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The privacy of our users and their data is important
to us, whether they be those who browse our site in order to choose a holiday, or
those who advertise their own holiday homes on Go2. We gather only the minimum information
about users which we require in order to provide our service to them. This Privacy
Policy governs how we use that information. If you use our website, especially if
you intend to sign up as a member in order to advertise your own properties, then
we recommend that you familiarise yourself both with this Privacy Policy and also
with our Terms & Conditions of Use. Please be aware that both the Privacy Policy
and Terms & Conditions are applicable only within the bounds of the Go2 website.
Should you visit another website via a link from ours and submit information to
that website or its owners, you are then within the bounds of their own Privacy
Policy, if they have one.
1. Where is personal information processed?
Any personal data or information by which you are identifiable (such as name and
address) which is collected, processed, stored or used by us, as a result of your
usage of Go2 (usually if you are a member who has entered that information in your
account details) will be stored on our data systems in the UK. By using Go2 you
acknowledge and agree that you may be transferring your personal data outside of
the country from which you have contributed it and that you consent to any such
transfer of information outside of your country. The data we hold will be governed
by the data protection laws applicable in the European Union (EU).
2. What information do we gather?
You may contribute your personal data to us at various points, for example when
sending an enquiry to the owner of a property, or, if you advertise on Go2, when
entering your account details and property details. We aim to hold only the minimum
amount of data necessary to provide our service, and this may range from simply
your email address, to your full address, telephone, payment details and property
information.
General use of Go2 to search, compare or review holiday lets and hotels will result in the
store of non-personal data in small files on your computer called 'Cookies'. Go2 stores only
minimal data in these files, generally to record information about your search queries in order that
you might be able to repeat that search on a re-visit to the site. Also, when clicking for further details
of a property or to make a booking enquiry your browser will be redirected to the site of one
of our partners or advertisers. This too will result in cookies being stored on your computer (third-party cookies generated
by those websites). Again, the data stored is non-personal and merely used to record the fact that
Go2 was the referring website. More details about cookies are covered in section 9 below.
3. How is that information used?
Personal information is used in order to facilitate your usage of Go2, including
the facility to contact property owners, and, in the case of property owners who
register as members of Go2, the facility to market their property lets on the Go2
system.
We will use the personal contact information of Go2
members from time to time to keep them informed of service updates, new marketing
opportunities or of matters regarding their own Go2 account. Go2 members may opt
out of newsletters, but must agree to always be contactable by email regarding their
account details, whilst they remain a Go2 member.
Personal data is not shared with third parties, except:
a) where a third party performs services on our behalf and has agreed to keep such
information confidential (such as the processing of your credit card payment); and
b) our Affiliates, but only for the purpose of performing this Agreement.
Personal information is retained by Go2 only as long
as necessary for the purposes to which you consent under the Terms and Conditions
and this Privacy Policy, or as is required by applicable law.
4. Must Go2 disclose my information for any legal
reasons?
Personal information may need to be disclosed if we or partners processing your
data on our behalf are compelled by law to do so, or have received a valid and legally
compliant request by a law enforcement or governmental authority.
5. Is my personal information protected?
While no computer system is entirely secure we nevertheless make strenuous efforts
to protect your personal information in order to prevent
unauthorised processing of your personal information and accidental
loss or damage. We employ security measures in to protect our database, although
it is the user's responsibility:
a. to protect against unauthorised access to your own usage of Go2, including your
Go2 member’s account if you have one;
b. to ensure no-one else uses Go2 while your PC is logged on to your personal Go2
account;
c. to log off or exit from Go2 when not using it; and
d. where relevant, to keep their password and other access information secret.
Personal information is stored on a secure server. Payment information, including
credit card details is processed by our payment partners on their own secure servers.
Our privacy policy does not apply to the practices of third party partner companies
which provide such services – please refer to their websites for details of their
own privacy polices and terms & conditions of use.
6. May I update my personal information on Go2? Have I the right to be forgotten?
Users who set up a Go2 account may update their personal information at any time,
simply by logging on to their account and visiting their Account pages. Also, if you wish to be 'forgotten' you may simply remove all your personal data from your account page.
7. Do we send newsletters?
Go2 members may receive optional newsletters as a part of the service we provide.
General users of Go2 may also be given the option to receive newsletters when they
register with us. Newsletters may contain new product announcements and service
information, but may also, at times, contain questionnaires for the purpose of conducting
user research aimed at improving the quality of our service. Users may opt-out of
newsletter subscriptions at any time, either by clicking the unsubscribe link found
at the bottom of all Go2 newsletters, or alternatively by contacting
us online.
8. What happens when a property enquiry is made?
Enquiries about properties may be sent to Go2 members via links on the property
listings. Depending on the property owner these links may take you directly to the
owner’s website, or you may be required to fill in a form before a message is sent
to the owner. If you make an enquiry via such means the personal information you
enter, including your email address and any other information you may supply, will
be made visible to the owner in order for them to respond to your enquiry.
Once you make contact with a property owner, you will
need to provide certain information in order for them to process your enquiry or
take a holiday booking. Do not disclose any information you do not wish make known
for these purposes. Any information passed via Go2 will be treated in strict confidentiality,
but please be aware that email is not a secure medium. Any online payments should
be conducted via reliable secure methods (which most property owners will employ).
9. Does Go2 use cookies?
Many websites use ‘cookies’ (an industry standard file format) to store certain
information about a user’s usage of that website locally on their PC. This may include
details of search data they have entered for example, and the details are stored
in small cookie files in a standard system folder on the PC. We may from time to
time use cookies (if your PC enables them) to store this sort of information, but
we prefer to keep cookie usage to a minimum as not every PC has them enabled. Instead
we may prefer to store such, largely non-personal, data on our servers, as this
can bring various performance benefits.
