Privacy Policy

This policy explains what berlintourism.org collects when you read it, who else receives that data, and what you can do about it. It describes the site as it is configured today rather than as a generic template; where something changes, this page changes with it.

Last updated: 21 September 2026.

Who is responsible for this site

Berlin Tourism Guide (berlintourism.org) is an independently published travel site about Berlin. It is the data controller for the processing described below. The way to reach us about anything on this page is the contact form.

What we collect directly from you

The contact form

If you write to us, the form collects your name, your email address, a subject line and your message. That content is delivered to us by email so that we can reply and act on what you have said. It is not stored in a database on this website, and it is not used for marketing — we do not operate a newsletter, and we do not sell, rent or share contact details with anyone.

We keep correspondence for as long as it stays useful for handling the matter you raised, and then delete it. If you would like your message and our reply deleted sooner, ask and we will do it.

Comments and accounts

Neither exists here. Comments are closed across the entire site, there is no registration, no login for readers, no user profiles and no forum. Nothing is collected through any of those routes because none of them are running.

What is collected automatically

Server logs

Our hosting provider records standard web-server logs — IP address, the page requested, the time, the browser’s user-agent string and the referring page. These are generated by the server for security and diagnostics and are retained on the provider’s normal cycle.

Google Analytics

The site runs Google Analytics 4 (measurement ID G-0HP2HG3CXD) through the Site Kit plugin, to see which guides get read and where readers arrive from. Analytics sets cookies in your browser and sends Google information about your visit, including a truncated IP address, the pages you view and rough geographic region. We look at this only in aggregate; it does not identify individual readers to us.

You can opt out for every site at once with Google’s browser add-on, or by blocking analytics cookies in your browser.

Image optimisation and caching

Pages are cached and images are compressed by plugins running on our own server. Neither sends your data anywhere else.

Advertising

The site does not currently run display advertising. We have applied to run ads through Google AdSense, and if that is approved this section will be updated before any ad code goes live. The booking links described in the next section are a separate arrangement, and they are running now.

When advertising does run, Google and its partners use cookies and similar identifiers to serve and measure ads, and in some configurations to personalise them based on your prior visits to this and other sites. You will be able to opt out of personalised advertising at any time through Google Ad Settings, and to manage third-party vendors at aboutads.info. Readers in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland will be asked for consent through a certified consent management platform before any advertising or personalisation cookies are set.

Booking links and commission

Some links on this site earn a commission. Links to hotels, apartments and booking sites are handled by Stay22, a booking-link partner whose script turns them into commission-tracking links as the page loads. If you book after following one, the booking site pays us a commission; the price you pay is the same either way. Every guide says so at the top, and the affiliate disclosure sets out the arrangement in full.

What that means for your data needs spelling out, because it is not what a cookie notice usually describes. Stay22 does not set a cookie. It recognises your device from the characteristics of your browser — fonts, screen, language and similar details — and keeps an identifier in your browser’s local storage under the names visitor_id_id22 and cache_id22, so that a booking made later can be credited here. Like any service your browser connects to, it also receives your IP address and browser details when it loads, and it processes data outside the EU. Blocking third-party cookies does not stop any of this; the cookie settings on this site do.

Stay22 sits in the Advertising group of those settings and does not load at all until that group is allowed. We never see your name, your travel dates or your payment details — what comes back to us is a count of clicks and, sometimes, the fact that a booking happened. Once you are on a booking site you are under its privacy policy, not this one.

Links out to other sites

Our guides link heavily to the places they describe — BVG, the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, visitBerlin, individual venues. Those sites set their own cookies and run their own policies once you follow a link, and we have no control over and no responsibility for them. Links to those official and civic sources earn nothing; the only commission on this site comes from the booking links described above.

Some guides embed maps or media hosted elsewhere. Where that happens, the embedding provider can see that your browser requested the embed.

Your choices, and what runs before you make them

What runs before you choose depends on where you are reading from, because the law does. In the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, and in Brazil, Chile, China, Israel, Nigeria, South Korea, Thailand, Türkiye and Vietnam, nothing beyond the strictly necessary runs until you answer the dialog on your first visit — not analytics, not Stay22 — and Reject all sits on that first screen next to Accept all, not behind a second click.

In the United States you are shown a bar rather than a dialog, and it is not only a notice. Analytics starts on arrival there, but advertising and booking-partner scripts stay switched off until you answer it. In Switzerland you get the dialog too, but analytics starts on arrival there and only advertising and booking-partner scripts wait for your answer. In Canada, and in the countries where notice is enough — among them Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, India and Mexico — everything described on this page starts when you arrive; the notice tells you so, and the same control switches it off. Everywhere else, and whenever we cannot tell where you are, the strictest setting applies: nothing beyond the necessary runs until you answer.

Your answer is kept on your own device, in a first-party cookie called cookie_consent_51c22c that only this site can read, so you are not asked again on every page. It lasts about a year. The Cookie settings link in the footer of every page reopens the choice, and withdrawing is the same two clicks as agreeing: the scripts stop and what they stored on your device is cleared, including visitor_id_id22, cache_id22 and the thumbmark_* keys.

Refusing costs you nothing. Every guide here is readable in full either way, nothing is paywalled, and no part of Berlin Tourism Guide is held back from readers who say no.

If you are reading this in the United States

Several US states give you the right to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of personal information, and those words are broader than they sound: letting an advertising or affiliate partner receive information about your visit can count as sharing even though no money changes hands for your data and we have never sold anything of the kind. Rather than argue the definition, Berlin Tourism Guide treats it as covered.

So the bar shown to US readers carries a Do not sell or share button, and for US readers the Cookie settings link at the foot of every page reads Do not sell or share my personal information. Using it stops the advertising category, which is what Stay22 and any ad partner sit in, and clears what Stay22 has already stored on your device.

This site also honours Global Privacy Control. If your browser or an extension sends a GPC signal, it is treated as a valid opt-out on arrival — you do not have to find the control and click it as well, and we do not ask again on later visits. Do Not Track is a different and long-abandoned signal, and to be straight about it: this site does not act on DNT, because nothing agreed what it ought to mean.

The record kept of your choice

Proving that a choice was offered and honoured means keeping a record of it. Each answer is logged with the date and time, the two-letter country the choice was made from, which of the rule sets above applied, a reference to the exact wording you were shown, and the choice itself, against a random identifier generated for your browser.

That record contains no name, no email address and no IP address. It holds a salted hash of your browser’s user-agent string, and the salt changes every day, so two visits on different days cannot be linked back together through it. Records are deleted after 26 months. If you want to see or delete the entries tied to your browser, ask through the contact form.

Your rights

If you are in the EEA or the UK, the GDPR gives you the right to ask what personal data we hold about you, to have it corrected or erased, to restrict or object to how it is processed, and to receive a copy of it. Our lawful bases are legitimate interest for server logs, and consent for analytics and for the booking partner described above — which is why, if you are in the EEA or the UK, neither runs until you have agreed, and why you can withdraw that agreement at any time from the Cookie settings link.

Requests go through the contact form and are answered within one month. You also have the right to complain to your national supervisory authority.

If you are in California, you have the right to know what personal information is collected and to opt out of its sale or sharing. We do not sell personal information. Because the booking partner receives information about your visit, the site treats that as potential “sharing” and gives you a Do not sell or share control — see “If you are reading this in the United States” above.

Children

This is a travel site written for adults, is not directed at children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from them. If you believe a child has sent us personal data through the contact form, tell us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

Material changes are reflected here with a new date at the top of the page. The advertising section in particular will be revised at the point ads go live, rather than being written in advance of them.