Privacy Policy

1. What CityMaply is

CityMaply is a free, crowdsourced directory of local places — hospitals, schools, markets, mosques and more — organised by city, area and mohalla. Content is submitted by ordinary people and reviewed by our team before it goes live. This policy applies to everyone who uses CityMaply, wherever in the world you're visiting from, and covers every country and city we list.

2. What information we collect

We keep this to the minimum needed to run the site and prevent abuse. We don't require an account, email, or phone number to browse, vote, review, or report.

• Submissions — the city/area/mohalla/place details and any name you choose to give when adding or editing a listing.
• Votes — when you vote on a listing awaiting community review, we store your IP address once, only to stop the same person voting twice on the same item.
• Reviews — your rating, comment, and the name you enter (or "Anonymous" if left blank). We also store your IP address privately, only to limit spam (one review per place per day).
• Reports — if you flag a listing as closed, wrong, or a duplicate, we store the reason, any details you add, and your IP address, again only to prevent abuse of the reporting feature.
• Suggestions — if you use the "Suggest an idea" link (in the footer or next to an empty category search), we store your message, the page you were on, and your IP address (for spam prevention). Name and email are optional — if you leave an email, we only use it to follow up with you about your suggestion, and it's never published or shared.
• Technical data — standard server logs (IP address, browser type, pages visited, approximate timestamps) collected automatically by our hosting infrastructure for security and to keep the site running reliably.

3. Why we process this data

Depending on where you're visiting from, we rely on one or more of the following legal bases:

• Legitimate interest — to run the directory, prevent spam/abuse, and keep the site secure (submissions, votes, reviews, reports, suggestions, technical logs).
• Consent — for advertising cookies, which only load after you accept them (see Section 5).
• Legal obligation — where we're required to retain or disclose information by law.

4. What we don't do

• We don't sell your personal information, and we don't share it with third parties except the ad and hosting providers described in this policy.
• We don't knowingly collect information from children under 13 (or the minimum age required by your local law). CityMaply isn't directed at children, and submissions/reviews aren't intended to be made by them.

5. Cookies & advertising

We use two kinds of cookies/local storage:

• Essential — remembering your country selection and your cookie choice itself. These run regardless of your choice below, since the site can't function sensibly without them.
• Advertising — we show ads through Google AdSense to help keep CityMaply free. Google and its advertising partners use cookies to serve ads and measure their performance, and may use cookies to show ads based on your prior visits to CityMaply or other websites. These cookies only load after you accept them below — if you reject them, no ad cookies are set, though you may still see fewer/less relevant, non-personalised ads. You can learn more about how Google uses this data at Google's Partner Sites policy, and opt out of personalised advertising at Google Ad Settings or, for EU/UK/EEA users, via youronlinechoices.eu.

You can change your choice at any time from the Cookie Preferences link (also in the footer of every page).

6. IP addresses

IP addresses collected for votes, reviews, reports, and suggestions are used only for spam prevention (e.g. stopping the same visitor from voting or reviewing the same listing repeatedly, or flooding the suggestion box) and are visible only to site administrators for moderation purposes. They are never published publicly.

7. Content moderation

All new listings go through admin review before appearing publicly. Reviews and reports publish immediately so the community can act quickly, but our team regularly checks for spam, abuse, or incorrect content and removes it when found.

8. How long we keep data

Submissions, reviews, and reports are kept for as long as the listing they relate to stays on CityMaply, so the directory stays accurate. Suggestions aren't tied to a listing, so we keep them for as long as needed to review and act on them, and periodically delete or archive older ones once reviewed. IP addresses collected for spam prevention are kept only as long as needed for that purpose and are periodically purged. You can ask us to delete your data sooner at any time — see Section 11.

9. International data transfers

CityMaply is used worldwide, and our hosting and advertising providers may process data on servers outside your own country, including in the United States. Where this involves transferring data out of the EU/UK/EEA, our providers rely on recognised safeguards such as Standard Contractual Clauses.

10. Your rights (EU/UK/EEA)

If you're located in the EU, UK, or EEA, you have the right to:

• Ask what personal data we hold about you, and get a copy of it (access).
• Ask us to correct inaccurate data (rectification).
• Ask us to delete your data (erasure).
• Object to, or ask us to restrict, certain processing.
• Withdraw consent for advertising cookies at any time (see Section 5).
• Lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

11. Your rights (California & other US states)

If you're a California resident, the CCPA/CPRA gives you the right to know what personal information we collect, to request deletion of it, to opt out of the "sale" or "sharing" of personal information (which, for us, only concerns advertising cookies — see Section 5), and to not be discriminated against for exercising these rights. Residents of other US states with similar privacy laws have equivalent rights. To exercise any of these, contact us using the details in Section 13.

12. Your choices

You can submit reviews and reports without giving your real name. If you'd like a review, report, or submission you made removed, or want to exercise any of the rights above, contact us using the details on our Contact page and we'll look into it.

13. Contact us

For any question about this policy or your data, email us at hello@citymaply.com.

14. Changes to this policy

This page may be updated from time to time. We'll change the "last updated" date above whenever we do, and material changes will be reflected here before they take effect.