Privacy Policy

Ben and Mel Travels (“Company”, “we”, or “us”) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting it through this Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy governs your access to and use of benandmeltravels.com, including any content, functionality and services offered on or through benandmeltravels.com (the “Website”), whether as a guest or a registered user.

When accessing the Website, the Company will learn certain information about you, both automatically and through voluntary actions you may take, during your visit. This policy applies to information we collect on the Website and in email, text, or other electronic messages between you and the Website.

Please read the Privacy Policy carefully before you start to use the Website. By using the Website or by clicking to accept or agree to the Terms of Use when this option is made available to you, you accept and agree to be bound and abide by the Privacy Policy. If you do not want to agree to the Privacy Policy, you must not access or use the Website.

Information We Collect About You

When you access the Website, the Company will learn certain information about you during your visit.

Information You Provide To Us: The Website provides various places for users to provide information. We collect information that users provide by filling out forms on the Website, communicating with us via contact forms, responding to surveys, search queries on our search feature, providing comments or other feedback, and providing information when ordering a product or service via the Website.

We use the information you provide to us to deliver the requested product and/or service, to improve our overall performance, and to provide you with offers, promotions, and information.

Information We Collect Through Automatic Data Collection Technology: As you navigate through our Website, we may use automatic data collection technologies including Google Analytics to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns. This will generally include information about your location, your traffic pattern through our website, and any communications between your computer and our Website. Among other things, we will collect data about the type of computer you use, your Internet connection, your IP address, your operating system, and your browser type.

The information we collect automatically is used for statistical data and will not include personal information. We use this data to improve our Website and our service offerings. To the extent that you voluntarily provide personal information to us, our systems will associate the automatically collected information with your personal information.

The Company collects your information in order to record and support your participation in the activities you select. If you register to download a book or resources, sign up for our newsletter, and/or purchase a product from us, we collect your information. We use this information to track your preferences and to keep you informed about the products and services you have selected to receive and any related products and/or services. As a visitor to this Website, you can engage in most activities without providing any personal information. It is only when you seek to download resources and/or register for services that you are required to provide information.

We use personal information for purposes of presenting our Website and its contents to you, providing you with information, providing you with offers for products and services, providing you with information about your subscriptions and products, carrying out any contract between you and the Company, administering our business activities, providing customer service, and making available other items and services to our customers and prospective customers.

From time-to-time, we may use the information you provide to us to make you offers to purchase products and services provided by third parties in exchange for a commission to be paid to us by such third parties. Should you opt to take part in such promotions, the third parties will receive your information.

From time-to-time, we may use the information you provide to us to display advertisements to you that are tailored to your personal characteristics, interests, and activities.

Use of Cookies and Pixels

Similar to other commercial websites, our website utilizes a standard technology called “cookies” and server logs to collect information about how our site is used. Information gathered through cookies and server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our site, and the websites visited just before and just after our own, as well as your IP address.

A cookie is a very small text document, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier. When you visit a website, that site’s computer asks your computer for permission to store this file in a part of your hard drive specifically designated for cookies. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser’s preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a website to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites.

The Company reserves the right to use technological equivalents of cookies, including social media pixels. These pixels allow social media sites to track visitors to outside websites so as to tailor advertising messages users see while visiting that social media website. The Company reserves the right to use these pixels in compliance with the policies of the various social media sites.

Third Party Use of Cookies

Some content or applications, including advertisements, on the Website are served by third-parties, including advertisers, ad networks and servers, content providers, and application providers. These third parties may use cookies alone or in conjunction with web beacons or other tracking technologies to collect information about you when you use our website. The information they collect may be associated with your personal information or they may collect information, including personal information, about your online activities over time and across different websites and other online services. They may use this information to provide you with interest-based (behavioral) advertising or other targeted content.

We do not control these third parties’ tracking technologies or how they may be used. If you have any questions about an advertisement or other targeted content, you should contact the responsible provider directly.

Third Party Disclosure

As a general rule, we do not sell, rent, lease or otherwise transfer any information collected whether automatically or through your voluntary action.

We may disclose your personal information to our subsidiaries, affiliates, and service providers for the purpose of providing our services to you.

