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Wereldreizigers.nl | Fewer cookies, more privacy

TRAVEL NEWS – May 31, 2022: To improve your experience on our website and to ensure your privacy, I decided to do it differently. As of today May 31, just like last year, we have said goodbye to a number of services on the website in order to improve your privacy and user experience. It is an important decision that I have thought about for a long time. I hope that I will inspire other (travel) bloggers to do the same in the future.

Fair business

At the moment Wereldreizigers.nl the first medium-sized travel website in The Netherlands that is completely transparent about the revenue model, Yippee don't bombard with ads and popups and takes your privacy seriously. You can read exactly how that works below.

Why do I want to get rid of cookies?

First of all, as a website administrator and user, I think the user experience is very important. I just want to write about beautiful trips and gather people (guest bloggers) around me who do the same. Scripts and cookies slow down the website and thus hinder your user experience. You just want to read an article and not wait for all the commercials to load… Don't you?

I want to inspire readers with practical travel stories and beautiful photos to discover the world.

That is the ultimate goal.

Chris – Wereldreizigers.nl

In addition, make cookies invade your privacy† Multinationals do their very best to make you think that everything is not that bad, but the bottom line is that you can follow someone online with a cookie. In recent years there have been numerous scandals and lawsuits (1), (2), (3) and although the privacy violations of all these multinationals have been slowly limited in recent years, it will take a long time before good regulations are in place so that your data is finally actually protected.

Last year, the consumer association placed another alarming article about the violations that still take place in the Netherlands. Even with large, well-known brands and websites. As a website owner I thought that was terrible to read and therefore decided to commit myself to doing things differently.

I don't want to violate your privacy

I don't want to bother you with popups, advertisements and spam e-mails. I also don't want to invade your privacy. I therefore see everything that hinders reading travel stories and looking at the photos on this website (in any way whatsoever) as an obstacle.

On average you consume 5.000 to 10.000 advertisements PER DAY – whether you like it or not (source).

Chris – Wereldreizigers.nl

Advertising banners, popups, newsletters, cookie banners, they are all obstacles. Obstacles that you as a reader are used to, because literally every website (except us!) that you visit will bombard you in 2022 with all sorts of things.

Think of:

  • cookie banner: you have to accept cookies before you can see anything
  • subscribe to the newsletter: if you want to subscribe to the newsletter, so that you can receive spam in your mailbox…
  • Receive notifications: whether they can spam you with every new message with push notifications on your phone or laptop…

And I haven't even mentioned the incredible amount of advertising banners you see everywhere.

  • moving banners: before you start reading you have often seen as the first advertising banners.
  • While scrolling: some websites seem to make a sport of it: between each paragraph or paragraph you come across new distracting advertising banners.
  • side of your screen (on laptop): also flashes and moves everything to get your attention.
  • Overlays and Popups: often at the bottom right of your screen on a laptop, or at the bottom or top of your screen on a phone, so that you can barely navigate away without clicking on the advertisement.

Click OK automatically

Your brain has become so used to it that you immediately blindly press OK on every website you visit. All those notifications are just super annoying and you want to get them out of the picture as soon as possible.

But every time you do that, you're giving away your privacy and often giving websites opportunities to spam you with notifications or emails.

Is that what you want? I do not think so…

What exactly has changed on Wereldreizigers.nl?

That is why I have taken several steps over the past two years to improve your experience on our website. We ask you almost nothing more on this website, except what is strictly necessary. So a cookie banner.

Below is an overview of the annoying things we have already removed from our website, for you.

In 2020 and 2021

  • Push notification popups deleted – since August 2020
  • Advertising Overlays removed- since August 2020
  • Advertising banners removed- since April 2021
  • Newsletter popups removed- since April 2021

As of May 31, 2022

Our website was already quite stripped down compared to almost every other travel website in the Netherlands, but now we are taking it a step further. I have removed as much as possible that may infringe your privacy from the website.

  • GetYourGuide scripts deleted (data collection, cookies)
  • Social Sharing scripts deleted (data collection, cookies)
  • Facebook pixels deleted (data collection, cookies)

The first honest travel website in the Netherlands

But that's not all. In recent years, I have devoted myself to creating a travel website that is as honest as possible. I invested in website hosting which runs on green energy and I wrote articles in which I tried to explain as clearly as possible how we make our money.

I also explained in that that we largely have become dependent on donations because make no mistake: omitting advertising costs me absolutely money. A small part of that is now coming back through donations for which I would like to thank everyone again.

What does the future look like?

No website is perfect, and neither is this one. There are more things I would like to change in the future. Completely disconnecting Google Analytics and Booking.com, for example… Unfortunately, I now have the financial means for that.

At the moment Wereldreizigers.nl however, the first medium-sized travel website in The Netherlands that is transparent about the revenue model and does not bombard you with advertising. In addition, we actually take your privacy seriously by preventively stopping the collection of unnecessary (albeit anonymous) data.

I'm pretty proud of that (and I hope you are too).

Fewer cookies, more privacy
Fewer cookies, more privacy

Until the next blog!

Avatar picture

Chris

Owner of Wereldreizigers.nl † Discover the world!
- Full-time blogging world traveler.
- Writes about travel, photography, sustainability and gadgets.
- Likes to discover extreme and unknown places.

0 comments

  • wow, holier than the pope, good luck with it, I would also remove the share buttons then
    and mss you also have to remove the cookies from the tracking sites such as tradetracker and others

    • We already do much more than others to limit the infringement, but unfortunately we cannot do everything… These are external websites over which we have no influence.

      Ultimately, you make the choice whether or not to click social media buttons or tracking links. The choice is yours, at least we give you the opportunity to choose?

      Maybe in the next update we can do something about that??

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