Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy describes how Dogmarket.ie ("we", "us", "our") collects, uses, stores, and protects personal data when you use our website and services. It is written in plain English and is designed to meet the requirements of the EU General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR") and Irish law.

1. Introduction and who we are

Dogmarket.ie is an Irish online platform that helps people find, advertise, and connect around dogs and dog-related services. Depending on how you use the site, we may process personal data about you as a visitor, registered user, buyer, seller, or subscriber.

For the purposes of GDPR, we act as the data controller in respect of personal data collected through Dogmarket.ie, except where a third party (for example, our payment processor) acts as a separate controller for the data they process on their own terms.

Our services are operated from Ireland and are intended for users in Ireland and, where relevant, elsewhere in the European Economic Area ("EEA"), subject to this policy and our Terms of Service.

2. Information we collect

We only collect personal data that is reasonably necessary to run the platform and to meet our legal obligations. The main categories are set out below.

2.1 Information you give us directly

• Identity and contact details: such as your name, email address, and phone number when you register, create a listing, complete your profile, or contact us through the site.
• Account and security data: username or display name, password (stored in hashed form-we never store your password in plain text), account preferences, and verification information linked to your email address.
• Listing and profile content: descriptions, photographs, prices, locations or areas you choose to disclose, stud dog details, puppy or adult dog listings, and service listings for vets, groomers, dog trainers, boarding facilities, pet shops, and similar categories you select on the platform.
• Communications: messages you send to other users through our messaging features, forum posts, event information you submit, and messages you send to us via our contact facilities.

2.2 Information collected automatically

• Usage and technical data: such as IP address, approximate location derived from IP (where available), browser type and version, device type, pages viewed, referring URLs, dates and times of access, and actions you take on the site (for example, opening a listing or starting a checkout). We use this to operate, secure, and improve the service and to understand aggregate usage patterns.
• Cookies and similar technologies: we use a small number of cookies and similar technologies that are strictly necessary for authentication, session management, and security. We may also use optional marketing cookies (advertising), but only after you opt in via our cookie banner. You can change your choice any time from “Cookie settings” in the footer. See section 8 for the full list.

2.3 Payment-related information

When you pay for a one-time listing, or subscribe monthly or yearly for stud or service listings, payments are processed by Stripe. We do not collect or store your full card number, card security code, or other payment credentials on our own servers. We may receive limited information from Stripe (for example, payment status, subscription identifiers, last four digits of a card, billing country, and transaction references) so we can provide access to paid features and meet accounting and legal requirements. Stripe processes payment data under its own privacy policy as an independent controller for much of that processing.

3. How we use your information

We use personal data for the following purposes:

• Providing the platform: creating and managing your account, verifying your email address, displaying listings and profiles, enabling search and discovery, operating the forum and events features, and facilitating messaging between users where those tools are available.
• Subscriptions and purchases: taking one-off payments for certain listings, managing monthly and yearly subscriptions for stud and service listings, recording entitlements, and communicating about billing and renewals. Card data is handled by Stripe as described in section 5.
• Communications: sending service-related emails and in-product notices (for example, account verification, security alerts, important changes to terms or this policy, and transactional messages related to your listings or subscriptions). Where the law requires separate consent for marketing emails, we will only send those where you have opted in.
• Safety, trust, and moderation: investigating reports, enforcing our Terms of Service and community rules, detecting fraud or misuse, protecting users and animals, and cooperating with lawful requests from authorities where required.
• Improvement and analytics: understanding how the site is used in aggregate, troubleshooting technical issues, and developing new features, using data in a way that does not involve selling your personal data or intrusive profiling.
• Legal and regulatory compliance: keeping records we are required to maintain (for example, for tax, company law, or consumer protection), responding to court orders or regulator requests, and defending our legal rights.

4. Legal basis for processing (GDPR)

Under GDPR, we rely on one or more of the following legal bases, depending on the activity:

• Performance of a contract: where processing is necessary to provide the services you have asked for (for example, operating your account, displaying your listings, processing subscription entitlements, and enabling messaging between users in line with our Terms of Service).
• Legitimate interests: where we have a legitimate interest that is not overridden by your rights and freedoms-for example, securing the platform, preventing fraud, improving our services, analysing aggregate usage, and communicating with you about service changes, provided this is proportionate and respectful of your privacy.
• Consent: where we ask for your consent (for example, for certain optional communications or non-essential cookies, if we introduce them in future), we will explain what you are agreeing to and you may withdraw consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.
• Legal obligation: where we must process data to comply with Irish or EU law (for example, tax, accounting, or responding to lawful requests from public authorities).

Where we process special categories of personal data (for example, health-related information about you or your dog if you voluntarily include it in a listing or message), we will treat that information with additional care and will only process it where we have a valid legal basis under GDPR, which may include your explicit consent where required.

5. Stripe as payment processor

All card payments and subscription billing for Dogmarket.ie are handled by Stripe Payments Europe Ltd (or another Stripe entity applicable in your region), which specialises in secure payment processing. When you enter payment details, they are collected and processed directly by Stripe's systems.

