Privacy policy

Last Updated: 21 Oct, 2024

This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) describes the types of personal information that DirectBooker Inc. (“DirectBooker,” “we,” “our,” and/or “us”) collects, uses, and discloses from individuals (“you” or “your”) who use our website, including www.directbooker.com and services that link to this Privacy Policy (our “Services”). If you are located in the European Economic Area (“EEA”) or the United Kingdom (“UK”), “personal information” means any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual. By using our Services, you agree to the collection, use, disclosure, and procedures described in this Privacy Policy. Beyond the Privacy Policy, your use of our Services is also subject to our Terms of Service.

Personal Information We Collect

We may collect a variety of personal information from or about you or your devices from various sources, as described below.

If you do not provide your personal information when requested, you may not be able to use our Services if that personal information is necessary to provide you with our Services or if we are legally required to collect it.

A. Personal Information You Provide to Us

Surveys and Feedback Request Forms. If you voluntarily participate in our surveys or complete our feedback request forms, we may receive your name, email address, and responses to our surveys and feedback request forms.

Contact the Hotel Forms. If you submit a “Contact the Hotel” form, we may collect your name, email address, phone number, and any information you provide in the form.

Communications. If you contact us directly, we may receive additional information about you, such as your name, email address, the contents of a message or attachments that you may send to us, and other information you choose to provide.

Careers. If you decide that you wish to apply for a job with us, you may submit your contact information and your resume via email. We will collect the information you choose to provide on your resume, such as your education, employment experience, and professional license number. You may also apply through LinkedIn, Indeed, or other third-party services. If you do so, we will collect the information you make available to us via LinkedIn, Indeed, or other third-party services.

B. Personal Information We Collect When You Use Our Services

Location Information. When you use our Services, we may receive your location information (for example, your IP address may indicate your general geographic region).

Device Information. We receive information about the device and software you use to access our Services, including IP address, web browser type, operating system version, phone carrier and manufacturer, application installations, device identifiers, mobile advertising identifiers, and push notification tokens.

Usage Information. To help us understand how you use our Services and to help us improve, we automatically receive information about your interactions with our Services, such as the pages or other content you view, referrer information (the website you visited before coming to our Services), the dates and times of your visits, and the searches you conduct.

Information from Cookies and Similar Technologies. We and our third-party partners collect information about your activities on our Services using cookies, pixel tags, SDKs, or other tracking technologies. Our third-party partners, such as analytics, advertising, and security partners, may also use these technologies to collect information about your online activities over time and across different services. Cookies are small text files containing a string of alphanumeric characters. We may use both session cookies and persistent cookies. A session cookie disappears after you close your browser. A persistent cookie remains after you close your browser and may be used by your browser on subsequent visits to our Services. Cookies can be used for performance management, collecting information on how our Services are being used for analytics purposes. They can also be used for functionality management, enabling us to make your visit more efficient by, for example, remembering language or currency preferences. We may also use pixel tags and web beacons on our Services. These are tiny graphic images placed on web pages that allow us to determine whether you have performed a specific action. Below is an overview of the types of cookies we and third parties may use to collect personal information.

• Strictly Necessary Cookies. Some cookies are strictly necessary to make our Services available to you. We cannot provide you with our Services without this type of cookie.

• Functional Cookies.Functional cookies are used to recognize you when you return to our Services. This enables us to adapt our content for you and remember your preferences, such as your language and currency preferences, recently searched destinations, or recently viewed hotels.

• Analytics Cookies.Analytics cookies can be used for website analytics purposes in order to operate, maintain, and improve our Services. For example, these cookies are used to help us understand which pages, filters or other search criteria are used most frequently, which site features are used the most or the least, and which destinations are most popular. We use this data in aggregate to understand how users use our site and to guide how we might best improve our services.

• Marketing Cookies.Marketing cookies can be used to track the performance of our advertising campaigns, promote our Services and personalize your experience on our Services. These are set by us on our website, and by the advertising tools we use, such as Google Ads, and Google Analytics. We may also share some limited aspects of data collected through first party cookies with our advertising and hotel partners for advertising and campaign analytics purposes. This means that when you visit another website, you may be shown advertising based on your browsing patterns on our website.

