Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how we handle information at besttimeinjapan.com when you visit. We collect as little as possible — we have no user accounts, no sign-up, and no contact forms.

What we collect

We do not ask you for personal information, and we do not show ads. The information involved is:

• Theme preference — your browser’s local storage (under the key theme) remembers your theme setting (light, dark or automatic), so the website appears the way you prefer next time. It stays on your device and is not sent to us.
• Your favourites — tours you mark as favourites are stored locally in your browser (local storage). This stays on your device and is not sent to us.
• Your weather units — on the weather pages you can switch between Celsius and Fahrenheit. Your choice is remembered in your browser’s local storage (under the key btij:weather-units) so the pages read the way you prefer next time. It stays on your device and is not sent to us.
• Usage statistics — we use Google Analytics to understand how the website is used overall, such as which pages are most visited and which links people click. Where it is permitted to do so (see below), it sets cookies (_ga and _ga_<id>) holding a random identifier, so a repeat visit can be recognised as the same browser. We do not use it for advertising and have not connected it to any Google advertising product. This data is processed by Google and may be transferred outside your country.
• What you search for — when you use the search box, the words you typed and how many results they returned are sent to Google Analytics. We read this to see what visitors are looking for and which searches our website cannot yet answer. It is not linked to anything else about you, and we ask that you do not type personal information into the search box.
• Basic server logs — like most websites, our hosting may record standard technical data (such as IP address and browser type) for security and reliability. We do not use this to identify you.

Cookies and local storage

We set no cookie of our own when you browse the public pages. Your theme preference, your favourites and your weather units are all kept in your browser’s local storage and never leave your device. The other cookies a normal visit may involve are the Google Analytics ones described above. (The password-protected area we use to edit this website sets a sign-in cookie, but browsing the public pages never does.) We use no advertising cookies.

If you are in the EEA, the UK, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein, analytics cookies are off by default. We apply Google Consent Mode with analytics storage denied for these regions, so nothing is stored on your device and Google receives only anonymous, aggregated signals that cannot be tied to you or linked to a return visit.

You can clear cookies and local storage at any time through your browser settings, and you can switch off Google Analytics on every website with Google’s opt-out browser add-on.

Affiliate partners

When you click an affiliate link and visit a partner’s website, that partner may set its own cookies and collect data under its own privacy policy. We have no control over, and are not responsible for, third-party practices. See our Affiliate Disclosure.

Weather data

The forecasts on our weather pages come from MET Norway (the Norwegian Meteorological Institute), whose data is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. We fetch it from our own server, once per prefecture and shared between all visitors — your browser never contacts them, so no information about you, your device or your IP address is sent to MET Norway. They embed nothing in our pages and set no cookies. We convert the figures into your chosen units and summarise them into hourly and daily values.

Children

Our website is intended for a general audience and is not directed at children.

Your choices

Because we do not store personal data on our own servers, there is nothing for us to delete on request. You control your theme preference, your favourites and the analytics cookies directly in your browser — clearing this website’s cookies and local storage removes all of them.

Changes to this Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. The latest version will always be available on this page.

Contact

Questions about privacy? Contact us at besttimeinjapan@gmail.com.