Privacy Policy

a) Information You Provide Directly

When you use WorldBizDir, you may provide us with:

• Account registration details (name, email address, password)
• Business listing information (business name, address, phone number, website, description, category)
• Contact form submissions (name, email, message)
• Payment information (processed securely via our payment providers — we do not store card details)

b) Information Collected Automatically

When you visit our website, we automatically collect certain information, including:

• IP address and approximate location (country/city level)
• Browser type and version
• Operating system
• Pages visited and time spent on each page
• Referring website or search terms that brought you to us
• Device type (desktop, mobile, tablet)

c) Cookies and Tracking Technologies

We use cookies and similar tracking technologies. See our Cookie Policy for full details. These include cookies placed by Google Analytics and Google AdSense for analytics and advertising purposes.

We use the information we collect for the following purposes:

• To create and manage your account
• To publish and display your business listing on our directory
• To respond to your enquiries and support requests
• To send service-related communications (account updates, listing status)
• To send marketing communications, if you have opted in (you may opt out at any time)
• To analyse usage patterns and improve our website
• To detect and prevent fraudulent or abusive activity
• To comply with our legal obligations
• To display personalised and contextual advertising (via Google AdSense)

If you are in the European Economic Area (EEA) or United Kingdom, we process your personal data on the following legal bases:

• Contract performance — processing necessary to provide you with our services (account creation, listing publication)
• Legitimate interests — analytics, fraud prevention, improving our services
• Consent — marketing emails and non-essential cookies (you may withdraw consent at any time)
• Legal obligation — where we are required by law to process your data

We work with carefully selected third-party services that may process your data on our behalf or independently. These include:

• Supabase — our database and backend infrastructure provider. Data is stored on Supabase servers. See their privacy policy at supabase.com/privacy.
• Google Analytics — we use Google Analytics to understand how visitors use our site. Google Analytics collects anonymised usage data. You can opt out using the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.
• Google AdSense — we display advertisements served by Google AdSense. Google may use cookies and your browsing data to show you relevant ads. See Google's privacy policy at policies.google.com/privacy.
• Email service providers — for sending transactional and marketing emails.

We do not sell your personal data to third parties. We do not share your personal data with third parties except as described in this policy or as required by law.

We retain your personal data for as long as necessary to provide our services and fulfil the purposes described in this policy:

• Account data — retained for as long as your account is active. If you close your account, we delete your personal data within 90 days, unless we are required to retain it for legal reasons.
• Business listing data — retained for as long as the listing is live. Removed listings are deleted within 30 days.
• Analytics data — retained for 26 months (Google Analytics default).
• Contact form submissions — retained for up to 2 years for support purposes.

Depending on your location, you may have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• Right of access — you may request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• Right to rectification — you may request that we correct inaccurate or incomplete data
• Right to erasure ("right to be forgotten") — you may request that we delete your personal data
• Right to restriction of processing — you may request that we limit how we use your data
• Right to data portability — you may request your data in a structured, machine-readable format
• Right to object — you may object to processing based on legitimate interests or for direct marketing
• Right to withdraw consent — where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at support@worldbizdir.online. We will respond within 30 days. If you are in the EEA or UK and believe we are not handling your data correctly, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. These include encrypted data transmission (HTTPS/TLS), secure database infrastructure, and access controls. However, no method of internet transmission is 100% secure. We encourage you to use a strong, unique password for your account.

As a global directory, we may transfer your data to and store it in countries outside your country of residence, including the United States. Where required, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place (such as Standard Contractual Clauses) to protect your data in accordance with applicable law.

WorldBizDir is not directed at children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

Our website contains links to external websites, including business websites listed in our directory. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those websites. We encourage you to review the privacy policy of any site you visit.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, or applicable law. When we make material changes, we will update the "Effective Date" at the top of this page. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or how we handle your data, please contact us at: