Last updated: 2 September 2026.
This policy describes what Madrid Tourism Guide (madridtourism.org) collects when you visit, why, and what you can do about it. It describes the site as it is configured today, not as it might be configured later; when the site changes, this page is updated and the date above changes with it.
Who is responsible
Madrid Tourism Guide is an independently run publication at www.madridtourism.org. For the purposes of the UK and EU General Data Protection Regulation, the site’s operator is the data controller. Any question about this policy, and any request to see or delete data, should go through the contact page.
What is collected
Analytics
This site uses Google Analytics 4, provided by Google, to count visits and see which guides people actually read. It is implemented through a Google tag placed on every page.
Google Analytics sets cookies in your browser and records the pages you view, roughly how long you spend on them, the approximate location derived from your IP address (city level; the full address is not retained by this site), the referring site or search that brought you here, and your device, browser and screen size. Analytics data reaches this site only as aggregate reports. It is not used to identify individual visitors, is not combined with anything else, and is not sold or shared with anyone.
Google’s own handling of this data is governed by Google’s privacy policy, and Google may use it for its own purposes. Their terms are at policies.google.com/privacy. You can prevent Analytics from running at all with Google’s browser add-on at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout, or by blocking cookies for this site in your browser settings.
Google Search Console
This site is verified with Google Search Console, which reports the search queries that lead to it. Search Console data is aggregated and anonymous by design; it does not tell the site who you are.
The contact form
If you use the contact form, the name, email address and message you type are emailed to the site’s editor so that a reply can be sent. They are not stored in a database on this site, published, sold, or added to any mailing list — there is no mailing list. The email sits in an ordinary mailbox and is deleted when the exchange is finished, generally within twelve months. Your IP address and the time of submission are recorded with the message as a spam-prevention measure.
Server logs
The web host records standard access logs — IP address, timestamp, requested page, browser user-agent — as every web server does. These are used for security and diagnosing faults, are not consulted for anything else, and are rotated by the host on its own schedule.
Comments
Comments are switched off across this entire site and no comment form is shown on any page. No comment data is collected. Comments received before they were disabled were spam and have been permanently deleted.
Accounts and newsletters
There is no reader registration, no login for visitors, and no newsletter. Nothing on this site asks you to create an account.
Cookies
Cookies currently set when you visit:
- Google Analytics cookies (names beginning
_ga) — distinguish one visitor from another and one visit from another, so that pageviews are not double-counted. Typical lifetime is up to two years. - Caching cookies — this site runs a page cache to serve pages quickly. It may set a short-lived cookie to decide whether a cached or a fresh copy of a page should be served. It carries no information about you.
Blocking or deleting cookies for this site will not stop you reading anything here; every guide works without them.
Consent
This site does not currently display a cookie consent banner. At present that means the only non-essential cookies in play are the Google Analytics ones described above, and the practical way to refuse them is the Analytics opt-out add-on or your browser’s cookie settings, both linked above. A Google-certified consent management platform is being added, at which point visitors in the EEA, the United Kingdom and Switzerland will be asked before non-essential cookies are set, and this section will be rewritten to describe it.
Advertising
This site does not display advertising at the time of writing, and no advertising cookies are set. Advertising is intended, and the following will apply once it is live:
- Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a visitor’s prior visits to this and other websites.
- Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads based on your visits to this site and other sites on the internet.
- You can opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings, or opt out of a third-party vendor’s use of cookies for personalised advertising at aboutads.info/choices.
Advertising, when it appears, will be sold programmatically against the site as a whole. It has no influence on which places are recommended here or how they are ranked — see the about page.
Embedded content and outbound links
Guides on this site link out to primary sources: museum ticket pages, Patrimonio Nacional, Metro de Madrid, EMT, the Consorcio Regional de Transportes, Renfe, esmadrid.com and similar. Following one of those links takes you to a site with its own privacy policy, over which this site has no control and no visibility. Photographs are served from this site’s own server, not hot-linked from elsewhere, so viewing a page does not report your visit to a photo host.
Your rights
If you are in the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area, you have the right to ask what personal data is held about you, to have it corrected or erased, to object to or restrict its processing, and to receive a copy in a portable form. You also have the right to complain to your national data protection authority.
In practice, the only personal data this site holds that could identify you is a contact-form email, if you sent one. Ask through the contact page and it will be found and deleted. Analytics and server-log data are not linked to a name and cannot be traced back to an individual by this site, so a request to delete them cannot be honoured here — the Analytics opt-out linked above is the effective remedy.
Children
This is a travel reference site written for adults planning trips. It is not directed at children under 16, and no data is knowingly collected from them. If you believe a child has submitted personal information through the contact form, get in touch and it will be deleted.
Data retention and security
Contact-form emails are kept only as long as the correspondence is active, and generally no more than twelve months. Analytics data is retained according to the retention period configured in Google Analytics. The site is served over HTTPS throughout.
Changes to this policy
This page is revised when the site’s configuration changes — in particular when the consent platform and advertising go live, both of which are noted above as pending rather than present. The date at the top reflects the last substantive revision.