Privacy policy

Who runs this site. trainbetweenworlds.com is published by Simran Mehta, the author of the books it describes. There is no company behind it and no data protection officer; the author is the data controller.

What this site does not do. It sells nothing directly, has no accounts or logins, hosts no comments, shows no advertising, and uses no affiliate links. Links to Amazon carry utm_ parameters so Amazon can tell the author which page you came from; they do not identify you and earn no commission.

Analytics (Google Analytics 4). The site uses Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages and links are used. Google receives your IP address (which it does not store), pages viewed, approximate country or city, browser and device type, the site that referred you, and clicks on Amazon buttons (the button’s position and the page it was on). Google Analytics sets two cookies, _ga and _ga_7TK3WQL76L, which hold a random identifier and expire after two years. Google processes this data on the author’s behalf in the United States under Google’s Data Processing Terms and the EU–US Data Privacy Framework (with the UK Extension). Google Signals and advertising features are switched off.

Ad measurement (OpenAI pixel). The author sometimes advertises the books in ChatGPT. To see whether those ads bring anyone here, the site loads OpenAI’s measurement pixel (oaiq), which reports page views to OpenAI along with your IP address, browser and device type, the page URL and referrer, and any click identifier an ad appended to the link. It sets first-party cookies holding a random identifier so a visit can be matched to an ad. OpenAI processes this data in the United States under its advertising terms. The pixel loads under the same conditions as analytics, described next.

Your choice. If you are visiting from the UK, the EEA or Switzerland, neither analytics nor the pixel loads unless you press Accept on the notice shown on your first visit. Your answer is stored in your browser’s local storage (key tbw-consent) and nowhere else. You can change your answer at any time, or clear site data. Elsewhere, analytics and the pixel run on the basis of the author’s legitimate interest in knowing whether the site is read and whether its ads work; you can decline with the same button, with any content blocker, or with Google’s opt-out add-on.

Server logs. The site is served from Amazon Web Services (S3 and CloudFront, US East). Standard access logs record the IP address, requested page, time, browser string and referrer of each request. They are used only to diagnose faults and abuse and are deleted automatically after 90 days.

Do Not Track. The site does not change its behaviour in response to a browser’s Do Not Track header. The consent notice and content blockers are the effective controls.

Links elsewhere. Amazon, Wikipedia, review sites and publishers linked from the guides have their own privacy policies, which apply once you leave this site.

Children. The site is not directed at children under 13 and knowingly collects no data from them.

Your rights. Under UK and EU data protection law you may ask what personal data is held about you, have it corrected or erased, object to its processing, and complain to your supervisory authority (in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office). In practice the author holds no data that can be tied to a named person; requests are answered within one month. California residents: this site does not sell or share personal information and is not a “business” under the CCPA, but the same requests are honoured for anyone who asks.

Changes. Material changes to this policy will be dated at the top of this page.