Privacy policy

Woof Wag Nation runs woofwagnation.com, a bilingual website in English and Spanish with dog breed guides, a directory of dog-friendly places and a weekly newsletter. The site was founded by Cal Hewitt and is operated with Web Leveling, the digital marketing agency Cal also founded in 2019. We are based in the Houston area of Texas and we work online only. Our sister site, DogServ (dogserv.com), is a separate website with its own policies.

When this policy says "Woof Wag Nation", "we", "us" or "our", it means the operator of woofwagnation.com. "You" means anyone who visits the site or contacts us.

The fastest way to reach us about privacy is the contact form. You can also email support@woofwagnation.com. Start your message with "Privacy request" so it reaches the right place. We reply within one business day.

• You can read Woof Wag Nation without giving us your name or email address.
• We collect what you choose to send us through our forms, what our web host records to deliver and protect the site, and, only if you say yes in the cookie banner, analytics about how the site is used.
• We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it for targeted advertising.
• The newsletter uses double opt-in: you are not added to the list until you click the link in the confirmation email.
• Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity and the Google Maps embed on directory pages load only after you accept in the cookie banner, and never when your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal.
• You can ask to see, correct or delete your information through the contact form.

You give us information when you fill in a form on the site. Our web host processes form submissions on our behalf. Each form also carries a hidden spam-trap field and a hidden field that records whether you used the English or Spanish site.

The contact form collects your name, email address, the topic and your message, and optionally a business name. The newsletter form collects your email address, optionally your first name, and the page you signed up from. Forms that ask about a directory listing, a claim, a correction, a removal or a plan collect the details you type in, such as the place name, address and website, and how to reach you.

When you write to us, we keep what you wrote, the details you gave and our reply, so we can answer you and follow up. Please do not send sensitive information, such as health details about yourself, financial account numbers or government ID numbers. None of our forms asks for it.

Server logs. Like every website, woofwagnation.com is delivered by servers that record basic technical details of each request, such as your IP address, the page requested, the date and time, your browser and device type and the page that referred you. Our host keeps these logs to deliver the site, keep it secure and prevent abuse. We do not use them to build a profile of you.

Analytics, only with your consent. If you accept in the cookie banner, the site loads Google Analytics, which tells us which pages are read, how visitors arrive, roughly where they are (city or region level, worked out from the IP address), what device they use and how long they stay. It also loads Microsoft Clarity, which records how visitors move through a page, such as clicks, scrolling and mouse movement, to produce heatmaps and session replays. Clarity is designed to mask text typed into form fields.

Maps, only with your consent. Directory pages can show an embedded Google Map. Loading it sends your IP address to Google and sets Google cookies, so it appears only after you accept in the cookie banner. Until then you see a link to open the place in Google Maps instead.

If you do not accept, or your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, none of these load and no analytics or map cookies are set. Our cookie policy lists what each one sets and how long it lasts.

Affiliate links. Some pages link to stores. When you reach a store, such as Amazon, the store uses its own cookies to know you came from us, so it can pay us a commission if you buy. The store handles that under its own privacy policy. See the affiliate disclosure.

Settings stored in your browser. The site stores your cookie choice and, if you use the light and dark toggle, your theme choice in your browser's local storage. These stay on your device and are not sent to us.

The places directory lists dog-friendly places such as dog parks, dog beaches, trails, restaurants and patios, breweries and hotels. We build listings from public business information, such as a place's name, address, website, hours and the dog policy the venue or managing authority publishes. We do not publish Google ratings, reviews or photos.

Most of this is information about a business or a public place, not a person. Some businesses are run by one person under their own name, from a home address or with a personal phone number. If that is you, you can ask us to correct your listing, hide a street address or remove the listing entirely, through the claim, correct or remove page or the contact form. We will do it.

If we contact a listed business to invite it to claim its listing, we use contact details the business publishes. Every such message says who we are and how to ask us not to write again.

We use personal information only for these purposes. European and UK law ask us to name a legal basis for each one, so we list those too.

