Privacy Policy

Last Updated: 21 October 2026

        Simple summary: Wine Fly is a vineyard guide for adults. We do not run user accounts and we do not sell wine. The map uses your location only when you ask it to. The site is hosted by Netlify, which keeps request logs and shows Wine Fly aggregated page counts. Google AdSense may use cookies, web beacons, and your IP address to show and measure ads. Visitors in the UK, Switzerland, and the European Economic Area are not given personalised ad storage until they accept.
      

Who is responsible

Wine Fly, at winefly.co.za, is the responsible party for personal information this site handles. Write to wineflyza@gmail.com. No company registration number is published on the site. The terms of use explain what the site is, and what it is not.

Information We Collect

Location Data

When you click "Use my location," Wine Fly requests access to your device's location through your browser. This data:

Is only collected when you explicitly click the "Use my location" button
Is used solely to find vineyards near you
Is used in your browser to centre the map and build a search
Is sent with that search to the public Overpass API so nearby vineyards can be found. Wine Fly does not receive a copy and does not store it on a server of our own
Is not saved in an account, because Wine Fly has no accounts

Notes on this device

Wine Fly does not ask you to type a bottle note or upload a photo. An earlier version kept a route card in the browser under the name wine-fly-route-cards. That form has been removed. Wine Fly never received those notes. If a copy is still on your device, clearing this site's stored data deletes it.

Service Worker Cache

Wine Fly is a Progressive Web App (PWA) that uses browser caching to work offline. This includes:

App files (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) cached on your device
Map tiles and icons for offline functionality
This is essential for the app to function and is not used for tracking

Hosting and usage counts

The site is hosted by Netlify, Inc. When a page is requested, Netlify’s servers receive that request. A request log can include the page address, the time, the type of browser, the site you came from, a country or region, and an IP address. Netlify keeps those logs to run the hosting service. Wine Fly does not receive a list of names, email addresses, or a profile of a person from this.

Wine Fly uses Netlify Web Analytics. It is built from those server logs. It does not put a tracking cookie in your browser, and it does not add an analytics script to the page. The dashboard Wine Fly can see shows aggregated counts: which pages were requested, rough visitor numbers, countries, and addresses that returned an error. It is not used to show ads, and it is not sold. Declining cookies in the banner does not stop these counts, because they do not use that cookie.

This is not the same as Netlify Real User Monitoring, which would inject a script into the page. Wine Fly does not use that script. Netlify’s privacy statement describes their service. Logs and counts can be processed outside South Africa.

Advertising and cookies

Wine Fly uses Google AdSense, an advertising service provided by Google LLC, to show one labelled ad on the homepage, the vineyard list, the valley pages, the regions page, the games page, and the guides. There is no ad on About, Contact, Terms, Privacy, or the site map. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to this website or other websites. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads based on visits to this site and other sites on the internet.

The AdSense tag is part of the page. It can place and read cookies, use web beacons, and use IP addresses or similar identifiers to deliver, measure, and protect ads. Google and its partners may collect device information, approximate location, pages visited, and ad interactions. Wine Fly does not merge that advertising data with a name, email address, or account, because we do not collect those.

Your choice is stored in this browser under the name wine-fly-cookie-consent. It is not sent to a Wine Fly server.

Accept: ad storage and personalised ads are allowed on this browser.
Decline: we tell Google not to use ad storage or personalisation on this browser.
No choice yet: visitors in the UK, Switzerland, and the European Economic Area stay on the declined setting until they accept. Visitors elsewhere are shown ads unless they decline.

You can change an earlier choice with Cookie choices in the footer, or by clearing this site's stored data and reloading. Using the site is not treated as consent. Withdrawing is the same kind of step as accepting.

Google's consent message

Visitors in the UK, Switzerland, and the European Economic Area also see a consent message from Google when they open a page with an ad. It lists the purposes and the ad partners, and has Consent, Do not consent, and Manage options. Google uses that answer for the ads. On a page with an ad, Cookie choices in the footer opens Google's options again, as well as the Wine Fly banner. Seeing both messages is expected.

Your advertising choices

Google Ads Settings, where you can opt out of personalised ads
How Google uses data when you use our partners' sites or apps
Google's advertising privacy policy
YourAdChoices / aboutads.info opt-out
Network Advertising Initiative opt-out

Other ad partners of Google may also set cookies when an ad is shown. Use the opt-out pages above to limit personalised advertising from participating companies.

What Wine Fly keeps

An IP address, a precise location, and an advertising cookie can be personal information under the Protection of Personal Information Act when they can be linked to a person. Wine Fly does not run a visitor account database and does not ask you to open an account. Request logs sit with Netlify. Wine Fly sees aggregated page counts, not a named list of who visited.

