Cookie Policy

This policy explains the cookies and similar technologies used on mumbaitempledarshan.com. It sits alongside our Privacy Policy, which covers personal information generally — what we collect when you enquire or book, and your rights over it.

Reading this website requires you to give us nothing. Nothing here identifies you by name, and none of it is used for advertising.

A cookie is a small text file a website asks your browser to keep, and which the browser sends back on your next visit. Websites have several other ways of doing the same job, and this site uses those more than it uses cookies. So that this policy describes what really happens rather than copying a template:

Session storage

Information your browser holds only until you close the tab. Cleared automatically. This is where we keep how you arrived at the site.

Local storage

Like session storage, but it survives closing the tab. Our analytics tool uses it to remember the anonymous code it gave you — and only once you have accepted analytics. Before you answer the banner it stores nothing here.

IndexedDB

A small database inside your browser. Ours holds a copy of page content so the site can work offline.

Cache storage

Where the site's offline copy lives: pages, fonts, images and scripts saved by a service worker so the site loads instantly and works without a connection.

Service worker

A small script that manages that offline copy. It is why you can read a temple page in a basement with no signal.

Throughout this policy, "cookies" is used loosely to mean all of these.

Stated plainly, because it is unusual enough to be worth saying:

• No advertising cookies. We run no advertising on this website.
• No tracking pixels. There is no Meta Pixel, no LinkedIn or X tag, and no conversion pixel of any kind.
• No tag manager. Nothing can be slipped into this site later without a code change and a fresh release.
• No profile of you built across websites, no audience building, no ads that follow you around, and no data broker.
• No font request to anyone else. Every typeface comes from our own domain, so reading a page sends nothing to Google Fonts or any other font service.
• No selling or sharing of anything stored on your device.

4.1 · Strictly necessary — the site cannot work without these

4.2 · How you found us — session only

Four small values, all cleared when you close the tab. They exist so that when an enquiry arrives we can tell where it came from, and so that we can see which of our guides actually help people:

These stay in your browser and reach us only if you choose to send an enquiry, in which case they go with it — see clause 2.2 of the Privacy Policy. If you never use the form, they are simply thrown away when you close the tab.

4.3 · Analytics — only once you accept, and clause 9 switches them off

Nothing in this table exists until you accept the banner. Before you answer, our analytics tool runs in a mode that puts nothing whatsoever in your browser, and Google Analytics does not load at all. Clause 11 sets out exactly what that anonymous state does and does not involve.

Neither is used for advertising. Neither receives your name, your phone number or your email address from us — see clause 6.

Two parts of the site load content from someone else's servers. When they do, that company can set its own cookies and will see your IP address. This happens because your browser fetches their content, so their policies apply to it, not ours.

Google Maps

An embedded map appears on each temple and attraction page. Opening one of those pages loads the map from Google, which may set Google cookies. Other pages load no map.

Instagram (Meta)

The feed on our home page shows our own recent posts. The post images load directly from Meta's servers, so Meta can see your IP address and may set cookies. We fetch only our own posts, and we send Meta nothing about you.

WhatsApp (Meta)

Tapping a WhatsApp button takes you to WhatsApp. From that point you are on Meta's service under Meta's terms, and your conversation with us is covered by clause 2.3 of our Privacy Policy.

If you would rather avoid the map and the feed altogether, our packages, guides and booking pages carry neither.

Our analytics tool can record a session — a playback of how a page was scrolled and clicked — so we can find the places where the site confuses people. Two limits are built in deliberately:

• Everything you type is hidden before it leaves your browser. We can see that a field was filled in. We cannot see your name, your number, your email address or your notes.
• Your phone number is never used to identify you in analytics. It would be the easy way to connect a recording to a booking, and we have deliberately not done it — an analytics tool has no business holding a guest's phone number. Recordings carry only a random code.

Recording only ever begins after you have accepted, and it begins at that moment rather than retrospectively — we cannot record the part of your visit that happened before you answered the banner, because nothing was recording. If you say no, or simply never answer, no session of yours is ever recorded.

Recordings are also switched off completely when the site runs on our own machines while we are building it.

Every typeface on this site — the serif, the sans, and the Devanagari faces used for Hindi and Marathi — comes from our own domain. Nothing is requested from Google Fonts or any other font service. It is a small but real gain for your privacy: reading a page tells no font company that you did.

Photographs, artwork and video come from our own domain or from Google's storage, which we use as our own file store. The only exception is the Instagram feed described in clause 5.

Analytics data is handled by PostHog, in the United States, and by Google Analytics, outside India. Our own site content and files sit on Google's servers. Clause 7 of the Privacy Policy covers these transfers and why they are allowed.

The essential items in clause 4.1, and the session values in clause 4.2, never leave your device unless you send us an enquiry.

Nothing here is essential except the items in clause 4.1, and you can remove even those. The quickest control is ours: "Cookie Choices" in the footer of any page reopens the consent banner, and choosing no switches off both the analytics in clause 4.3 and the anonymous count described in clause 11, immediately. The browser controls below go further and clear everything, including the items in clause 4.1.

9.1 · Block or clear everything from this site

Chrome

Settings → Privacy and security → Third-party cookies, and Settings → Privacy and security → Site settings → View permissions and data stored across sites, to clear data for this site.