• Answer your message or request and follow up: steps you asked us to take, and our legitimate interest in answering people who write to us.
• Send the newsletter you asked for: your consent, given by confirming your subscription.
• Run the directory and handle claims, corrections, removals and plan requests: our legitimate interest in helping people find places for their dogs and keeping listings accurate, and, for a plan, steps before a contract.
• Understand how the site is used and improve it, and show maps: your consent, given in the cookie banner.
• Deliver the site, keep it secure and stop spam and abuse: our legitimate interest in running a secure, working website.
• Earn affiliate commissions: handled by the store on its own site, and our legitimate interest in funding free content.
• Keep records, meet legal duties and protect our rights: legal obligation, and our legitimate interest in defending claims.

When we rely on legitimate interests, we have weighed them against your rights and expectations. You can object at any time. We do not make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects using only automated processing, and we do not use your information to train artificial intelligence models.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We share it only with service providers that help us run the site, each handling it for us under its own terms and privacy commitments:

• Our web host: hosts the site, keeps server logs and receives and stores form submissions.
• Brevo: sends the newsletter confirmation email and the newsletter, and stores the subscriber list. It receives your email address, first name if given, language and delivery and open data.
• Google: Google Analytics and Google Maps, only with your consent.
• Microsoft: Microsoft Clarity, only with your consent.
• Square: if you buy a directory plan, Square processes the payment through a payment link, once payment links are set up. Square receives the payment details you give it; we do not.
• Amazon (Amazon Associates) and other stores we link to: pay affiliate commissions. The store sees your visit on its own site; we send it no personal information.
• Web Leveling: operates the site with us.

We may also disclose information when the law requires it, such as in response to a valid subpoena or court order; to protect the rights, property or safety of Woof Wag Nation, our visitors or others; or as part of a merger, sale or transfer of the business, in which case the new owner must honor this policy for the information it receives.

Woof Wag Nation is based in the United States, and our providers store and process information in the United States and, for Brevo, in the European Union. If you use the site from outside the United States, your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States, where privacy laws may differ from those where you live.

For information from the European Economic Area, the UK or Switzerland, transfers to our US providers rely, where applicable, on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and its UK and Swiss extensions when the provider is certified under it, and otherwise on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses (and the UK addendum) in the provider's data processing terms. You can ask us for more information about these safeguards through the contact form.

We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purpose we collected it for, or as long as the law requires.

• Newsletter subscribers: until you unsubscribe. After that we keep only your email address on a suppression list so we never email you again by mistake.
• Form submissions and messages: while we deal with your message and for a reasonable period afterward, so we can follow up and keep records.
• Analytics data: held by Google and Microsoft for the retention periods set in each tool. The cookie policy gives cookie lifetimes.
• Server logs: held by our host for its own limited retention period.
• Directory listings: while the directory runs and the place is open, unless the business asks us to remove the listing.

• Newsletter: every newsletter email has an unsubscribe link that works in one click. You can also ask us through the contact form.
• Analytics and maps: choose "Cookie settings" in the site footer at any time to change your answer. Turning them off stops the tools from loading on your next page view.
• Global Privacy Control: if your browser sends this signal, we treat it as a refusal of analytics and maps and as an opt-out of any sale or sharing, automatically.
• Your browser: you can block or delete cookies and local storage in your browser settings. The site still works without them.

If data protection law in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland applies to our handling of your information, you have the right to:

• Access: ask whether we hold information about you and get a copy.
• Rectification: have inaccurate or incomplete information corrected.
• Erasure: have your information deleted where there is no good reason for us to keep it.
• Restriction: ask us to pause using your information while a question about it is resolved.
• Portability: receive information you gave us in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format, where we rely on consent or a contract.
• Objection: object at any time to our use of your information based on legitimate interests, and to direct marketing without giving a reason.
• Withdraw consent: withdraw any consent you gave, for example to the newsletter or to analytics, at any time. This does not affect what we did before you withdrew it.
• Complain: lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority, such as the Information Commissioner's Office in the UK. We would appreciate the chance to fix the problem first.

We answer requests within one month. If a request is complex or we receive many, we may extend that by up to two more months and will tell you why within the first month.

