Go Japan Now Privacy Policy — How We Protect Your Data (2026)

What changed on 2026-10-19: added GetYourGuide widgets and partner banners, clarified Google Analytics, stated the current status of the Google AdSense code (no ads are served), added our email address and APPI request details. We reduced the Contact form to your email address and message.

Who We Are

Go Japan Now (gojapannow.jp) is an independent Tokyo-based multilingual travel media operated by STARK and published in five languages: English, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese. For more about the organization, see our About page.

In this policy, “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to Go Japan Now. “You” refers to any visitor to the website, regardless of geographic location or language version used. This policy applies to the entire gojapannow.jp domain across all five language subpaths.

The name and address of the operator will be provided without delay upon request to info@gojapannow.jp.

Information We Collect

Information you provide voluntarily. When you use the Contact form, we receive your email address and the message you write. We do not ask for your name or a subject; please do not include sensitive personal information in your message. If you email us directly, we receive your email address and the content of your message. The Contact form is protected by Cloudflare Turnstile to prevent automated abuse — Cloudflare may collect basic technical signals (IP, browser fingerprint, behavior) for that purpose. We do not have an account system, so we do not collect passwords, addresses, payment information, or similar account data.

Information collected automatically. Like virtually every website, our hosting infrastructure logs basic technical information when you visit: IP address, browser type and version, operating system, referring URL, pages visited, and timestamp. These logs are retained for security and abuse prevention and are typically purged within 90 days. Our content delivery and caching layers may store similar information for shorter periods.

Information collected by third parties. The site uses analytics, advertising, embedded partner widgets, and affiliate-tracking services provided by third parties. These services may set their own cookies and collect their own data subject to their own privacy policies. The most important ones are listed in Section 5 below.

How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for the following purposes only:

• Operating the site: serving pages, preventing abuse, maintaining security, fixing technical problems.
• Responding to inquiries: answering your messages and following up if needed.
• Editorial improvement: understanding which content is useful so we can update the most-read guides first.
• Affiliate attribution: tracking referrals from our links to operator websites so we receive commissions on completed purchases.
• Advertising: where Google AdSense serves advertisements on the site, showing and measuring those ads (see Section 5).
• Legal compliance: meeting requirements under applicable Japanese, EU, US, and other laws.

We do not use your data for automated decision-making with legal or similarly significant effects, and we do not perform profiling that would meaningfully affect you.

For visitors in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland: we handle inquiries to respond to your request and in our legitimate interest in answering messages (GDPR Art. 6(1)(b) and (f)); we keep server logs and use Cloudflare Turnstile in our legitimate interest in security and abuse prevention (Art. 6(1)(f)); and we process data where needed to meet legal obligations (Art. 6(1)(c)).

Cookies and Tracking Technologies

We use cookies and similar technologies (local storage, pixels) for the following purposes:

You can control cookies through your browser settings (most browsers allow blocking or deleting cookies category by category). Disabling strictly necessary cookies may break some site functionality such as language preference persistence. Disabling advertising or analytics cookies has no effect on the content you can read.

Third-Party Services We Use

Google Analytics 4. Used for traffic measurement. Data is processed by Google LLC subject to Google’s Privacy Policy. Google receives information such as cookie identifiers, the pages you view, the referring page, device and browser information, and approximate location derived from your IP address. You can opt out by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

Google AdSense. We do not currently serve advertisements (our Google AdSense setup is not yet complete, and ad serving has not started). The pages of this site include Google AdSense code, and when the AdSense code runs, your browser sends Google information such as cookie or device identifiers, the address of the page you are viewing, your IP address, and browser information. If we start serving advertisements, we will update this policy first. Where Google serves advertisements on a page, Google and its certified third-party vendors may use cookies (including the DoubleClick cookie) to serve and measure advertisements, including advertisements based on your prior visits to this site and other sites. Whether ads appear on a given page, and whether they are personalized, can differ by page, by region, and by your settings. You can opt out of personalized advertising at Google Ads Settings or by visiting aboutads.info. Third-party vendors used by Google AdSense are listed in Google’s Help Center.

GetYourGuide widgets. Some pages, currently our Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka travel guides, embed GetYourGuide partner widgets. GetYourGuide’s scripts are not loaded on other pages. On a page with a widget, the following happens as soon as the page is displayed, without waiting for a consent banner:

• What your browser sends: the page loads content from widget.getyourguide.com (scripts, frames, measurement) and cdn.getyourguide.com (fonts, images), so your browser sends GetYourGuide your IP address, the URL of the page you are viewing, the referrer, browser and device information (user agent and screen width), and our partner ID.
• Cookies and identifiers set: __cf_bm (widget.getyourguide.com; Cloudflare bot detection; about 30 minutes), session_id (a session cookie written to our domain), and gyg_visitor_id (a per-tab identifier in your browser’s session storage).
• When you leave the page: information about the page is sent once to collector.getyourguide.com: its URL and title, page dimensions and display information such as fonts, and the positions and display text of GetYourGuide widgets and links. If the page contains affiliate links to other companies’ travel booking services (for example Klook), the URL and display text of those links are also sent. Our Klook affiliate links include our partner ID (aid, aff_adid) in the URL.
• What is not sent: your name, email address, phone number, and similar details.

