Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains what information Foreign Pasture (the blog published at https://blogs.knowtoday.com.ng) collects from visitors, how that information is used, how it is protected, and what rights you have over your own data. It applies to every page, article, and resource published on this website.

Please read this policy carefully. By continuing to use this website, you confirm that you have read and understood how your information is handled as described in this document. If you do not agree with any part of this policy, please stop using the site.

We have written this policy in plain, straightforward English. Legal precision matters, but so does clarity. If any section is unclear, please write to us at [email protected] and we will explain it.

🔒 Plain Summary: Foreign Pasture is a free-to-read information blog. We do not sell your data to anyone. We do not build individual user profiles. We do not require you to register or create an account to read our content. The main types of data processing on this site come from (1) the web analytics tool we use to understand how readers find our content, and (2) Google AdSense, which serves advertisements and may use cookies to personalise them. Both are explained in full below.

1. Who We Are and How to Contact Us

The website https://blogs.knowtoday.com.ng (trading as “Foreign Pasture”) is operated by the KnowToday editorial team. For the purposes of applicable privacy and data protection law, we are the data controller in respect of any personal data collected through this website.

Detail	Information
Website name	Foreign Pasture
Website URL	https://blogs.knowtoday.com.ng
Operator	KnowToday editorial team
Privacy contact email	[email protected]
Effective date of this policy	1 January 2026
Date last updated	March 2026

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests relating to this Privacy Policy or to how we handle your personal data, please contact us at [email protected]. We will respond within 5 to 10 business days.

2. What Information We Collect and How

Foreign Pasture does not require you to register, create an account, or provide any personal information to read our articles. Most visitors to this website never provide us with any directly identifying information at all. The information we process falls into two categories: information you give us voluntarily, and information collected automatically when you visit the site.

2.1 Information You Give Us Voluntarily

The only way you provide us with personal information directly is when you send an email to [email protected]. When you do this, we receive:

Your email address: So we can reply to your message.
Your name: If you include it in your message (optional).
The content of your message: Including any details you choose to share about yourself or your enquiry.

We use this information solely to respond to your message. We do not add email correspondents to any mailing list, newsletter, or marketing database. We do not share your email address or message content with any third party. We retain email correspondence for up to 24 months for reference purposes and then delete it. You can ask us to delete your correspondence at any time by writing to [email protected].

2.2 Information Collected Automatically

When you visit any page on this website, certain technical information is collected automatically by the tools described below. This information typically does not identify you personally but may be considered personal data under some data protection frameworks (such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, the UK GDPR, or the California Consumer Privacy Act) when combined with other data held by third parties such as Google.

IP address: Your device’s Internet Protocol address is logged by our web hosting infrastructure when you request a page. This is a standard feature of all web servers and is used for security, fraud prevention, and basic traffic analysis. We do not store IP addresses for marketing purposes.
Browser and device type: Information about the browser and device you use to visit the site (for example, Chrome on Android, Safari on iPhone, Firefox on Windows) is collected automatically. We use this to understand how readers access our content and to ensure our pages display correctly across different devices.
Pages visited and time spent: We collect data on which pages are visited, in what order, for how long, and where visitors come from (for example, a Google search, a direct link, or a social media post). This data is aggregated — we see patterns across all visitors, not individual user journeys.
Referring URL: The web address of the page that brought you to this website, if applicable (for example, a Google search results page, a link from another blog, or a social media post).
Cookies and similar technologies: Cookies are small text files stored on your device by your browser when you visit a website. The cookies used on this site come primarily from Google Analytics and Google AdSense. Details are set out in Sections 4 and 5 below.

3. The Legal Basis for Processing Your Data

Where data protection law requires us to identify a legal basis for processing personal data, the following applies to the different types of processing we carry out:

Type of Processing	Legal Basis	Explanation
Responding to email enquiries	Legitimate interests / Contract	When you write to us, we process your contact information to reply to your message. This is necessary to fulfil the communication you initiated.
Web analytics (Google Analytics)	Legitimate interests	We have a legitimate interest in understanding how readers find and use our content so we can improve it. Analytics data is aggregated and not used to identify individuals.
Advertising (Google AdSense)	Consent (where required) / Legitimate interests	Google AdSense serves advertisements on our pages. Where personalised advertising requires user consent under applicable law (such as in the EU/EEA and UK), this consent is sought through a cookie consent mechanism. Where consent is not required, we rely on legitimate interests in generating revenue to support the free availability of our content.
Security and fraud prevention	Legitimate interests	We have a legitimate interest in protecting this website against malicious traffic, abuse, and security threats. IP addresses and access logs may be retained for this purpose.
Legal compliance	Legal obligation	We may process and retain data where required to do so by applicable law.