Several US states give their residents privacy rights, including California, Texas, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah and others with similar laws. Which rights apply depends on where you live and whether the law covers Woof Wag Nation, but we offer the same rights to every US visitor who asks:

• Know and access: the categories and specific pieces of personal information we hold about you, where it came from, why we use it and who we disclose it to.
• Delete: personal information we collected from you or about you, subject to exceptions the law allows.
• Correct: inaccurate personal information.
• Portability: a copy of your information in a portable format.
• Opt out of sale, sharing, targeted advertising and profiling: we do none of these, but you can still send an opt-out request, and a Global Privacy Control signal is honored automatically as one.
• Limit the use of sensitive personal information: we do not collect sensitive personal information, so there is nothing to limit.
• Non-discrimination: we will not deny you service, charge a different price or give you a different quality of service for using these rights.
• Appeal: if we decline your request, reply to our decision through the contact form with "Appeal" in your message. If you are not satisfied with the answer, you can contact your state attorney general. Texas residents can do so at texasattorneygeneral.gov.

We do not sell personal information for money or anything else of value, and we have not done so in the past 12 months. Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity and Google Maps load only with your opt-in consent, never under Global Privacy Control, and analytics measure our own site rather than target ads, so we do not treat them as selling or sharing for cross-context behavioral advertising. If that ever changes, we will update this policy first and give you a way to opt out. The "Cookie settings" link in the footer is also our "Your privacy choices" link.

California. We collect identifiers (name, email address, IP address), records you send us through forms, internet activity (pages viewed, clicks and the referring page, only with consent apart from server logs) and approximate location worked out from the IP address, never precise location. We do not collect sensitive personal information as the CCPA defines it. You can have an authorized agent act for you; the agent must send us your signed written permission, and we may confirm your identity with you directly. We do not disclose personal information to third parties for their own direct marketing.

Email support@woofwagnation.com with "Privacy request" in the subject line, or send a message through the contact form that starts with "Privacy request". Tell us what you would like us to do and which state or country you live in.

Use the email address you gave us before, if any, so we can find your information. We verify your identity by matching details you give us with details we hold, and we may ask a follow-up question. We will not ask for more than we need.

We confirm receipt within 10 business days and answer within 45 days (one month for requests under European or UK law). If we need more time, as the law allows, we will tell you why. Requests are free. We may decline a request, or charge a reasonable fee, only where the law allows, such as for requests that are clearly unfounded or excessive, and we will explain why.

Woof Wag Nation is written for adults. It is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13, in line with the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. We also do not knowingly collect it from anyone under 16 in the European Union or the UK, or under the age at which they can consent where they live.

If we learn that we have collected information from a child in any of those groups, we will delete it promptly. If you are a parent or guardian and think your child sent us information, tell us through the contact form and we will delete it.

Global Privacy Control is a signal your browser can send to say you do not want your information sold or shared. We honor it automatically: analytics and maps do not load, and the signal counts as an opt-out request under the US state laws that recognize it. You do not need to do anything else.

Do Not Track is an older browser setting with no agreed standard for how websites respond. We do not respond to it separately, but because analytics and maps load only with your opt-in consent, a visitor who does nothing is not tracked.

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect personal information. The whole site is served over encrypted HTTPS connections. Forms include spam protection. Access to form submissions, the subscriber list and the analytics accounts is limited to the people who need it.

No website or internet transmission is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee the security of information you send us. If a breach affects your personal information, we will notify you and the authorities when and as the law requires.

Woof Wag Nation links to other websites, such as sources we cite, stores through affiliate links, the websites of places in the directory and our social media pages. Those sites have their own privacy policies, and this policy does not cover them. Our pages on Facebook and YouTube are run on those platforms, and what you do there is covered by their policies.

We may update this policy as the site changes, for example when we add a new tool or the law changes. We will change the date at the top of the page each time. If a change is significant, we will also put a notice on the site, and we will ask again for consent where the law requires it. We will not use information we already hold in a materially different way without telling you first.

For any question about this policy or your information, write to us through the contact form or at support@woofwagnation.com. We reply within one business day.

This policy is also available in Spanish. If the two versions differ, the English version controls.