Cookie policy

Summary

Which tools VeniceAround.it uses

The website, which presents private tailor-made tours in Venice, Italy, is owned by Daniela Zarpellon, VeniceAround by Daniela Zarpellon (VAT no. 03934120241). The website uses first-party technical tools and, only with your consent, two analytics tools:

• no profiling or marketing cookies;
• Google Analytics 4, installed through the "Site Kit by Google" plugin and loaded only after you consent to analytics (details below);
• Microsoft Clarity, installed through the official "Microsoft Clarity" plugin and loaded only after the same consent to analytics (details below);
• Google Search Console, used by the site administrator to check how the website appears in Google search results: it sets no cookies and loads no scripts in visitors' browsers;
• no fonts loaded from Google Fonts or other external servers: the fonts are hosted on our own server;
• no embedded maps, social media feeds or review widgets;
• the technical plugins Rank Math SEO, IndexNow, UpdraftPlus, WP-Optimize, Aruba HiSpeed Cache and Elementor, described in the privacy policy, set no profiling or analytics cookies;
• videos from YouTube or Vimeo, where present, are not loaded until you click on them (see Videos).

The links to Google Maps, WhatsApp, ToursByLocals, the sharing buttons and GiraVicenza.it are plain links: nothing is loaded until you click on them.

Google Analytics 4: how we use it

If you choose "Accept statistics" in the banner, or switch on the Analytics category in the preferences, the website loads Google Analytics 4 through the "Site Kit by Google" plugin. Before you choose, or if you refuse, the Google Analytics script is not loaded at all and no analytics cookie is set; in addition, Google Consent Mode is set to "denied" by default.

• Provider: Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland, which processes the data on our behalf as a processor.
• Purpose: aggregated statistics on visits (for example pages viewed, referral source, device type, approximate geographic area) and on contact requests: form submissions and clicks on the email, phone and WhatsApp links are counted as anonymous events, without the content of the messages.
• Legal basis: consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR and Article 122 of the Codice privacy), which can be withdrawn at any time.
• Our configuration: Google Signals switched off, no advertising features, no ads personalization, no data sharing for advertising purposes. According to Google, Google Analytics does not log or store the IP addresses of users in the EU, Switzerland and the UK: it uses them only to derive an approximate location and then discards them.
• Retention: user-level and event-level data are kept for the data-retention period set in Google Analytics, 2 months (the shortest option available); the cookies last up to 2 years (see the table).
• Transfers: data may be transferred to Google LLC in the United States, which is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework; standard contractual clauses also apply.

More information is in the Google privacy policy. Besides refusing or withdrawing consent, you can block Google Analytics on all websites with the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on.

Microsoft Clarity: how we use it

With the same consent to analytics ("Accept statistics" in the banner or the Analytics category in the preferences) the website also loads Microsoft Clarity, through the official "Microsoft Clarity" plugin. Before you choose, or if you refuse, the Clarity script stays blocked, is not executed and sets no cookies. When you accept, the website sends Clarity the consent signal (Microsoft's Consent API v2) with analytics granted (analytics_Storage) and advertising denied (ad_Storage).

• Provider: Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited, One Microsoft Place, South County Business Park, Leopardstown, Dublin 18, Ireland. According to Microsoft's documentation, Microsoft acts as a data controller for Clarity data, under the Clarity terms of use and its own privacy statement.
• Purpose: aggregated statistics on how the website is used, heatmaps (where people click and how far they scroll) and recordings of browsing sessions, to understand what is unclear or awkward and improve the website's usability.
• Masked content: text typed into forms and sensitive content on the pages are masked and do not appear in the recordings.
• No advertising use: the advertising consent signal is always denied, Clarity's "Brand Agents" advertising feature is switched off and we do not use Clarity data for advertising or profiling.
• Legal basis: consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR and Article 122 of the Codice privacy), which can be withdrawn at any time.
• Retention: according to Microsoft, session recordings are kept for 30 days (favorited recordings and a random sample for up to 9 months); heatmaps and aggregated data for 9 months. The cookies last up to 1 year (see the table).
• Transfers: data may be transferred to Microsoft Corporation in the United States, which participates in the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework; standard contractual clauses between Microsoft Ireland and Microsoft Corporation also apply.

More information is in the Microsoft privacy statement and the Microsoft Clarity terms of use.