4. Web Analytics

Foreign Pasture uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google LLC (or Google Ireland Limited for visitors in the European Economic Area and UK). Google Analytics helps us understand how many people visit this site, which articles are most useful, where readers come from geographically, and how they navigate between pages. This information helps us produce better content.

What Google Analytics Collects

Google Analytics collects data about your visits through cookies and similar technologies. This typically includes: the pages you visit on this site, how long you spend on each page, the country and approximate city your visit originates from (based on your IP address — not your precise location), the device and browser you use, and the source that brought you to the site (such as a Google search, a direct link, or a social media platform).

Google Analytics does not collect your name, email address, or any information that directly identifies you as an individual. However, the data it collects may be considered personal data under some privacy frameworks when combined with information held by Google from other sources (such as a signed-in Google Account).

IP Anonymisation

We have enabled IP anonymisation in our Google Analytics configuration. This means that before Google stores or processes your IP address, it is truncated — the last portion is removed — so that it cannot be used to identify your specific device or household. Full IP addresses are never stored in Google Analytics for this website.

Google Analytics Data Retention

Under our Google Analytics configuration, event-level data is retained for 14 months and then automatically deleted. Aggregated and anonymised reporting data (such as total monthly page views) has no automatic deletion date and may be retained indefinitely as part of our historical performance records.

Opting Out of Google Analytics

You can prevent Google Analytics from collecting data about your visits to this website in two ways. First, you can install the Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-on, available at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout, which prevents the Google Analytics JavaScript from sending data to Google. Second, you can use a browser with a tracking blocker or privacy extension that blocks Google Analytics requests. Google’s own privacy policy in relation to Analytics data is available at policies.google.com/privacy.

Foreign Pasture displays advertisements served by Google AdSense, a programme operated by Google LLC. Advertising revenue supports the free availability of all content on this blog. We do not charge readers to access any article on this website.

When you visit a page on this website that carries an advertisement, Google AdSense serves an ad to your browser. To do this, Google uses cookies and similar technologies to collect information about your browsing behaviour — both on this site and on other websites across the internet that also use Google’s advertising services. Google uses this data to show you advertisements that it considers relevant to your interests.

Foreign Pasture does not control which specific advertisements Google displays to any individual visitor. We set broad category restrictions on the types of ads that can appear on this site (excluding prohibited AdSense content categories), but the selection of individual ads is determined entirely by Google’s systems based on available inventory and audience signals.

📢 Advertising: Google uses cookies (including the DoubleClick cookie) and device identifiers to serve interest-based advertisements on this website. These cookies allow Google to recognise your browser or device across different websites and over time. The information collected includes pages visited, search terms used, and demographic inferences. Foreign Pasture does not receive any personally identifiable information from Google in connection with these ads. For full details of how Google uses data in advertising, visit: google.com/policies/privacy/partners

Visitors to this website from the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom, and Switzerland may be presented with a cookie consent banner when they first visit, as required by the EU ePrivacy Directive, UK PECR, and related regulations. The consent mechanism allows you to accept or decline personalised advertising cookies before they are placed on your device.

If you decline personalised advertising, Google AdSense may still display non-personalised advertisements based on the context of the page you are viewing (for example, a general scholarship advertisement on a scholarship article) rather than your individual browsing history. Ad frequency and ad type may differ for non-personalised ads.

Opting Out of Personalised Advertising

Regardless of where you are located, you have the ability to opt out of personalised advertising from Google at any time:

Google Ads Settings: Visit adssettings.google.com to review and change your ad personalisation preferences for your Google Account or your current browser/device.
NAI opt-out: Visit optout.networkadvertising.org to opt out of interest-based advertising from Google and many other participating advertising networks.
YourAdChoices (EU/UK): Visit youronlinechoices.eu or youronlinechoices.com to manage advertising preferences under the EU and UK frameworks.
Browser settings: Most modern browsers allow you to block third-party cookies entirely or to delete existing cookies. Blocking third-party cookies will prevent Google AdSense from setting personalisation cookies on your device.

6. Cookies: A Full List

The following table sets out the main categories of cookies used on this website, who sets them, and their purpose. Note that the specific cookies set by Google may change as Google updates its products — the categories below reflect standard Google AdSense and Google Analytics cookie usage.