No account: There is no login, and we do not ask for a name, phone number, or street address in a form.
Email you send us: If you write to wineflyza@gmail.com, we use the address and the message to reply. That mail stays in the mailbox until we delete it. It is not added to a marketing list.
No named profile of our own: Wine Fly does not stitch visits into a profile under your name. Netlify’s dashboard shows page counts. Google may still process advertising data, as described above.
Search: A header search is only a page address, such as farms.html?q=stellenbosch. Wine Fly does not store that search on a server of its own.

Why, and whether you have to

Location is used only after you click "Use my location", to search for vineyards. You can use a region instead. The search is voluntary.
Hosting logs are needed to deliver the page. The usage dashboard is an aggregated view of those requests, so the site can see which pages are used and which links are broken. It is not a cookie, so it is not switched off in the banner.
Advertising cookies are used to show and measure ads, and to remember accept or decline. You can decline. The guides still load.
An email you send is used to answer that email.

Information that leaves South Africa

The site is hosted by Netlify. Location searches are sent to Overpass servers that may be outside South Africa. Map tiles are loaded from OpenStreetMap. Advertising and font requests go to Google. Those companies process data outside South Africa, including in the United States and the European Union. Wine Fly does not control those services. Their privacy policies are linked in this page.

Third-Party Services

Netlify

Netlify hosts the site and provides Web Analytics from server logs, as described above. There is no extra analytics script on the page for that product. See Netlify’s privacy statement.

OpenStreetMap

Wine Fly uses OpenStreetMap data and map tiles to display vineyard locations. When you use the map:

Map tiles are loaded from OpenStreetMap servers
OpenStreetMap has its own privacy policy
We don't control or have access to data collected by OpenStreetMap

Overpass API

We use the Overpass API to search for vineyards in South Africa:

Queries include your location coordinates and search radius
No personal identifying information is sent
Queries are anonymous and not linked to you

Google Fonts

Pages load Fraunces and Figtree from Google Fonts. Some older pages also request Playfair Display. That request includes your IP address. Google's privacy policy describes that service. If the font file does not load, the page uses a system font instead.

External Links

Wine Fly provides links to vineyard websites and Google Maps directions. When you click these links:

You leave our app and go to external websites
Those websites have their own privacy policies
We are not responsible for their privacy practices

Data security

Wine Fly does not operate its own database of visitors. The live site is served over HTTPS by Netlify. Location searches are sent to the Overpass API, map images are loaded from OpenStreetMap, and advertising requests are sent to Google, as described above.

Children

Wine Fly is a guide for planning a visit. Guides that mention playgrounds are written for parents planning a day out.

Your rights

You can ask us about this policy at wineflyza@gmail.com. Under POPIA you can ask whether we hold personal information about you, ask for a correction or deletion of information we hold, and object to processing. If you are in the UK or the European Economic Area, the rights people usually ask about are access, correction, deletion, restriction, and objection, and a complaint to a local authority. The information Wine Fly can act on itself is an email you sent us. Advertising data is held by Google. Hosting logs and the usage dashboard are held by Netlify.

On your device you can:

Accept or decline ad cookies in the banner. Cookie choices in the footer forgets that answer and shows the banner again. In the UK, Switzerland, and the European Economic Area it also reopens Google's consent options. You can also clear this site's stored data.
Use Google Ads Settings to control personalised ads
Turn off location access for this site in your browser
Clear the cache, or remove the installed app, in your browser settings

In South Africa you can complain to the Information Regulator at inforegulator.org.za. If you are in the UK or the European Economic Area, you can complain to your local authority. For Google's processing, contact Google as well as us. For Netlify's hosting logs, contact Netlify as well as us.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this policy. The date at the top of the page will change when we do. Please check it when you return.

Privacy laws

This policy is written for visitors in South Africa and for visitors in the UK, Switzerland, and the European Economic Area. Those places have their own privacy and cookie rules, including POPIA, the UK and EU GDPR, and ePrivacy. This page describes what the site does. It is not a certificate that every GDPR duty has been met. The Wine Fly banner records an advertising choice. It is not a certified consent-management platform. For visitors in the UK, Switzerland, and the European Economic Area, consent for ads is collected by Google's certified consent message, described above.

Contact

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or Wine Fly's data practices, please contact us:

Email: wineflyza@gmail.com

        In short: Wine Fly does not sell wine and does not keep visitor accounts. Netlify hosts the site and keeps request logs; Wine Fly can see aggregated page counts from those logs, without an extra cookie or script. Google may use cookies, web beacons, and IP addresses to serve ads. You can accept or decline ad storage, and you can opt out of personalised ads in Google's own settings.
      