right available to us.
  2. To investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal or suspected illegal activities; to protect and defend the rights, property, or safety of Viator, our customers, or others; and in connection with our Terms of Use and other agreements.
  3. In connection with a corporate transaction, such as a divestiture, merger, consolidation, or asset sale, or in the unlikely event of bankruptcy.

5. Information Choices

You have options with respect to the processing and use of your information by us. You can access, update, and even deactivate your account In addition, you can do the following:

  1. Choose the way we communicate with you.
  2. Choose not to provide us with certain information, although it may be needed to take advantage of certain features offered on our website.
  3. Prevent the collection of certain geolocation information (e.g. by switching off location services for our app in the settings of your phone), but note that turning off location sharing may affect certain features of our Services.
  4. Deactivate your account directly from within your Profile. We may retain some information associated with your account (including past transactions) for internal purposes including backups, fraud prevention, dispute resolution, investigations, our own legitimate business interests, and legal compliance for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Statement.
  5. As a registered user, you can modify your marketing preferences in the Notifications section of the website.
  6. Unsubscribe from promotional messages, including emails with travel-related opportunities, in any such email we send.

6. Information on Children

Our Services are not intended for children, which we consider to be: (i) individuals that are 13 years of age or under, or the age of privacy consent in your jurisdiction; or (ii) when processing data on the basis of a contract, the age of legal capacity to enter into the agreement.

We will only collect or process information belonging to children under very limited circumstances. We might need to collect personal information belonging to children as part of our Service if, for example, the personal information is required as part of an experience-related reservation. We will only collect personal information belonging to children if it is provided by and with consent of a parent or guardian. If we become aware that we have processed the personal information of a child without the valid consent of a parent or guardian, we will delete the personal information.

7. Information security

We only authorize specific personnel to access personal information and they may do so only for permitted business functions. We also employ firewalls and intrusion detection systems to help prevent unauthorized access to your information. However, we cannot guarantee the security of information from unauthorized entry or use, hardware or software failure, or other circumstances outside of our control.

8. Information Deletion and Retention

We will retain copies of your information for as long as you maintain your account or as necessary in connection with the purposes set out in this Statement, unless applicable law requires a longer retention period. In addition, we may retain your information for the duration of any period necessary to establish, exercise or defend any legal rights.

9. Cookies

We want your access to our Services to be as easy, efficient, and useful as possible. To help us do this, we use cookies and similar technologies to improve your experience, to enhance website security, and to show you relevant advertising.

Cookies are small text files that are automatically placed on your Device when you visit almost any website. They are stored by your internet browser and contain basic information about your internet use. Your browser sends the information from these cookies back to a website every time you revisit it, so it can recognize your Device and improve your experience by, among other things, providing you with personalized content. We also use other tracking technologies, such as pixel, SDKs, or server logs, that have a similar functionality. We also use cookies and tracking technologies to remember your login details, so you don’t have to re-enter them repeatedly when you use our Services or to help us understand your preferences.

If you decline certain cookies, your access to some functionality and areas of our Services might be degraded or restricted. Our use of any information we collect through cookies is subject to this Statement.

Last updated 2024-01-20