Cookie / Category	Set By	Purpose	Duration	Essential?
_ga	Google Analytics	Distinguishes unique visitors by assigning a randomly generated identifier. Used to calculate visitor and session counts in aggregated analytics reports.	2 years	No — analytics
_ga_[ID]	Google Analytics	Maintains session state for Google Analytics 4 (GA4) measurement.	2 years	No — analytics
_gid	Google Analytics	Distinguishes users over a 24-hour period for daily analytics reporting.	24 hours	No — analytics
IDE	Google (DoubleClick)	Used by Google AdSense to record which ads have been shown and clicked for frequency capping and conversion tracking. May be used for personalised ad targeting.	Up to 13 months	No — advertising
DSID	Google (DoubleClick)	Used to identify signed-in Google users for personalised ad serving across Google’s ad network.	Up to 2 weeks	No — advertising
test_cookie	Google (doubleclick.net)	Checks that the visitor’s browser supports cookies. Set and immediately read — not used for tracking.	Session (minutes)	No — functional check
NID / ANID	Google	Stores user preferences and facilitates personalised ad serving based on recent search history and browsing behaviour on Google products.	6 months	No — advertising
Server / hosting logs	Website host	Standard server access logs recording IP address, pages requested, browser type, and timestamp. Used for security and traffic analysis. Not a cookie — stored server-side.	Up to 90 days	Yes — security

ℹ️ Note: Cookie behaviour is controlled by your browser settings and, for EEA/UK/Swiss visitors, by the cookie consent banner displayed when you first visit. Refusing advertising and analytics cookies in your consent preferences will prevent the non-essential cookies in the table above from being placed on your device. Accepting cookies can be reversed at any time by clearing your browser cookies or revisiting your consent preferences.

7. Third-Party Services

Foreign Pasture uses the following third-party services, each of which has its own privacy practices. We link to their privacy policies below so you can review them directly.

Service	Provider	Purpose	Privacy Policy URL
Google Analytics	Google LLC / Google Ireland Limited	Website traffic analysis and readership reporting	policies.google.com/privacy
Google AdSense	Google LLC / Google Ireland Limited	Display advertising on website pages	policies.google.com/privacy and google.com/policies/privacy/partners
Web hosting	Website hosting provider	Serving website pages to visitors; server-level access logging	Refer to the hosting provider’s privacy policy
Gmail (email)	Google LLC	Receiving and sending editorial correspondence at [email protected]	policies.google.com/privacy

Foreign Pasture has no control over, and is not responsible for, the privacy practices of any third-party service. We recommend reading the privacy policy of each third-party service listed above, particularly Google’s policy, which governs the largest portion of data processing connected to this website.

This website may include links to external websites — government immigration portals, scholarship programme pages, university admissions sites, official bank websites, and other reference sources. Clicking these links will take you to websites that are completely outside our control. Their privacy practices are entirely their own and are not covered by this policy. We encourage you to read the privacy policy of any external website you visit.

Foreign Pasture does not sell, rent, trade, or lease any personal data to any third party under any circumstances.

The only circumstances under which your data may be shared are:

Google (Analytics and AdSense): As described in Sections 4, 5, and 7, certain visit data is shared with Google through cookies and tracking technologies as an inherent feature of using Google Analytics and Google AdSense. This sharing is described in Google’s privacy policy at policies.google.com/privacy.
Legal requirement: We may disclose information if required to do so by applicable law, court order, or the lawful request of a competent authority. We will notify affected individuals of any such disclosure where legally permitted to do so.
Business succession: In the unlikely event that the Foreign Pasture blog is transferred to a new operator, user data held by us (principally email correspondence) may be transferred as part of that transaction. We would notify readers of any such change through a prominent notice on the website.

9. Data Security

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect the information we hold from unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. Email correspondence is held in a Gmail account protected by a strong password and two-factor authentication. Our website is served over HTTPS, which encrypts data in transit between our server and your browser.

No method of internet transmission or electronic storage is completely secure. While we work hard to protect your information, we cannot guarantee absolute security against determined or sophisticated attack. If you believe your interaction with this website has resulted in a data security incident, please notify us promptly at [email protected].

10. How Long We Keep Your Data

Type of Data	Retention Period	Reason
Email correspondence (name, email address, message content)	Up to 24 months from last contact	To maintain an accurate record of editorial communications; deleted after 24 months unless retained for legal reasons.
Google Analytics aggregated visitor data	Event-level data: 14 months; Aggregated reports: indefinite	Event-level data is automatically deleted per our GA4 retention setting. Aggregated totals (e.g. monthly page views) are retained as historical performance records.
Server access logs (IP address, pages requested, timestamp)	Up to 90 days	Security and fraud prevention. Deleted on a rolling 90-day basis.
AdSense cookie data	Per Google’s own retention policies (typically 13 months for the IDE cookie)	Controlled by Google — refer to policies.google.com/privacy.

