Privacy Policy

Who we are

At BestOfDominicana, we are committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your personal information when you use our platform at BestOfDominicana.com, including our services as a business directory, marketplace, and booking system for Dominican Republic businesses and customers. By using BestOfDominicana.com, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy.

BestOfDominicana is a service-based marketplace based in the Samana region of Dominican Republic. We connect local businesses—such as trades, services, cafes, pet care, and health professionals—with locals and visitors through listings, a shop, and a booking system.

Our website address is: http://bestofdominicana.com.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

We use cookies to improve your experience:

Essential Cookies: Enable core functions like account login and booking submissions. Analytics Cookies: Track site usage (e.g., via Google Analytics) to optimize performance—e.g., understanding which listings are most popular. Advertising Cookies: May be used post-launch to show relevant ads (e.g., promoting BestOfDominicana to businesses). You can manage cookie preferences in your browser settings, but disabling essential cookies may affect functionality.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Who we share your data with

We do not sell your personal information. We may share it in the following cases:

With Vendors and Customers: Vendors see customer booking details (e.g., name, phone, appointment time) to fulfill services. Customers see vendor business details (e.g., name, address, services) as part of listings. With Service Providers: We use third-party providers for payment processing (e.g., Stripe), hosting (e.g., VPS for 8,000 users with 800 vendors), and analytics (e.g., Google Analytics). These providers are contractually obligated to protect your data. For Legal Reasons: If required by law. Business Transfers: If BestOfDominicana is acquired, your data may be transferred to the new owner, subject to this Privacy Policy.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

You have rights regarding your personal information:

Access and Correction: You can request access to or correction of your data—e.g., update your business address by emailing . We’ll respond within 30 days. Opt-Out: Unsubscribe from marketing emails via the link in each email. You can also disable cookies in your browser settings to limit usage data collection. Deletion: Request deletion of your data (e.g., close your vendor account) unless we’re required to retain it (e.g., for tax purposes). Complaints: If you believe we’ve mishandled your data, contact us at .

How We Store and Secure Your Information

Storage: Your data is stored on secure servers in United State. We use a VPS hosting provider Hostinger. Retention: We retain personal information only as long as necessary—e.g., vendor data is kept while your account is active; customer booking data is retained for 12 months post-service for dispute resolution, then anonymized. Payment records are kept for 7 years per Australian tax laws. Security: We use SSL encryption, access controls, and regular security audits to protect your data. However, no system is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Informations we collect

We use cookies to improve your experience:

We collect personal information to provide and improve our services. The types of information we collect include:

Information You Provide:
Vendors: When you sign up as a vendor (e.g., for a Free, Basic, Plus, or Elite account), we collect your business name, contact details (name, email, phone number), address, payment information (e.g., credit card details for subscription fees), and business details (e.g., services offered, shop products, booking preferences).
Customers: When you use BestOfDominicana to browse listings, shop, or book services (Elite tier), we collect your name, email, phone number, and booking details (e.g., appointment time).
Sign-Up Form: If you join our waitlist via the coming soon page, we collect your email address.
Automatically Collected Information:
Usage Data: We collect data about your interactions with BestOfDominicana, such as IP address, browser type, device information, pages visited, and time spent on the site, using cookies and similar technologies.
Location Data: We may collect your approximate location (e.g., based on IP address) to provide location-specific services, such as showing South West businesses near you.
Third-Party Data:
We may receive payment processing data (e.g., transaction confirmation) from third-party providers like Stripe or PayPal when you pay for a subscription or shop purchase.
If you link an existing booking system (Elite tier), we collect the link but not the booking data itself.