We may disclose your personal information to a third party, including a lawyer or collection agency, when necessary to enforce our terms of service or any other agreement between you and the Company.

We may provide your information to any successor in interest in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of the Company’s asserts and/or business.

We may disclose information when legally compelled to do so, in other words, when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires it or for the protection of our legal rights or when compelled by a court or other governmental entity to do so.

Third party links

Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third party products or services on our website. These third party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We, therefore, have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.

Mediavine Programmatic Advertising

The Website uses Mediavine to manage all third-party advertising on the Website. Mediavine serves content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use first and third-party cookies. A cookie is a small text file which is sent to your computer or mobile device (referred to in this policy as a “device”) by the web server so that a website can remember some information about your browsing activity on the Website. The cookie may collect information relating to your use of the Website, information about your device such as the device’s IP address and browser type, demographic data and, if you arrived at the Website via a link from a third-party site, the URL of the linking page.

First party cookies are created by the website that you are visiting. A third-party cookie is frequently used in behavioral advertising and analytics and is created by a domain other than the website you are visiting. Third-party cookies, tags, pixels, beacons and other similar technologies (collectively, “Tags”) may be placed on the Website to monitor interaction with advertising content and to target and optimize advertising. Each internet browser has functionality so that you can block both first and third-party cookies and clear your browser’s cache. The “help” feature of the menu bar on most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to receive notification of new cookies, how to disable existing cookies and how to clear your browser’s cache. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information at www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/.

Without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of the Website content and features. Please note that rejecting cookies does not mean that you will no longer see ads when you visit our Site.

The Website may collect IP addresses and location information to serve personalized ads and pass it to Mediavine. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices to opt-in or opt-out of this data collection, please visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp. You may also visit http://optout.aboutads.info/#/ and http://optout.networkadvertising.org/# to learn more information about interest-based advertising. You may download the AppChoices app at http://www.aboutads.info/appchoices to opt out in connection with mobile apps, or use the platform controls on your mobile device to opt out.

Mediavine partners with the following data processors:

  1. Pubmatic. You may find Pubmatic’s privacy policy through this link. The data collected on the Website may be transferred to Pubmatic and its demand partners for interest-based advertising. Statistical information and other non-cookie technologies (such as eTags and web or browser cache) may be used by third parties on this Website. Browser settings that block cookies may have no effect on these technologies, but you may clear your cache to delete such trackers. Data collected from a particular browser or device may be used with another computer or device that is linked to the browser or device on which such data was collected.
  2. Criteo. You may find Criteo’s privacy policy through this link. The data collected on the Website may be transferred to Criteo and its demand partners for interest-based advertising. Criteo may collect, access, and use non-identifying data to improve the Criteo Technology and other Criteo products, programs, and/or services. This non-identifying data may include on-site user behavior and user/page content data, URLs, statistics, or internal search queries. The non-identifying data are collected through the ad call and stored with a Criteo cookie for a maximum period of 13 months.
  3. Pulsepoint. You may find Pulsepoint’s privacy policy through this link.
  4. LiveRamp. You may find LiveRamp’s privacy policy through this link. When you use the Website, we share information that we may collect from you, such as your email (in hashed, de-identified form), IP address or information about your browser or operating system, with LiveRamp Inc, and its group companies (‘LiveRamp’). LiveRamp may use a cookie on your browser and match your shared information to their on- and offline marketing databases and those of its advertising partners to create a link between your browser and information in those other databases. This link may be shared by our partners globally for the purpose of enabling interest-based content or advertising throughout your online experience (e.g. cross device, web, email, in-app, etc.) by third parties unaffiliated with our website. These third parties may in turn link further demographic or interest-based information to your browser. To opt out of LiveRamp’s targeted advertising, please go here: https://liveramp.com/opt_out/
  5. RhythmOne. You may view RhythmOne’s privacy policy through this link. RhythmOne uses cookies and similar tracking technologies (such as mobile device identifiers and digital fingerprinting) to provide its services. RhythmOne may use aggregated information (not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other Websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, please visit the following webpage: http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.
  6. District M. You may find District M’s privacy policy through this link.
  7. YieldMo. You may find YieldMo’s privacy policy through this link. If you want to opt out of receiving interest based ads from Yieldmo or exercise your right under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) to opt-out of the sale of your personal information, you may do so through this link.
  8. The Rubicon Project. You may find Rubicon’s privacy policy through this link. If you want to opt out of receiving interest based ads from Rubicon or exercise your right under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) to opt-out of the sale of your personal information, you may do so through this link. You may also utilize the Network Advertising Initiative’s opt-out page, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page, or the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page.
  9. Amazon Publisher Services. You may find Amazon Publisher Services’ privacy policy through this link.
  10. AppNexus. You may find the AppNexus privacy policy through this link.
  11. OpenX. You may find OpenX’s privacy policy through this link.
  12. Verizon Media formerly known as Oath. You may find Verizon Media’s privacy policy through this link. You may also utilize the Network Advertising Initiative’s opt-out page, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page, or the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page to opt-out of the use of cookies for interest-based advertising.
  13. TripleLift. You may find TripleLift’s privacy policy through this link. To opt out of receiving interest-based advertising (including retargeting) from TripleLift’s services through the use of cookies in your current browser and for more information on what it means to opt-out, please go to www.triplelift.com/consumer-opt-out.
  14. Index Exchange. You may find Index Exchange’s privacy policy through this link. You may also utilize the Network Advertising Initiative’s opt-out page, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page, or the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page to opt-out of the use of cookies for interest-based advertising.
  15. Sovrn. You may find Sovrn’s privacy policy through this link.
  16. GumGum. You may find GumGum’s privacy policy through this link. GumGum may (i) use place and use cookies on end users’ browsers or use web beacons to collect information about end users who visit such Publisher Websites and (ii) link such collected end user information to other end user information provided by third parties in order to deliver targeted Advertisements to such end users.
  17. Digital Remedy. You may find Digital Remedy’s privacy policy through this link.
  18. MediaGrid. You may find MediaGrid’s privacy policy through this link. MediaGrid may collect and store information about end-user interactions with this website through cookies, advertising IDS, pixels and server-to-server connections. MediaGrid was receive the following information: the page an End-User has requested and the referring/exit pages; Timestamp information (i.e., the date and time the End-User has visited the page); IP address; mobile device identifier; device model; device operating system; browser type; carrier; gender; age; geolocation (including GPS coordinates); clickstream data; cookie information; first-party identifiers’; and hashed email addresses; demographic and inferred interest information; and post-conversion data (from both online and offline behaviour). Some of this data is gathered from this website and others is gathered from advertisers. MediaGrid uses this data to provide its services. You may also utilize the Network Advertising Initiative’s opt-out page, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page, or the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance’s opt-out page to opt-out of the use of cookies for interest-based advertising or review their privacy policy for more information.
  19. RevContent – You may find RevContent’s privacy policy through this link. RevContent may collect information about your browser or device, including browser type, IP Address, device type, user agent string, and operating system. RevContent also collects information about the websites you visit through their services, such as date and time of access and specific pages accessed and the content and ads you click on. You may opt-out of any personalization track by opting-out of RevContent’s data collection.
  20. Centro, Inc. – You may find Centro’s privacy policy through this link. You may find opt-out information for Centro’s services through the privacy policy link.
  21. 33Across, Inc. – You may find 33Across’s privacy policy through this link. To opt-out of personalized advertising, please visit https://optout.networkadvertising.org/?c=1.
  22. Conversant. LLC – You may find Conversant’s privacy policy through this link. Conversant uses information that does not directly identify you, such as information about your browser type, time and date of visit, your browsing or transaction activity, the subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over, and a unique identifier (such as a cookie string, or a unique advertising identifier provided by your mobile device) during your visits to this and other websites and apps in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of greater interest to you. Conversant may use technologies such as cookies and other tracking technologies to collect this information. To learn more about interest-based advertising, or to opt-out, you can visit www.youronlinechoices.eu or https://www.networkadvertising.org/.

Google

Google’s advertising requirements can be summed up by Google’s Advertising Principles. They are put in place to provide a positive experience for users. https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/1316548?hl=en
We use Google AdSense Advertising on our website.

Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on our site. Google’s use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to our users based on their visit to our site and other sites on the Internet. Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.

We have implemented the following:

  • Remarketing with Google AdSense
  • Google Display Network Impression Reporting
  • Demographics and Interests Reporting
  • DoubleClick Platform Integration

We along with third-party vendors, such as Google use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookies) and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick cookie) or other third-party identifiers together to compile data regarding user interactions with ad impressions, and other ad service functions as they relate to our website.

Opting out: Users can set preferences for how Google advertises to you using the Google Ad Settings page. Alternatively, you can opt out by visiting the Network Advertising initiative opt out page or permanently using the Google Analytics Opt Out Browser add on.

California Online Privacy Protection Act

According to CalOPPA we agree to the following:

  • Users can visit our site anonymously
  • Users will be notified of any privacy policy changes on our Privacy Policy Page
  • Users are able to change their personal information by emailing us

COPPA (Children Online Privacy Protection Act)

When it comes to the collection of personal information from children under 13, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) puts parents in control. The Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s consumer protection agency, enforces the COPPA Rule, which spells out what operators of websites and online services must do to protect children’s privacy and safety online.
We do not specifically market to children under 13.

Fair Information Practices

The Fair Information Practices Principles form the backbone of privacy law in the United States and the concepts they include have played a significant role in the development of data protection laws around the globe. Understanding the Fair Information Practice Principles and how they should be implemented is critical to comply with the various privacy laws that protect personal information.

In order to be in line with Fair Information Practices we will take the following responsive action, should a data breach occur, we will notify the users via email within 7 business days of our learning of said breach.

We also agree to the individual redress principle, which requires that individuals have a right to pursue legally enforceable rights against data collectors and processors who fail to adhere to the law. This principle requires not only that individuals have enforceable rights against data users, but also that individuals have recourse to courts or a government agency to investigate and/or prosecute non-compliance by data processors.

CAN-SPAM

We collect your email address in order to:

  • Send information, respond to inquiries, and/or other requests or questions.
  • Process orders and to send information and updates pertaining to orders
  • We may also send you additional information related to your product and/or service.
  • Market to our mailing list or continue to send emails to our clients after the original transaction has occurred

To be accordance with CANSPAM we agree to the following:

  • NOT use false, or misleading subjects or email addresses
  • Identify the message as an advertisement in some reasonable way
  • Include the physical address of our business or site headquarters
  • Monitor third party email marketing services for compliance, if one is used.
  • Honor opt-out/unsubscribe requests quickly
  • Allow users to unsubscribe by using the link at the bottom of each email

If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from receiving future emails, you can email us at contact@benandmeltravels.com and we will promptly remove you from ALL correspondence.

Policy Changes

It is our policy to post any changes we make to our privacy policy on this page. If we make material changes to how we treat our users’ personal information, we will notify you by email to the email address specified in your account and/or through a notice on the Website home page. The date the privacy policy was last revised is identified at the bottom of the page. You are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date active and deliverable email address for you, and for periodically visiting our Website and this privacy policy to check for any changes.

GDPR

If you are within the European Union, you are entitled to certain information and have certain rights under the General Data Protection Regulation. Those rights include:

We will retain any information you choose to provide to us until the earlier of:  (a) you asking us to delete the information, (b) our decision to cease using our existing data providers, or (c) the Company decides that the value in retaining the data is outweighed by the costs of retaining it.

You have the right to request access to your data that the Company stores and the rights to either rectify or erase your personal data.

You have the right to seek restrictions on the processing of your data.

You have the right to object to the processing of your data and the right to the portability of your data.

To the extent that you provided consent to the Company’s processing of your personal data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing based upon consent that occurred prior to your withdrawal of consent.

You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority that has jurisdiction over issues related to the General Data Protection Regulation.

We require only the information that is reasonably required to enter into a contract with you. We will not require you to provide consent for any unnecessary processing as a condition of entering into a contract with us.

Contact Us

If there are any questions regarding this policy you may contact us:

Email address: contact@benandmeltravels.com

Effective as of July 24, 2023