11. Your Rights

Depending on where you are located, you may have the following rights in relation to your personal data. These rights are most extensively defined under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the UK GDPR, but similar rights exist under laws in other jurisdictions including Nigeria’s Data Protection Act 2023, India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023, South Africa’s POPIA, Ghana’s Data Protection Act 2012, and Kenya’s Data Protection Act 2019.

Right	What It Means	How to Exercise It
Right to access	You can request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.	Email [email protected] with the subject line “Data Access Request.” We will respond within 30 days.
Right to rectification	You can ask us to correct inaccurate personal data we hold about you.	Email [email protected] with the subject “Data Correction Request” and describe what needs to be corrected.
Right to erasure (“right to be forgotten”)	You can ask us to delete personal data we hold about you, where we have no compelling legal reason to retain it.	Email [email protected] with the subject “Data Deletion Request.” We will confirm deletion within 30 days.
Right to restrict processing	In certain circumstances, you can ask us to stop processing your data while you contest its accuracy or our legal basis for holding it.	Email [email protected] with the subject “Data Restriction Request.”
Right to data portability	You can ask for the data you have provided to us in a structured, machine-readable format.	Email [email protected] with the subject “Data Portability Request.” Applies mainly to email correspondence you sent us.
Right to object	You can object to processing based on legitimate interests (such as analytics). We will honour this unless we have a compelling overriding reason.	Email [email protected] with the subject “Data Processing Objection.”
Right to withdraw consent	Where processing is based on your consent (such as advertising cookies), you can withdraw consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing.	Update your cookie consent preferences using your browser settings or our cookie banner, or opt out of Google ad personalisation at adssettings.google.com.

✅ Your Rights: To exercise any of the rights above, write to us at [email protected]. We will acknowledge your request within 5 business days and respond in full within 30 calendar days. There is no charge for exercising your rights. If you are located in the EU, EEA, or UK and you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection supervisory authority. In the EU, a list of supervisory authorities is available at edpb.europa.eu. In the UK, the relevant authority is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.

12. Children and Minors

Foreign Pasture is not directed at children. All of our content covers adult topics — international migration, professional career development, postgraduate scholarships, financial products, and legal frameworks. We do not knowingly collect any personal data from children under the age of 13 (or under the age of 16 in the EU/EEA/UK, where that higher standard applies).

If you are a parent or guardian and believe that a child under the relevant age has sent personal information to us through this website, please contact us immediately at [email protected] and we will delete that information promptly.

13. International Visitors and Data Transfers

Foreign Pasture is a Nigerian-based blog with a global readership. Our readers come from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, India, South Africa, Egypt, Pakistan, the Philippines, Zimbabwe, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, the UAE, Germany, Australia, and many other countries.

When you visit this website, your data may be processed in countries outside your own — including in the United States (where Google LLC is headquartered), Ireland (where Google Ireland Limited processes EU/EEA data), and Nigeria (where our editorial operations are based). These countries may have data protection laws that differ from those in your own country.

Where personal data is transferred from the EU/EEA or UK to countries without an adequacy decision, Google relies on the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) and the UK International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA) as appropriate safeguard mechanisms. Google’s data transfer practices are described in detail at policies.google.com/privacy.

By using this website, you acknowledge that your data may be transferred to and processed in countries outside your own in the manner described in this policy.

14. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our data practices, changes in applicable law, or changes in the third-party services we use. When we make material changes, we will update the “Last Updated” date shown at the top of this page. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.

If changes are significant — for example, if we begin collecting a new type of personal data, or if we start sharing data with a new third party — we will make this visible through a notice on the homepage or within the relevant page for a reasonable period.

Your continued use of Foreign Pasture after any changes to this policy become effective constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy.

15. How to Contact Us About This Policy

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, want to exercise any of your data rights, want to report a data security concern, or believe we have handled your personal data incorrectly, please contact us:

📬 Privacy Contact: Privacy enquiries for Foreign Pasture (blogs.knowtoday.com.ng): Email: [email protected]. Please use the subject line “Privacy” so we can direct your message to the right person immediately. We will acknowledge your message within 5 business days and provide a full response within 30 calendar days. This email address is also the appropriate channel for any formal data subject rights requests (access, erasure, portability, objection, restriction, and rectification) as described in Section 11 above.

⚠️ Important: This email address is for editorial and privacy-related matters only. We are not able to provide personalised immigration advice, scholarship application reviews, financial advice, visa status updates, or legal counsel by email. For those needs, please consult a qualified professional in the relevant field. See our Contact Us page for the full scope of enquiries we can and cannot assist with.

Thank you for trusting Foreign Pasture.

We are committed to being transparent about how we handle your information — and to keeping your trust by being honest about both what we do and what we do not do.