Privacy Policy

Last updated: 15 October 2026

• There are no accounts, no shop and no newsletter on this site.
• Your email address is never published, sold or added to a marketing list.
• Where the law requires your consent, analytics (Google Analytics) and personalized advertising (Google AdSense) cookies run only after you agree.
• I answer every privacy request free of charge within 30 days.

The controller of your personal data is Halil İbrahim Şımır, owner and content provider of gezginbirchef.com.
Address: Merkez Mah. Hasat Sok. No:52/1 Şişli/İstanbul, Türkiye
Email: info@gezginbirchef.com

Because the controller is based in Türkiye, the Turkish Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698 (KVKK) applies to all processing. If you are in the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia or another country with its own privacy law, the rights described below under that law also apply to you.

I do not ask for sensitive data (health, religion, ethnic origin and similar). Please do not include such information, or anyone else’s personal details, in your question. If you do, I remove that part before a question is published.

Questions and my answers are reviewed by me before they are published on the site. Published questions appear without your name (as “Reader”). An instant answer from the AI chat is shown only to you until I have reviewed it.

Data is collected electronically and partly automatically through the forms on the site, email, cookies and similar technologies, and server logs.

This site shows ads through Google AdSense and measures visits with Google Analytics 4 (property G-8P6FY60W1W) using Google Consent Mode v2.

• Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website or other websites.
• Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visits to this site and/or other sites on the internet.
• You can turn off personalized advertising in Google’s My Ad Center, where you can also see and change why you are shown ads. You can opt out of some third-party vendors’ cookies at aboutads.info.
• How Google uses data from sites that use its services: policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
• If you do not consent to advertising cookies, you may still see ads, but they are non-personalized or limited ads.

How your choices are collected depends on where you are:

• EEA, United Kingdom and Switzerland: Google’s consent message (a Google-certified consent management platform using the IAB Transparency and Consent Framework, served through AdSense Privacy & messaging).
• United States: Google’s US state privacy message, which lets you opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information.
• Türkiye: the site’s own cookie bar.

You can change your choice at any time with the Privacy & cookie settings link at the bottom of every page.

YouTube videos (youtube-nocookie.com) and Google Maps are loaded from Google’s servers: videos only when you press the play button, maps when you scroll to that part of the page. When you click an affiliate link (for example to Booking.com, GetYourGuide or Skyscanner) you move to that company’s website, where its own privacy and cookie policies apply. The tracking needed to pay a commission happens on the partner’s site; no affiliate network tracking script runs on this site. More on the Affiliate Disclosure page.

• Hosting provider: to run the site and its features.
• Anthropic: receives the text of questions sent through the “Ask the Chef” AI chat, to prepare an instant answer.
• Google Ireland Limited / Google LLC: for Google Analytics 4 and Google AdSense (cookie-based processing only with your consent where consent is required), and for YouTube and Google Maps embeds.
• Authorities and courts: only when required by law.

I do not sell or rent your personal data, and I do not add it to marketing lists.

Because of the hosting, AI and Google services listed above, your data may be processed on servers outside Türkiye and outside your own country, including in the European Union and the United States. Transfers from Türkiye are made under Article 9 of the KVKK and the Turkish regulation on transfers of personal data abroad. For visitors from the EEA, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, transfers rely on the safeguards offered by these providers, such as adequacy decisions (including the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where a provider is certified) or standard contractual clauses. Google Analytics and Google AdSense cookies run only with your consent where consent is required; if you do not consent, no transfer happens through those services. Please note that other countries may not offer the same level of protection as your own, and their public authorities may be able to access data.

• Server and traffic logs: for as long as the hosting provider keeps its logs; longer where Turkish Law No. 5651 requires.
• “Ask the Chef” questions and the related consent record: for as long as the question stays published; deleted immediately if you ask. Unpublished and spam questions are deleted within 90 days at the latest.
• Recipe vote hash: for as long as the vote record stays on the site; the vote cookie lasts 1 year.
• Google Analytics data: according to the retention setting of the Google Analytics account (at most 14 months).
• Email correspondence: up to 2 years after our contact ends; contract and invoice documents for as long as tax law requires.

Everyone (KVKK, Türkiye): you can ask whether your data is processed and get information about it, learn the purpose of processing and whether it is used for that purpose, know the third parties in Türkiye or abroad to whom it is transferred, have incomplete or incorrect data corrected, have data deleted or destroyed under the conditions of KVKK Article 7, have these actions notified to third parties who received the data, object to a result against you that arises only from automated analysis, and claim compensation for damage caused by unlawful processing.

EEA and United Kingdom (GDPR / UK GDPR): you have the right of access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, data portability, and to object to processing based on legitimate interests. Where processing is based on consent, you can withdraw consent at any time without affecting earlier processing.

United States (including California under the CCPA/CPRA and other states with similar laws): you have the right to know what personal information is collected, used and disclosed, to access it, to have it corrected or deleted, and to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of personal information, including sharing for cross-context behavioral (targeted) advertising. I do not sell personal information for money. However, allowing Google to use advertising cookies for personalized ads may count as “sharing” under these laws. To opt out, use the Privacy & cookie settings link at the bottom of every page (for US visitors it opens Google’s US state privacy message with its “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” option), or email info@gezginbirchef.com with the subject “Do Not Sell or Share”. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal, it is treated as a valid request to opt out of sale and sharing for that browser. I will not discriminate against you for using any of these rights. You may use an authorized agent; I may ask for proof of the agent’s authority and verify your identity. I do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of consumers under 16.

Australia (Australian Privacy Principles): you can ask to access and correct the personal information I hold about you, and complain about how it has been handled.

Canada (PIPEDA): you can ask to access the personal information I hold about you, ask for it to be corrected, withdraw consent, and complain about how it has been handled.

Other countries: if the law of your country (for example Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act) gives you further rights, you can use them in the same way.

Email info@gezginbirchef.com. If your request is about an “Ask the Chef” question, tell me the page and the text of your question so I can find it. I may ask for extra information to verify your identity; I do not hand over data to anyone whose identity cannot be confirmed. I reply within 30 days, free of charge. If I refuse a request, I explain why.

If you are not happy with my answer, you can complain to a data protection authority:

• Türkiye: Personal Data Protection Board (KVKK)
• EEA: the data protection authority of the country where you live or work, or where the issue arose
• United Kingdom: Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
• Australia: Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC)
• Canada: Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC)
• California: California Privacy Protection Agency

This site is not aimed at children, and I do not knowingly collect data from children. If you are under 18, please talk to a parent or guardian before using “Ask the Chef”. If you think your child has shared data without your knowledge, write to me and I will delete it.

The site is served over an encrypted connection (HTTPS). Raw IP addresses are not stored for recipe votes, and automated attacks and abusive traffic can be blocked. No method of sending or storing data online is completely secure, but I take reasonable steps to protect your data.

When I update this policy, I change the date at the top of this page.

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