China Guide

Privacy

Updated 28 October 2026.

China Guide: Travel & Shopping is owned and operated by Philipp Seifert.

Your account

We use your name, email address, password hash and sign-in records to run your account. A cookie keeps you signed in. Session records hold access times, browser details and, when available, your IP address, which also helps stop sign-in abuse. Sessions last up to 14 days and renew while you use the service; review or revoke them in Account.

Your saved work

We store what you save: research and monitors, projects, trips and collections with their preferences and dates, notes, imports and source permissions, coverage requests, correction reports, exports, pass and payment status, and the usage needed to apply your allowance. Private imports do not automatically enter the shared catalog. Source records can include text, author names, links, collection times and engagement counts.

Connected applications

If you connect an AI application such as ChatGPT or Claude, it can read search results, source passages and your saved work, and make changes, within the access you approve. It handles what it receives under its own policies. Revoke access in Connections; copies it already received stay with it.

Service providers

Resend sends account and notification emails and receives the addresses and message content; it states that it stores email data in the United States (details). A hosting provider runs the service and stores your data, and a separate storage provider keeps encrypted recovery copies in Singapore. Email to the support address passes through forwarding and mailbox providers.

These providers keep operational logs under their own policies, and your information can be processed outside your country. The site adds no passive behavioural analytics.

Payments

Trip Pass purchases use Dodo Payments.

Starting a Dodo checkout sends your account email, opaque account and order identifiers and the selected product to Dodo. Dodo hosts the payment form, and we never receive full card details. We keep order, payment, refund and dispute references, amounts, tax and status to manage your pass and resolve payment issues. Dodo processes payment, fraud-prevention, tax and dispute records under its privacy policy and keeps them under its own retention, even after you delete your account.

Verified Dodo payment-event receipts (type, time, payment ID and status) are kept for 30 days, longer only while one needs review.

Optional topic counts

If you turn on topic counts in Account, each new place search adds one to an anonymous daily count of the city and topic, such as cafés, without your words, account or IP address. We use the counts to choose what to research next and delete them after 90 days; they cannot be traced back to you.

Retention and deletion

We keep your saved work until you delete it or your account. Deleting a project or trip removes it; archived imports and source history can remain stored. Deleting your account removes your account, private research, trips, files and connection records; shared catalog records stay without your identifier. If a checkout is still open, deletion completes after that checkout closes. A completed payment first needs a resolved full refund; deletion issues no automatic refund.

We keep a minimal record of deleted and restricted identifiers so a restore cannot bring them back, and for each Dodo order a settlement record without your account ID or email; money received later for a deleted account is flagged for a manual refund decision. These records have no fixed expiry. Encrypted recovery snapshots can hold earlier copies and are selected for removal after seven days. Deletion does not erase records held by providers, emails already sent or copies held by connected applications.

Downloads and contact

Account offers a JSON download of your information and saved work.

Contact research@fenuli.com for account help, privacy questions, corrections or a source removal request. Keep passwords and browser credentials private.