Who is responsible
The controller responsible for the personal data described on this page, under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Türkiye's Law on the Protection of Personal Data (KVKK), is Ozan Alatlı, who makes Turkeyora; the site is published by ALATLI CREATIVE. For any question or request about your data, write to hello@turkeyora.com.
Browsing the site
Reading the site does not require an account, and pages carry no advertising, social media or third-party scripts. Resources load only from servers we run ourselves: turkeyora.com and two alatli.dev subdomains, also ours, where the two tools described below run.
Our content security policy enforces this technically: a script, font or image from any other site cannot load, even by mistake.
Server records
Our web server is not set up to keep records of individual visits, so your IP address is not written to a visitor log by the site.
Like any website, the connection itself is handled by our hosting infrastructure while it takes place.
Counting visits
To see which pages are read and for how long, we count visits ourselves. No cookies, local storage or browser fingerprinting are used, and nothing is sent to a third party.
When a page opens, our own server receives the page address (without its query part), how long the page stayed open on screen, whether there was any scrolling, tapping or mouse movement on the page (only yes or no; the movement itself is not recorded) and only the name of the site you came from (for example google.com). The yes-or-no signal is used only to tell real visits apart from automated browsers. The server adds the type of device (phone, tablet, computer) and the country.
The country is looked up from your IP address in a database on our own server (IP geolocation by DB-IP); your IP address is not stored. To tell visits apart within the same day, a short digest is made from your IP address and browser name with a random value that changes every day and is deleted the next day; the digest cannot be traced back to you or linked to another day.
If the link you followed carries a campaign label (utm_campaign, utm_source), that label is recorded with the first page view as well; it identifies the link, not you, and only tells us which advertisement or post brought a reader.
If your browser has Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control switched on, nothing is sent. Age, gender, interests and similar information are not collected.
Analytics and speed measurement
Alongside our own visit counting, we use Umami, an open-source analytics tool running on our own server (analiz.alatli.dev). It uses no cookies or local storage and does not store your IP address.
It receives the page address and the site you came from; your browser, operating system, device type, screen size and language; the country, looked up from your IP address; five measures of how fast the page loaded in your browser; and, if you click a tour link, which page it was clicked on.
To tell visits within the same month apart, a one-way digest is made with a value that changes every month; it cannot be traced back to you. If "Do Not Track" is on in your browser, nothing is sent.
Error reports
If a page runs into an error, its technical details go to the error-reporting tool on our own server (Bugsink, hata.alatli.dev): the error message, where in the code it happened, the page address and the browser type. No IP address, cookies or personal information are sent, and the report is used only to fix the error.
Tour and ticket links
Some pages carry tour and ticket links to GetYourGuide. When you click one, the request first passes through our own address (/git/…), where we record which page and which offer were clicked and when. No IP address, cookie or account information is written.
From then on you are on GetYourGuide's site, and its own privacy policy applies to anything you do there. The link carries our partner code, so that a booking can be credited to us, and a short label naming the page of ours you came from (for example en_places_galata-kulesi), so that we can see which pages lead to bookings. The label describes the page, not you, and contains no personal data.
The Ask us assistant
The "Ask us" assistant in the corner of each page is not artificial intelligence; it is a rule-based helper that matches your question to information recorded on this site. Your question goes only to our own server, to find the answer, and is not sent to any third party.
Questions the assistant cannot answer are kept so that we can add answers later: only the text of the question (with its letters simplified and cut to two hundred characters), its language and the day. Your IP address, a cookie or any other identifier is not written with it, and these questions are deleted after ninety days. Answered questions are not kept; we only count how many questions arrive per day and language.
To limit how many questions can be sent in a short time, your IP address is held briefly in the server's memory only and is not written anywhere. Please do not type personal details such as your name, phone number or email address into the assistant.
The newsletter form
The bottom of each page used to have a form for leaving an email address; it has been removed. For the addresses left there earlier, we store the address, the language of the page you used and the time you submitted it. We do not store your IP address or any browser fingerprint with it.
The address is used only to send you the kind of notice the form describes. It is kept in our own database, it is not passed to a mailing service or any other third party, and no email has been sent from the site so far.
Sticker reservations (form removed)
The stamps page used to have a form for reserving printed stamp stickers; it has been removed, and the stamps can now be downloaded free of charge. For the reservations made through it, we store the name, email address and country that were entered, the stickers chosen, the optional note, the page language and the time. No postal address or payment details were asked for, and no IP address was stored with a reservation.
These details were collected only to email you once, when the stickers were printed, with the price and shipping; the sale has since been withdrawn. They are kept in our own database, are not passed to any third party, and you can ask for them to be deleted at any time by writing to hello@turkeyora.com.
Leaving the list
Every email we send will carry a way to unsubscribe. You can also ask for your address to be deleted by writing to hello@turkeyora.com.
When you unsubscribe, the record is marked so that the same address is not quietly added back; if you ask for deletion, it is removed.
Legal basis
Counting visits, recording clicks on tour and ticket links, keeping unanswered questions and holding IP addresses briefly in memory to limit requests rest on our legitimate interest in knowing which pages are useful, improving the answers and protecting the site from abuse. None of these steps stores your IP address or a lasting identifier, and you can switch visit counting off with Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control.
Email addresses and sticker reservations were stored on the basis of the consent you gave when you submitted the form. You can withdraw that consent at any time by writing to us; withdrawing it does not affect what was done before.
How long we keep it
The table lists every kind of record the site keeps and how long it stays. Where it says that no period has been set, the rows stay in our database until they are deleted by hand.
| Record | How long it is kept |
|---|---|
| Visit rows (page, time on screen, device, country, site you came from, daily digest) | No period has been set and they are not deleted automatically. They contain no IP address or name, and once the day's random value is deleted the digest can no longer be linked to anyone. |
| Daily random value used for the digest | Deleted the next day. |
| Clicks on tour and ticket links (page, offer, time, language) | No period has been set and they are not deleted automatically. They contain no IP address, cookie or account information. |
| Questions the Ask us assistant could not answer | Ninety days, then deleted automatically. |
| Daily counts of questions and of the use of the site's tools | Not deleted. They hold only numbers per day, with no question text and no identifier. |
| IP address used to limit requests | Only in the server's memory, never written to disk or to the database. Each count covers one minute; old entries are cleared when the list grows large or the server restarts. |
| Email addresses from the newsletter form | Until you ask for deletion. Unsubscribing marks the record instead of deleting it, so that the address is not added back. |
| Sticker reservations | No period has been set; kept until you ask for deletion. |
Where data is kept
The site and its database run on a server we rent in Germany, within the European Union.
We do not sell, rent or share personal data with anyone.
Your rights
Under the GDPR and KVKK you can ask whether we hold personal data about you and receive a copy of it, have it corrected or deleted, have its use restricted, receive the data you gave us in a portable form, object to processing based on legitimate interest, and withdraw a consent at any time. KVKK also gives you the right to learn the purpose of the processing and whether the data has been passed to anyone, and to ask that those it was passed to be told of a correction or deletion.
To use any of these rights, write to hello@turkeyora.com and tell us which record your request concerns, for example the email address you left. The visit and click rows hold nothing that identifies you, so we cannot pick out the rows of a particular person.
Complaints
If you think we have handled your data wrongly, please write to us first so that we can put it right. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority: in Türkiye, the Personal Data Protection Board (KVKK); in the European Union, the data protection authority of the country where you live or work, or where you believe the infringement took place.
Links to other sites
Pages link to institutions' own pages and to photograph pages on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. When you follow such a link, you leave this site and that site's own privacy policy applies.