Cookies cause no harm to your computer and the vast majority of websites use them. If you wish to learn more about cookies and how they can be managed we recommend this article on the BBC website. More details can also be found in the Wikipedia entry on cookies.
Like most websites Go2 generates cookies on your PC from third parties, in connection with (1) the statistics services which we use, (2) the affiliate schemes which we participate in and (3) the adverts served by advertising companies.
(1) Google Analytics, Histats.com and AddThis.com cookies: Go2 uses both Google's Analytics service and the Histats.com service to understand how many people visit each page of the site, which countries they are based in and son on. This information allows us to improve the Go2 website and tailor its facilities to the needs of our users. Go2 also makes use of AddThis.com to provide social sharing buttons. These services use cookies which are stored on your PC when you visit Go2. The information which this generates is anonymous, and used to create reports about how people in general use Go2, and the companies in question store this information. We don't and cannot use this to access information about you as an individual, only at an anonymous aggregate level. Google's privacy policy is available at www.google.com/privacypolicy.html.
(2) Affiliate schemes & cookies: Go2 works with a number of partner companies as part of their affiliate schemes (including companies such as Hoseasons, Cottages4you, Imagine Ireland, HomeAway, HotelsCombined and so on, and the affiliate management companies Commission Junction, Tradedoubler and Affiliate Window). As such, when a user clicks on certain links from Go2 to a partner's website this is 'tracked' (ie. Go2 is recorded as the referrer). If you then make a purchase (eg. book a cottage) on the partner's website, Go2 receives a commission. Affiliate schemes often use cookies temporarily stored on your PC to do the tracking. The cookies are created and managed by the relevant third party retailer or affiliate scheme management company rather than Go2 and they are simply used to attribute commission to the referring website. As these cookies are only stored on your computer when you actively choose to click through to a partner's website for further information or to make a booking, your use of Go2 in this manner is an agreement to allow these cookies to be stored.
(3) Advertising company cookies: Go2 uses third-party advertising companies to serve adverts when you visit the site (generally via Google's Adsense service). These companies may use anonymous aggregated information (in other words, not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide adverts about goods and services that are relevant to you. For more information about this practice (sometimes called 'behavioural advertising') and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, see www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.
How can you see what cookies are downloaded from a webpage, including Go2? If you'd like to know exactly which cookies from which organisations are downloaded when you visit any given webpage you can download and install the free 'Ghostery' plug-in for Internet Explorer, Firefox and so on at www.ghostery.com. This explains who the various organisations are, and what they use their cookies for.
Consent to cookies: Cookies are fundamental to the way the Go2 website works, and we believe they cause no harm to your computer or, indeed, your privacy. By using Go2 you consent to our use of cookies on your system in the manner described here. On first visiting Go2 you will see a banner displayed
at the bottom of the screen. This allows you to consent or decline to the use of cookies with respect to analytics and advertising (1 and 3 above). Your settings with regard to these may be altered at any time by simply clicking the 'Privacy settings' button at the bottom right of the screen on future visits. With regard to affiliate cookies (2 above), these are only created when you click for further details or to make a booking from one of the property details pages or if you use our hotel search facilities. Such clicks imply consent to cookies being created.
If you do not consent to your PC handling cookies or have any concerns whatsoever about your privacy and cookies (not that we think you should have), this is what you can do:
1) Use the 'Privacy settings' button to control analytics and advertising cookies on Go2. Or,
2) Close this website and use your browser tools to delete any downloadeded cookies and reject any further cookies when browsing in future. In Internet Explorer, it's usually under 'tools' then 'delete browsing history' and 'options'. In Firefox it's usually under 'tools' then 'clear recent history' and 'options'. You can find advice on how to delete cookies from your computer using various browsers at www.aboutcookies.org.
3) Visit www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp: Many reputable advertisers are members of the Network Advertising Initiative. This allows you to opt out of receiving cookie-based 'behavioural advertising' from its member companies, in other words where relevant ads are served to you based on websites you have previously visited.
4) If you go to www.ghostery.com and download the free 'Ghostery' plug-in for your browser you can take control of your own web privacy, checking or blocking scripts or cookies from companies you don't trust on any website, not only Go2.
10. Do third-party adverts on Go2 track data?
As with many sites we may provide third-party adverts which employ a range of technologies
in order to track the source of visitors. Some of the companies who provide online
advertising may use anonymous information stored in cookies, for example, to display
adverts and track visitor clicks.. These companies only use the information they
collect to provide their advertising services. No personal information about you
is collected. For more information about the technologies employed and their ramifications
visit:
http://networkadvertising.org/consumer/opt_out.asp.
11. When does Go2 update its Privacy Policy?
Go2 reserves the right to alter this Privacy Policy from time to time, and will
publish the most recent version on the Go2 website. Should we do so, we will notify
Go2 users of this fact on the opening page of Go2, and the new version of the Privacy
Policy will take effect and will govern all Go2 services and user’s relationship
with us:
a. commencing one month after the date of publication; or
b. when (following the publishing of the new Privacy Policy) you next make an enquiry
or otherwise interact with Go2 or a Go2 user; or
c. immediately upon the date of publication if the changes are not to operative
provisions, or not capable of adversely affecting you - examples of which would
include, without limitation, changes to contact details referred to, or the refinement
of provisions that are already included, in this Privacy Policy.
12. How do I contact Go2?
If you have any questions about our Terms & Conditions, our Privacy Policy,
or your usage of Go2, feel free to contact us.
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