Privacy Policy

This policy explains what personal information Petoniki collects, why we collect it, who can see it, how long we keep it, and what you can ask us to do with it. It applies to this website and to the optional account and pet-record features it offers.

Petoniki is the data controller for the personal information described in this policy. We publish and respond under the Petoniki name at [email protected]. This policy is governed by the law applicable to the operator, while mandatory privacy rights that apply where you live remain unaffected.

Reading the site does not require an account, and most of what you do here leaves no personal information with us at all. The parts of this policy that matter to you depend on whether you simply read, or whether you create an account and keep records.

If you have a question about your information, write to [email protected].

Effective date: 6 October 2026. Version 1.1.

What this policy covers

This policy covers the personal information handled by this website: the account you may create, the pet records and saved items you may keep, the emails we send you, and the technical information the site processes when a page is served.

It does not cover other websites. Where we link to an external site — a veterinary source, a breed registry, an advertiser, an affiliate shop — that site's own privacy policy applies once you go there, and we have no control over what it collects.

What we collect

An account is optional, but if you create one we hold the information needed to run it:

• Account details. Your email address, a password stored only in hashed form, and the language you chose for the interface. We never store your password in readable form and we cannot tell you what it is.
• Verification data. When you register, we send a verification link or a six-digit code to your email address, and we keep the pending verification until it is completed or expires.
• Your pet records. If you use the pet-record feature, we store what you choose to enter: vaccination history, parasite-control treatments with product and dates, medication and supplements, allergies and adverse reactions, weight and body condition, veterinary visits, diagnoses and test results, neutering status, microchip and registration details, insurance information, age and breed, diet and feeding routine, environment, exercise and enrichment, grooming, behavioural notes, and your veterinary practice contacts.
• Saved items. The profiles and guides you save to your account, so they are there when you come back.
• Messages you send us. If you email us — a correction, a question, a privacy request — we keep that correspondence and your address so we can answer and keep a record of what was decided.

We also process a limited amount of technical information automatically in order to serve pages and keep the site working:

• the page or file requested, the date and time, and the response the server returned;
• the browser and operating-system type reported by your device, and the language it prefers;
• a truncated or hashed form of the network address the request came from, where the server records one.

We do not ask for and do not want sensitive information beyond what the pet-record feature is designed to hold. Please do not put anything into a pet record that you would not want stored on a website, such as another person's data or a payment credential. A pet record is a record of an animal's care.

How we collect it

• You give it to us. When you register, sign in, fill in a pet record, save an item, or email us.
• The site records it automatically. When your browser requests a page, the server processes the technical information described above in order to deliver the response and protect the service from abuse.
• Cookies and similar storage. A small number of first-party cookies keep you signed in and remember your language choice, described in the next section.

We do not buy personal information, we do not receive it from data brokers, and we do not build advertising profiles from anything you enter.

Why we use it, and on what basis

We use personal information for the purposes below, and only for those. Each one rests on a legal basis, and where that basis is our legitimate interest we have weighed it against your rights and interests.

• Providing your account. Creating it, signing you in, keeping it secure and resetting a forgotten password. This rests on performing our agreement with you: without it, there is no account.
• Storing your pet records and saved items. Keeping what you enter and showing it back to you alone. This also rests on performing our agreement with you.
• Sending service email. Verification, password reset and the notices your account needs. This rests on performing our agreement with you; these messages are part of running the account, not marketing.
• Keeping the site available and safe. Serving pages, limiting abuse, diagnosing faults and keeping server logs. This rests on our legitimate interest in running a service that works and can be trusted, and we keep the information involved to the minimum that purpose needs.
• Answering you. Responding to corrections, questions and privacy requests. This rests on our legitimate interest in responding, and on our legal obligations where they apply.
• Meeting the law. Keeping records where we are required to and responding to lawful requests. This rests on a legal obligation.

We do not use your pet records, your saved items or your email address for advertising, and we do not sell them.

Newsletter, support payments and advertising

Newsletter. Subscribing is optional. Our self-hosted mail system stores your email address, subscription status, and the dates of subscription and unsubscribe actions so it can send the newsletter and honour your choice. We do not use email-open tracking pixels and do not record which newsletter links you click. Every newsletter provides a one-click unsubscribe mechanism. Consent is the basis for sending it, and withdrawing consent stops future newsletter messages.

Support payments. When you choose support, Petoniki sends Stripe the amount, currency, one-time or monthly choice, locale and the technical details needed to open hosted checkout. Stripe collects and processes card, billing, contact and fraud-prevention information under its own privacy policy. Petoniki receives limited transaction information such as the amount, currency, payment status, Stripe transaction identifiers and contact details supplied for the payment. We do not receive or store a complete card number or card security code. We use this information to complete and administer the requested payment, manage cancellation, keep legally required transaction records and handle payment disputes.

Advertising. Google AdSense may process cookies, IP addresses, browser or device identifiers, consent choices and advertisement interactions under Google’s policies. Where consent is required, optional advertising technology is used only after consent. Direct advertisements reviewed by Petoniki consist only of media hosted on Petoniki and an ordinary link; the advertiser cannot place its own script, pixel or cookie on Petoniki through that placement. Once you follow an advertisement to another website, that website controls what it collects.

We do not provide advertisers with account email addresses, newsletter addresses, pet records or saved items. This does not mean that an advertising network receives no technical data: AdSense may process the online identifiers described above, as explained in the Cookie Policy.

