What a visit leaves behind

Privacy

Snowge sets no cookies, runs no advertising scripts and stores no IP address. This page says exactly what it does record, so you can check the claim against the site rather than take it on trust.

This page covers the website. The Snowge Japan iPhone app has its own privacy policy and a support page.

No cookies, no third-party scripts

Every script and stylesheet on this site is served from snowge.com. Nothing from an advertising network, a social network or a tag manager runs here. The site's own measurement uses no cookies and reads no browser storage.

Two exceptions are map tiles, and the page that shows a map says so: the home page and the resort map load background tiles from tile.openstreetmap.org, so your browser sends that server the ordinary details of a request (your IP address, browser and the tile asked for). The optional piste overlay on the resort map contacts tiles.opensnowmap.org only after you switch it on. The server process that runs this site also writes an ordinary request log: the requesting address and the full address requested, including any tracking parameters in it. The hosting provider retains that log; this application does not read it back or store it, and requests to the feedback pages are filtered out of it.

What the site's own analytics record

When a page loads, and when a handful of actions happen, the page sends one small message to this site. Each message carries:

• the page path, with any query string removed, and the referring site's origin only (never a full referring URL);
• the name of the event: a page view, a guide read half way or to its end, a price search shown, a price form submitted, a resort page opened, a link to an official source activated, or an answer to “Did you find the price you needed?”. A second page view within the same visit is noted by the server; nothing else is derived;
• a few fixed, non-personal properties where they apply, such as a resort's short name, an age category, a ticket kind, a number of days, a search outcome, which section a source link sat in, or your yes or no to that question. Free text, exact ages, dates you searched and saved plans are never sent;
• a visitor-day hash: a code computed from your IP address, your browser's user-agent string and a secret value that changes with the UTC day. The IP address itself is not stored. The hash lets the site count how many distinct browsers did something on one day; it is not a login, a cookie or a profile, and a new day gives a new code. Whoever holds the secret could recompute a past day's codes, so this is a limit on what is stored, not a mathematical promise.

These rows are kept on the site's own database and are also forwarded, server-side, to an analytics service the site runs itself. The forwarded copy carries the path, the referring origin, the event name and its properties, and your browser's user-agent string. The visitor-day hash stays here, and your IP address is not forwarded. There is no automatic deletion of analytics rows.

Advertising campaigns

When a link from an advertisement brings you here, the address may carry a campaign label. The site keeps only labels it has registered in advance, as a plain word attached to the events of that visit, so it can tell whether a campaign led to searches or to source links being opened. Raw tracking parameters and advertising click identifiers in the address are discarded by the site's measurement: not stored with any event, not forwarded, and never written into the site's own links. They remain in the request log described above for as long as the host keeps it. A label is context for a visit, not an identity, and it is not joined to other visits.

Saved plans stay in your browser

The optional shortlist of resorts and plans is stored only in your own browser, only when you choose to save something, and is never read by the site's measurement.

Reports and feedback you send

The correction form asks for no name or email address. What you write is kept privately so it can be checked against the source. Reports are not published and are not deleted automatically. To limit spam, each internet address can send up to five reports a day. That count is kept with a short-lived code made from your internet address and a random value that changes every day. The code is kept for about two days and is never saved with your report. Reports sent through an earlier version of this form are different: each one also carries a code made from the sender's internet address, the date and a secret value held by the site, and that code is still stored with the report. Whoever holds that secret could check which address made one of those codes. You cannot remove a report after sending it, because the form asks for no contact details and gives no removal code, so please keep contact details out of what you write.

The feedback form stores your message and a topic for up to 90 days, gives you a one-time removal code, and lets you delete the message yourself at /feedback/withdraw with that code. When a message is removed or expires, the site keeps its random ID and the time that happened, and nothing from the message, for 180 days, so that restoring an old backup cannot bring the message back. Sending or removing feedback also keeps a short-lived code made from your internet address and a random value that changes every day. It is used only to limit how many messages or removal attempts each address can make in a day, is kept for about two days and is never saved with your message.

An earlier version of this site had an email sign-up form. It was removed; no page collects email addresses now, and the addresses it collected are retained unused.

If this changes

Any script from another company, any cookie, or any change to what is recorded would change this page first. The methodology explains how prices themselves are recorded; the about page says who runs the site.