Privacy Policy

This page explains what information Food in Japan collects, why, and what you can do about it. We have tried to write it in plain language rather than legal boilerplate, because a privacy policy nobody reads protects nobody.

1. Who We Are

Food in Japan is an English-language guide to Japanese food and drink, published at https://www.foodinjapan.org. In this policy, “we”, “us”, and “our” mean Food in Japan. “You” means anyone visiting the site.

There is no membership, no login, and no subscriber account on this site. You do not need to register for anything to read it.

2. What We Collect

If you use the contact form

The contact form asks for four things, and that is all we receive from it.

If you do not use the contact form, we never receive your name or email address.

If you simply read the site

We do not ask you for anything. Two Google services do collect data automatically, and they are described in the next two sections. Beyond those, we run no tracking of our own.

3. Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics to understand how people find and use the site: which articles get read, which regions readers come from, and whether anything is broken. This is the only analytics tool on the site.

Google Analytics sets cookies and collects information such as pages visited, time on page, approximate location, device type, and referring site. We see this as aggregated statistics. We cannot identify you from it, and we do not try to.

4. Advertising

This site carries display advertising served through Google. That revenue pays for hosting and running costs. We do not use affiliate links, and we do not accept payment for coverage. Our editorial policy explains that side in full.

What Google does

• Google, as a third-party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on this site.
• Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads based on your visits here and to other sites on the internet.
• Third-party vendors and ad networks may also serve ads on this site and use their own cookies.

We do not receive any personal information from these advertising systems. We see revenue figures and general performance, nothing that identifies a reader.

Turning off personalization does not remove ads. It changes how they are chosen. If you are in the EU or UK, see section 6 for the consent banner that governs this on your first visit.

5. Cookies

Cookies are small text files stored by your browser. Here is what is set on this site and why.

You can block or delete cookies through your browser settings at any time. Some parts of the site may behave oddly if you block everything, though nothing essential will break.

6. Your Consent Choices

If you are visiting from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, a consent banner appears before advertising and analytics cookies are set. Nothing non-essential loads until you make a choice.

You can accept all, reject non-essential cookies, or set your preferences by category. Rejecting does not lock you out of anything. You will still see ads, but they will be chosen from context such as the topic of the page rather than from your browsing history.

Readers outside those regions are not shown the banner, and the browser-level controls described in sections 3 and 4 apply instead.

7. How We Use What We Collect

• Your message and contact details are used to reply to you and nothing else.
• Analytics data is used to decide what to write next and to find problems on the site.
• We do not send newsletters, marketing emails, or promotional offers.
• We do not sell, rent, or trade your information to anyone.

8. How Long We Keep It

When an email conversation is finished, we delete it. That includes the original form submission and any replies. We do not keep a database of past correspondents.

Analytics data is retained by Google according to their own retention settings, and it is not linked to any individual we could identify.

9. Who Else Sees It

Your contact form message reaches us by email and stays there. The services involved in delivering and storing that email can technically access it, in the same way any email provider can.

Beyond that, we share personal information only if we are legally required to, or if it is genuinely necessary to address fraud, security problems, or a threat to someone’s safety.

10. Your Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to ask what personal information we hold about you, to have it corrected, or to have it deleted.

In practice this is straightforward here, because we hold almost nothing. If you have written to us and want the exchange deleted, ask and we will delete it. We aim to respond to any such request within 30 days.

11. Children

This site is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them. If we learn that a child under 13 has sent us personal information without a parent or guardian’s consent, we will delete it.

If you believe this has happened, please contact us and we will act on it.

12. Security

The site runs over HTTPS, and we take reasonable measures to protect the little information we hold. No method of transmission or storage on the internet is completely secure, so we cannot promise absolute safety. Deleting messages once a conversation ends is part of how we limit that risk.

13. Links to Other Sites

Our articles link to official sites, research institutes, tourism organisations, and businesses. Those sites have their own privacy practices, which we do not control and are not responsible for. This policy covers only Food in Japan.

14. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy as the site changes. When we do, the revision date below changes with it. Significant changes will be noted on the page itself rather than made quietly.

Last updated: August 2026