All non-essential require your consent where required by law. Once given, consent may later be withdrawn or modified by clicking here or on the link in our site footer. You may also review your web browser’s “Help” information to learn how you may modify your cookie settings or delete cookies. Please note that if you delete or choose not to accept cookies from our Services, you may not be able to utilize the features of our Services to their fullest potential.

How We Use the Personal Information We Collect

We use the personal information we collect:

• To provide, maintain, improve, and enhance our Services;

• To personalize your experience on our Services, such as by providing tailored content and recommendations;

• To understand and analyze how you use our Services and develop new products, services, features, and functionality;

• To communicate with you, provide you with updates and other information relating to our Services, provide information that you request, respond to comments and questions, and otherwise provide customer support;

• To generate anonymized or aggregate data containing only de-identified, non-personal information that we may use for any lawful purposes;

• To find and prevent fraud and abuse, and respond to trust and safety issues that may arise;

• For compliance purposes, including enforcing our Terms of Service or other legal rights, or as may be required by applicable laws and regulations or requested by any judicial process or governmental agency; and

• For other purposes for which we provide specific notice at the time the information is collected.

Legal Bases For Processing European Personal Information

If you are located in the EEA or the UK, we only process your personal information when we have a valid “legal basis,” including as set forth below.

• Consent. You have consented to the use of your personal information.

• Contractual Necessity. We need your personal information to provide you with our Services. For example, we may need to process your personal information to respond to your inquiries or requests and to otherwise manage and provide our Services.

• Compliance with a Legal Obligation. We may have a legal obligation to use your personal information. For example, we may process your personal information to comply with tax, labor, and accounting obligations.

• Legitimate Interests. We or a third party have a legitimate interest in using your personal information. Specifically, we have a legitimate interest in using your personal information for product development and internal analytics purposes, and otherwise to improve the safety, security, and performance of our Services, to prevent fraud and potential illegal or offensive activities, and to establish, exercise or defend legal claims. We only rely on our or a third party’s legitimate interests to process your personal information when these interests are not overridden by your rights and interests.

How We Disclose the Personal Information We Collect

Partners and Affiliates. We may disclose any information we receive to our current or future partners and affiliates for any of the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.

Hotel Partners. When you submit a “Contact the Hotel” form, we may disclose the information you provide to our hotel partners. You understand and agree that the use of your information by these hotel partners will be governed by their privacy policies, and we encourage you to review their privacy policies.

Vendors and Service Providers. We may disclose any information we receive to vendors and service providers retained in connection with the operation of our Services.

Analytics Partners. We use analytics services such as Google Analytics to collect and process certain analytics data. This includes use of the Google Analytics features Google Signals Collection and Google User-ID and user-provided data collection. These services may collect information about your use of other websites, apps, and online resources. If you wish to opt out of Google Analytics Advertising Features, we encourage you to visit Google Analytics currently available opt-outs for the web, where you may opt out of specific ad settings for web and mobile. You can learn more about Google’s practices by visiting https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/.

Advertising Partners. We advertise our services through third-party vendors, such as Google Search Ads, which may, in addition to first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie) or other first-party identifiers, and use third-party cookies (such as Google advertising cookies) to understand user behavior and improve our ad campaign targeting and success.

As Required By Law and Similar Disclosures. We may access, preserve, and disclose your information if we believe doing so is required or appropriate to comply with law enforcement requests and legal process, such as a court order or subpoena, respond to your requests, or protect your, our, or others’ rights, property, or safety.

Merger, Sale, or Other Asset Transfers. We may transfer your information to service providers, advisors, potential transactional partners, or other third parties in connection with the consideration, negotiation, or completion of a corporate transaction in which we are acquired by or merged with another company or we sell, liquidate, or transfer all or a portion of our assets.

Consent. We may also disclose your information with your permission.

Your Choices

Do Not TrackThere is no accepted standard on how to respond to Do Not Track signals, and we do not respond to such signals.

Your European Privacy Rights. If you are located in the EEA or the UK, you have additional rights described below.

• You may request access to the personal information we maintain about you, update and correct inaccuracies in your personal information, restrict or object to the processing of your personal information, have your personal information anonymized or deleted, as appropriate, or exercise your right to data portability to easily transfer your personal information to another company. In addition, you have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, including in your country of residence, place of work or where an incident took place.