Safari (Mac)

Safari → Settings → Privacy for tracking prevention, and Manage Website Data to remove this site's data. On iPhone, Settings → Safari → Advanced → Website Data.

Firefox

Settings → Privacy & Security → Enhanced Tracking Protection, set to Strict, and Cookies and Site Data → Manage Data to clear this site.

Edge

Settings → Cookies and site permissions → Manage and delete cookies and site data.

Any browser

A private or incognito window discards everything when you close it, so nothing survives the visit.

9.2 · Block analytics specifically, and keep the site working

• Google Analytics: install Google's official opt-out browser add-on from tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. It applies everywhere, not just here.
• Either tool: most tracking-protection settings and content blockers already stop them. Firefox's Strict mode and Safari's tracking prevention both do, as do the common browser extensions. We make no attempt to get around blockers, and the site is built to work normally when they are on.
• Turn off JavaScript for this site and no analytics load at all — but neither does the booking form.

9.3 · What stops working if you clear everything

Not much, and nothing important:

• offline reading stops until the cache rebuilds on your next visit;
• the first load of a page becomes a little slower;
• we lose the record of how you arrived, so if you enquire we may ask how you found us;
• our own staff are signed out of the internal booking system.

Your bookings, your ticket and your verification link are unaffected — they live with us, not on your device.

Some browsers can send a "Do Not Track" header or a Global Privacy Control signal. There is no agreed rule forcing a website to act on them, and we will be straight with you: our analytics tools are not set up at present to pick up these signals on their own.

We would rather tell you that than let you assume a setting is protecting you when it is doing nothing here. The controls in clause 9 do work, and asking us directly works too — write to contact@mumbaitempledarshan.com and we will keep your analytics data out.

What the anonymous count actually is. Our analytics tool has a mode in which it stores nothing in your browser whatsoever. Rather than giving your device a code to carry, it works one out on its own servers from your network address and browser version, mixed with a secret that changes every day. It runs one way only: it can tell that two page views an hour apart are probably the same reader, and by the next day it no longer matches you at all. It cannot be turned back into your address, your device or your name, and it is not stored against you.

We use it for exactly one thing — knowing which pages people actually read, so we can tell an article that helps someone plan a darshan from one nobody finishes. We think counting a page view is a fair thing to do without asking, precisely *because* it costs you nothing and leaves nothing behind. Storing something on your device is a different matter, and that is what the banner is for.

What accepting adds. A yes adds the three things listed in clause 4.3: a random code kept in your browser, so that a reader who comes back next week counts as one person rather than two; Google Analytics; and session recording as described in clause 6. Those are the parts that need your permission, because those are the parts that live on your device.

The choice is real, and we have deliberately built it so that it cannot quietly stop being real. Google Analytics writes its cookies the moment it is switched on, so we do not switch it on until you have accepted; the same goes for the analytics code and the recording. There is no version of this site where the banner takes your answer and loads the trackers anyway.

The two buttons are the same size and shape, and are equally easy to see. Saying no takes exactly one tap, the same as saying yes. There is no pre-ticked box, no "X" that counts as agreement, and the banner does not cover the page or stop you reading, booking or leaving. We think making the "no" harder than the "yes" would tell you something ugly about the rest of our business.

Changing your mind is one click. "Cookie Choices" sits in the footer of every page and reopens the banner. Choosing no afterwards stops everything immediately — the anonymous count included — and clears the code and the other items in clause 4.3 from your browser. You do not have to reload the page for that to take effect.

What we still do not do, whichever way you answer: no advertising cookies, no profiling, no sharing with any ad network, and nothing that identifies you personally — see clause 3.

The essential items in clause 4.1 and the how-you-found-us values in clause 4.2 are not covered by this choice, because they are not analytics: the first are what make the site load and work offline, and the second stay in your own browser and reach us only if you choose to send an enquiry. Clause 9 tells you how to clear those too.

If anything here does not match what you find in your browser, we want to know — tell us on +91 89764 23389 or at contact@mumbaitempledarshan.com.

We will update this policy whenever we add, remove or change a tool that stores something on your device. The date of the last update is shown on this page. Because this is the one policy you can check for yourself in your browser's developer tools, we would genuinely like to hear about anything here that does not match what you see — see clause 13.

If you have a question about anything on this page, or you have looked in your browser and found something we have not described, tell us. Message +91 89764 23389 or write to contact@mumbaitempledarshan.com and we will either explain it or correct the page.

Whichever of these documents your question is about, the fastest route to an answer is WhatsApp. We answer messages every day of the week, and usually within minutes.

Bookings and WhatsApp

+91 89764 23389

Tours and support

+91 79001 77209 · +91 90041 04537

Email

contact@mumbaitempledarshan.com

Website

mumbaitempledarshan.com

Hours

Tours daily 5:00 AM – 9:00 PM · WhatsApp answered every day

Where we operate

Mumbai · Thane · Navi Mumbai — and outstation to Shirdi and Pune

We are a small operator and we work from the road rather than a booking office, so there is no counter to visit — everything is arranged on WhatsApp, by telephone or by email. Anything formal you want to send us, including a notice under these documents, should go to contact@mumbaitempledarshan.com.