Information Collection and Use
Personal Information
When you use this Site, we collect personal information which you choose to provide us such as your name, email address, phone number, etc. (collectively, “Personal Information”). We use the Personal Information you provide about yourself to fulfill your requests, such as sending you our newsletter, or responding to an inquiry about one of the hundreds of thousands of adoptable pets listed on our Site. We may also use your personal information to help us develop, customize, deliver and improve our services, content and advertising.
Usage Data and Site Activity
We, and our “Partners”, who include third party service providers, ad networks and platforms, sponsors, advertisers and marketing partners, may collect information regarding your actions when you visit this Site that does not personally identify you including but not limited to your IP (“Internet Protocol”) address, location, browser type and language, device type, mobile carrier, mobile device’s unique identifier, time, date and duration of visit, referring web page, pages visited, click stream data, and the subject of ads clicked or scrolled over (collectively, “Usage Data”). This Usage Data enables us and our Partners to analyze trends, understand usage behavior on our Site, enhance your browsing experience on our Site, serve you more useful and relevant ads, and measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns.
This information is collected through cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies. Please see the “Cookies & Interest-Based Advertising” section below for more on how we collect and use this information.
Personal Information You Make Available to Others
By using the Site, you may make certain of your Personal Information available to others. For example, when you post a comment or a photo on the Site, other users may see your name and other information that you choose to make available to others.
Who Do We Share Your Information with?
Personal Information
From time to time, we may establish a business relationship with Partners whom we believe trustworthy and who have confirmed that their privacy practices are consistent with ours. We may share Personal Information about you with our Partners that we have retained to perform certain business-related functions on our behalf, including but not limited to:
- animal shelters or rescues when you send an inquiry through our Site about an adoptable pet you are interested in
- email service providers when you sign up for our newsletter or other communications
- our pet-loving sponsors when you opt-in to receive communications from them
- other companies who offer services such as research and analytics, hosting websites, fulfilling transactions, maintaining databases, providing technology services and platforms, processing payments, and hashing/anonymizing information
We only provide our Partners with the information necessary for them to perform these services on our behalf. Each Partner must agree to use reasonable security procedures and practices, appropriate to the nature of the information involved, in order to protect your Personal Information from unauthorized access, use or disclosure. Partners that we share your Personal Information with are prohibited from using your Personal Information for purposes other than those requested by us.
We will not disclose Personal Information to third parties, including for their direct marketing purposes, without your consent, except as explained in this Privacy Policy.
Usage Data
We may share Usage Data which we automatically collect about your activities on our Site, including data from our cookies and other tracking technologies, with our Partners and other third parties. We may also share aggregated, anonymized information with our Partners and other third parties. However, in such cases, your Usage Data is aggregated with the Usage Data of others and does not identify you individually.
Assignment
It’s possible that someday this Site could be sold or acquired by another organization. In the event that were to happen, the personal and non-personal information we collect would be transferred to the new owner.
Cookies and Interest-Based Advertising
Your experience with this Site is extremely important to us. We want you to love this Site and truly enjoy using it, and in order to provide you the best possible experience, this Site, like many websites, uses “cookies”, which are small text files that we and our Partners may place on your computer or mobile device that store your preferences. These cookies do not store personal information such as your name, email address or telephone number.
In addition to using cookies to provide functionality, improve user experience and analyze performance of our Site, we may also use cookies, web beacons or other tracking technologies to:
- gather Usage Data and other information about your activities on this Site and other websites in order to provide you with targeted advertising and other content on this Site and other sites based upon your browsing activities and interests, a set of practices often referred to as “interest-based advertising”. This enables us to show you ads that are more relevant and interesting to you
- limit the number of times you see an ad
- measure the reach and performance of these ads
We use Google Analytics on the Site to collect Usage Data, to analyze how users use the Site, and to provide advertisements to you on other websites. For more information about how to opt out of having your information used by Google Analytics, visit https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.
Our Partners may also use cookies, web beacons or other tracking technologies for these same purposes as well. They may also collect information about your online activities over time and across different websites and other online services. The use of these technologies by Partners is subject to their own privacy policies and is not covered by this Privacy Policy.
Want to learn more about cookies? See this piece on cookies from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). Your browser is probably set to accept cookies. If you choose to use this Site without blocking or disabling cookies, you agree to our use of these cookies. If you prefer not to receive cookies, you can change the configuration of your browser to refuse cookies (just check your browser or device for instructions on how to do this). It is possible that some areas of this Site will not function properly if you have refused or deleted our cookies.
Our systems do not recognize browser “Do Not Track” signals, but several of our Partners who utilize cookies on our Site enable you to opt out of targeted advertising practices. If you want to learn more about interest-based advertising, please visit the Digital Advertising Alliance at www.aboutads.info and Networking Advertising Initiative at www.networkadvertising.org. To opt-out of this type of interest-based advertising, see the “Opt-Out” section below.