GetYourGuide uses this information to display the widget and to measure and analyze the performance of the partnership. We use the widget to show experiences you can book and to measure referrals to GetYourGuide. GetYourGuide acts as an independent controller; its handling of the information is governed by the GetYourGuide Privacy Policy and the GetYourGuide Partner Terms and Conditions.

Affiliate networks. We participate in affiliate programs with Klook, Sakura Mobile, GetYourGuide, NINJA WiFi, trip.com, Viator, MagicalTrip, JR Pass Direct, World Nomads (via CJ), GoWithGuide (via Awin), and others. When you click an affiliate link on our site, the partner sets a tracking cookie used to attribute any subsequent purchase to Go Japan Now. The price you pay is unaffected. Full details of these partnerships are on our Affiliate Disclosure page.

Links to other sites. Our pages contain links to other companies’ websites. Once you leave Go Japan Now, the other site’s own privacy policy applies, and we are not responsible for how it handles your information.

Cloudflare Turnstile. Used on the Contact form for spam and bot protection. Cloudflare processes basic technical signals as described in the Cloudflare Privacy Policy.

Hosting. The site is hosted by xServer (Xserver Inc., Japan). Server logs are stored on Japan-based infrastructure.

How We Share Information

We do not sell, trade, rent, or otherwise transfer your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes. The only situations in which information leaves Go Japan Now are:

• Service providers: companies that host the site or protect it from abuse (Xserver, Cloudflare), acting on our behalf.
• Independent third parties: Google (Analytics and AdSense), GetYourGuide (widgets), and our affiliate partners and networks receive information directly from your browser as described in Section 5, and handle it as independent controllers under their own privacy policies.
• Legal requirements: if required by law, court order, or government request that we believe in good faith is valid.
• Protection of rights: to investigate or prevent fraud, abuse, security incidents, or violations of our terms.
• Business transfer: if Go Japan Now is acquired, merged, or its assets transferred, the new owner would inherit the data subject to this policy (or to a successor policy that protects your rights at least as well).

Your Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• Access: request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Correction: ask us to fix inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Deletion: request that we delete your data (subject to legal retention requirements).
• Restriction: ask us to stop or limit the processing of your data.
• Portability: receive your data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
• Objection: object to processing based on legitimate interests or direct marketing.
• Withdraw consent: where processing is based on your consent, withdraw that consent at any time.
• Complain: file a complaint with your local data protection authority.

Specifically for California residents under the CCPA: you have the right to know, the right to delete, the right to opt out of sale (we do not sell your data), and the right to non-discrimination for exercising your rights. Under Japan’s Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI), which applies to us as a Japan-based operator regardless of where you live, you may request disclosure of the personal data we hold about you (including records of third-party provision), correction, addition or deletion, suspension of use or erasure, and cessation of third-party provision. For a request for disclosure under the APPI (including records of third-party provision), we charge JPY 1,000 per request to cover the actual cost of verification. Requests for correction, addition, deletion, suspension of use or erasure, and cessation of third-party provision are free of charge. Requests under the GDPR from visitors in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland are also free of charge in principle (except where a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive).

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at info@gojapannow.jp or through the Contact form. We will respond within 30 days (or sooner where required by law).

Children’s Privacy

Go Japan Now is intended for adult travelers (18 years or older). We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 (or under 16 in jurisdictions where that is the applicable age, such as some EU member states). If you believe a child has provided personal information to us, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

Data Retention and Security

We retain personal information only as long as needed for the purpose it was collected: inquiries are deleted once we have responded or handled them (we do not retain them); server logs are typically purged within 90 days; analytics data is kept for up to 14 months under the data retention setting of our Google Analytics 4 property.

We protect personal information using industry-standard measures: HTTPS encryption for all traffic, restricted access to administrative interfaces, strong authentication for admin accounts, and regular software updates. No method of transmission over the internet is 100% secure, but we work to apply commercially reasonable protection.

International Data Transfers

Go Japan Now is operated from Japan, and our primary servers are located in Japan. However, some of our third-party services (Google, Cloudflare, GetYourGuide, and affiliate networks) operate global infrastructure, which means your data may be transferred to and processed in other countries including the United States and the European Union. These transfers are conducted under the legal frameworks each provider relies on (such as Standard Contractual Clauses for EU data).

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, services, or applicable law. Material changes will be highlighted at the top of this page, and the “Effective date” at the start of this policy will be updated. We recommend reviewing this policy periodically.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, want to exercise your rights, or have concerns about how your data is handled, please email us at info@gojapannow.jp or use our Contact form. We aim to respond within three business days (Japan time).

For related information, see also our About page and Affiliate Disclosure.