Pet records and saved items: what is special about them

Pet records can contain detailed information about an animal you care for, so the site treats them as private by default. These five commitments are the same ones stated on our About Us page:

• Registration required. A pet record is available only to a registered user who signs in to their own account. It is not a public page, it cannot be found or indexed by search engines, and another visitor cannot open it.
• Filled in voluntarily. You decide whether to create a record at all, and what to put in it. Nothing on Petoniki requires it and nothing is collected from it without your action.
• Not for sale. We do not sell your pet records or the health information in them. We do not rent, trade or hand them to data brokers, and we do not use them to build advertising profiles.
• Stored encrypted. Pet records are stored in encrypted form, and access over the site is protected in transit.
• Yours to delete, permanently. You can delete any entry, or the whole record, at any time from your account, and deletion is permanent: deleted records cannot be recovered by you or by us. You do not have to contact us, close your account, or lose access to the rest of the site to do it. Because deletion cannot be undone, the interface asks you to confirm before removing a record.

Saved items are ordinary account data: they are visible only to you, and removing them removes them.

Cookies and similar technologies

A cookie is a small file a site asks your browser to store. Petoniki uses a small number of first-party cookies, and no others of its own:

• Sign-in cookies. Set by the site when you sign in, so that you stay signed in as you move between pages. Without them the account and pet-record features cannot work.
• Language preference. One cookie remembers which language you chose, so the site does not ask you again on every page.
• Sign-in flow cookie. If you sign in through an external account provider, a temporary cookie protects that exchange. It expires shortly afterwards.

Advertising funds this site and runs on it, so the networks that serve advertising set their own cookies on the pages where their advertising appears. Those cookies belong to the provider rather than to us: they are what measures an advertisement, limits how often it is shown and, depending on the network's rules and on your choices, helps select which advertisements appear. They are not needed for the site to work, so they are set only with your consent, and you can refuse them without losing access to any content. The networks we work with are named in our Cookie Policy, which also sets out what we accept and what we refuse.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Blocking the sign-in cookies means you cannot stay signed in or use the account and pet-record features; the rest of the site continues to work. Our Cookie Policy sets out the full detail.

Who can see your information

Inside Petoniki, access is limited to the people who need it to run the site: the operator and the editorial staff who administer accounts. We do not browse pet records for interest, and we do not read them to build content.

Outside Petoniki, we use service providers who process information on our behalf under contract:

• Hosting and infrastructure. The servers that run this website and store its database, provided by a third-party hosting service on our behalf.
• Email delivery. The service that sends verification, password-reset and account emails. Account email is sent by the platform that hosts the site.
• Optional sign-in providers. If you choose to sign in through an external account provider such as Google, that provider confirms your identity to us and receives the fact that you signed in here, under its own privacy policy.
• Anti-abuse verification. If bot protection is enabled on the registration and sign-in forms, the challenge is served by the provider named in the form itself.

We may also disclose information where the law requires it, or where it is necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims, or to protect someone's safety. If we are ever required to disclose account information, we aim to tell you unless we are legally prevented from doing so.

We do not sell your personal information, rent it, trade it or provide account, newsletter or pet-record information to advertisers or data brokers. Advertising services may nevertheless process online identifiers and advertising interactions as described above and in the Cookie Policy.

Where your information is held

This site is served from, and its database is stored on, the infrastructure described under Who can see your information. Where a provider processes information outside the country or region you live in, we rely on that provider's contractual safeguards for the transfer, and we choose providers that offer them.

How long we keep it

• Pet records and saved items. Kept while your account exists, and while you choose to keep them. You can delete any entry or the whole record at any time, and that deletion is permanent: a deleted record is not retained in a recoverable form.
• Account details. Kept while your account exists. If you delete your account, the account and the records attached to it are removed; we do not keep a recoverable copy of the records themselves.
• Verification data. Kept only until the verification is completed or expires.
• Server logs. Kept for a limited period for security and fault diagnosis. We do not keep personal information for longer than we need it for the purposes described in this policy, or for longer than the law requires.
• Correspondence. Kept for as long as needed to answer you and to keep a record of decisions about the site, then reviewed.

Where a legal obligation requires us to keep something longer than the periods above, we keep only what that obligation covers.

Your choices and rights

You can ask us to:

• tell you what personal information we hold about you and give you a copy;
• correct information that is wrong or incomplete;
• delete your pet records, your saved items, or your account;
• restrict or object to certain processing, where the law gives you that right;
• receive your data in a portable, machine-readable form, where the law gives you that right;
• withdraw consent where processing is based on consent, without affecting what was lawful before you withdrew it.

Much of this you can do yourself: entries and whole records can be deleted from your account, and removing a saved item removes it. For anything else, contact us using the details under How to contact us.

If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the data-protection authority that covers the country or region in which the operator is established.

How we protect it

• Pet records are stored in encrypted form, and access over the site is protected in transit.
• Account passwords are stored only as hashes, never in readable form.
• Access to the site's administration is limited to named accounts, and the database is not publicly reachable.
• We keep the software the site runs on up to date.

No website can promise that a breach will never happen, and we do not. What we commit to is the protection described above, reviewing it as the site develops, and telling affected users and the relevant authority if a breach ever affects their information, as the law requires.

Children

Petoniki is written for adults who live with animals. Accounts are not intended for children, and we do not knowingly create accounts for anyone below the age at which a person may consent to online services in the country or region in which the operator is established. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us using the details under How to contact us and we will remove it.

Changes to this policy

We update this policy when the site changes — a new feature, a new service provider, a change in the law. The effective date at the top of the page always shows the current version, and the previous version remains available on request. If a change materially affects what we do with your information, we will say so plainly on this page and, where the law requires it, tell account holders by email.

How to contact us

For any question about this policy, or to exercise a right described under Your choices and rights, write to [email protected]. We answer privacy requests within the period the law allows.

Data controller: Petoniki, which operates this website. Privacy requests: [email protected]. Governing law: the law of the country or region in which the operator is established.