• You may withdraw any consent you previously provided to us regarding the processing of your personal information at any time and free of charge. We will apply your preferences going forward and this will not affect the lawfulness of the processing before you withdrew your consent.

You may exercise these rights by contacting us using the contact details at the end of this Privacy Policy. Before fulfilling your request, we may ask you to provide reasonable information to verify your identity. Please note that there are exceptions and limitations to each of these rights, and that while any changes you make will be reflected in active user databases instantly or within a reasonable period of time, we may retain personal information for backups, archiving, prevention of fraud and abuse, analytics, satisfaction of legal obligations, or where we otherwise reasonably believe that we have a legitimate reason to do so.

How to Block Cookies. You can block cookies by setting your internet browser to block some or all cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our Services. You can withdraw your consent at any time by deleting placed cookies and disabling cookies in your browser, or as explained below. You can change your browser settings to block or notify you when you receive a cookie, delete cookies or browse our Services using your browser’s anonymous usage setting. Please refer to your browser instructions or help screen to learn more about how to adjust or modify your browser settings. If you do not agree to our use of cookies or similar technologies which store information on your device, you should change your browser settings accordingly. You should understand that some features of our Services may not function properly if you do not accept cookies or these technologies. Where required by applicable law, you will be asked to consent to certain cookies and similar technologies before we use or install them on your computer or other device.

Third Parties

Our Services may contain links to other websites, products, or services that we do not own or operate. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these third parties. Please be aware that this Privacy Policy does not apply to your activities on these third-party services or any information you disclose to these third parties. We encourage you to read their privacy policies before providing any information to them.

Retention

We take measures to delete your personal information or keep it in a form that does not permit identifying you when this information is no longer necessary for the purposes for which we process it unless we are required by law to keep this information for a longer period. Google Analytics data, which is our primary source of website analytics collection and storage, is retained under Google’s data retention policies for a period of 26 months. When we process other personal information for our own purposes, we determine the retention period by taking into account various criteria, such as the type of Services provided to you, the nature and length of our relationship with you, the impact on the Services we provide to you if we delete some information from or about you, and mandatory retention periods provided by law and the statute of limitations.

Security

We make reasonable efforts to protect your information by using security measures designed to safeguard the information we maintain. However, because no electronic transmission or storage of information can be entirely secure, we can make no guarantees as to the security or privacy of your information.

Children’s Privacy

We do not knowingly collect, maintain, or use personal information from children under 13 years of age, and no part of our Services is directed to children. If you learn that a child has provided us with personal information in violation of this Privacy Policy, then you may alert us at privacy@directbooker.com.

International Visitors

Our Services are hosted in the United States (“U.S.”). If you choose to use our Services from the European Economic Area, Switzerland, the United Kingdom or other regions of the world with laws governing data collection and use that may differ from U.S. law, then please note that you are transferring your personal information outside of those regions to the U.S. for storage and processing. We may transfer personal information from the EEA, Switzerland or the UK to the U.S. and other third countries based on approved Standard Contractual Clauses, or otherwise in accordance with applicable data protection laws. We may also transfer your data from the U.S. to other countries or regions in connection with storage and processing of data, fulfilling your requests, and operating our Services. By providing any information, including personal information, on or through our Services, you consent to such transfer, storage, and processing. For more information about the tools that we use to transfer personal information, or to request a copy of the safeguards that we use, you can contact us as described below.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We will post any updates to this Privacy Policy on this page, and the revised version will be effective when it is posted. If we make a material update, we may notify you of such update through our Services, by email, or other means.

Contact Information

DirectBooker is responsible and the data controller for processing your personal information. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about our processing activities, please email us at privacy@directbooker.com or write to us at: DirectBooker, Inc, 10 Court St, Suite 214, Arlington, MA 02476. Alternatively, if you are based in the EEA, Switzerland or the UK, you can send an email to our data protection representative, DataRep, at datarequest@datarep.com quoting “DirectBooker Inc” in the subject line, or by filling out this form https://www.datarep.com/data-request. You can also mail your inquiry to DataRep by following the instructions here and mailing your inquiry to the most convenient address based on your country of residence.