• We do not store your full card number or card security code on our servers.
• We may receive limited payment metadata from Stripe to confirm successful payments, manage subscriptions, and maintain business records.
• Stripe uses your information in accordance with its own privacy policy. You can read how Stripe handles personal data here: stripe.com/ie/privacy.

6. Data sharing and recipients

We do not sell your personal data. We only share personal data in the following circumstances:

• Other users: information you choose to place in public listings, forum posts, events, or your public profile will be visible to other users in line with how the feature works. Messages you send through the platform are shared with the recipient you select.
• Service providers: trusted third parties who help us run Dogmarket.ie, such as hosting and infrastructure providers, email delivery services, customer support tools, analytics in aggregate form, and security services. These providers may only use your data on our instructions and under contractual terms that require them to protect personal data appropriately.
• Stripe and other payment-related partners: as necessary to process payments and manage subscriptions, as described in section 5.
• Professional advisers: lawyers, accountants, or insurers where we need professional advice or to manage risk.
• Legal and regulatory disclosures: where we are required to respond to lawful requests from courts, regulators, or law enforcement agencies in Ireland or elsewhere in the EEA, or where we reasonably believe disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of Dogmarket.ie, our users, or the public.
• Business transfers: if we are involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets, personal data may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to appropriate confidentiality and continued protection of your information.

Some of our service providers may process data outside the EEA. Where that happens, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place, such as the EU Commission's standard contractual clauses or other mechanisms approved under GDPR.

7. Data retention

We keep personal data only for as long as necessary for the purposes described in this policy:

• Account data: retained while your account remains open and for a reasonable period afterwards to deal with disputes, recover debts, enforce our terms, or as required by law.
• Listings, forum content, and events: generally retained for as long as they remain published or as needed to operate the service. After removal, content may persist in backups for a limited period before being securely overwritten.
• Messages: retained so that you and the recipient can see conversation history in line with product functionality, and for safety, moderation, and legal reasons where applicable.
• Payment and accounting records: certain transaction and invoice-related information may be kept for longer periods where Irish tax, company, or consumer law requires us to do so, even after you close your account.
• Security logs: technical logs may be kept for a limited time to detect and respond to security incidents.

When retention periods end, we delete or anonymise personal data where we no longer have a lawful reason to keep it.

8. Cookies and similar technologies

When you first visit Dogmarket.ie we show a cookie banner that lets you accept or refuse non-essential cookies. You can change your choice any time from “Cookie settings” in the footer. We group cookies and similar tags into two categories:

8.1 Strictly necessary (always on)

Required to operate the site. Typical examples are the authentication cookie that keeps you signed in after login, cookies that maintain your session securely, cookies that protect against cross-site request forgery and similar threats, and a small first-party cookie that remembers your cookie choices (dm_consent_v2). These cannot be turned off because the site cannot function without them.

We do not use any third-party analytics or web-counter scripts on Dogmarket.ie. Any aggregate usage statistics we look at come from our own server logs, which we keep for security and troubleshooting purposes only (see section 7).

8.2 Marketing / advertising (optional, off by default)

Lets us show ads on the site. We currently use:

• Google AdSense (pagead2.googlesyndication.com) — loaded only when ads are enabled and you have opted in.

Marketing scripts are not loaded until you accept them via the cookie banner. Refusing them, or rejecting non-essential cookies, prevents these scripts from being injected on your device.

8.3 Third-party services and tools we rely on

In addition to the categories above, the platform uses the following service providers and open-source libraries that may process your data:

• Stripe — payment processor for listing fees and subscriptions. Stripe sets its own cookies on its hosted Checkout / Payment Link pages under checkout.stripe.com and buy.stripe.com. See Stripe’s own privacy notice for details.
• Hosting and edge — we self-host on a VPS behind Caddy as a reverse proxy. No third-party CDN cookies are set on Dogmarket.ie.
• Email — transactional emails (verification, password reset, listing notifications) are delivered by our email provider on a server-to-server basis; no client-side cookies are involved.

The site is built with standard open-source libraries, including Next.js, React, Express, Prisma, Tailwind CSS, Radix UI / shadcn-ui, Sharp (server-side image processing), Multer (uploads), Stripe’s SDK, JSON Web Tokens (jsonwebtoken), Helmet and express-rate-limit (security), DOMPurify and sanitize-html. None of these libraries set marketing or behavioural cookies on your device on their own.

You can also control cookies through your browser settings. Blocking strictly necessary cookies may mean that some parts of the site (such as staying signed in) do not work correctly.

9. Your rights under GDPR

If you are located in the EEA (including Ireland), you have the following rights in relation to your personal data, subject to certain exceptions under law:

• Right of access: you can ask us for a copy of the personal data we hold about you and certain information about how we use it.
• Right to rectification: you can ask us to correct inaccurate data or complete incomplete data.
• Right to erasure ("right to be forgotten"): you can ask us to delete personal data in certain situations, for example where it is no longer needed for the original purpose or where you withdraw consent and there is no other legal basis for continued processing. Some information may need to be retained where law requires us to keep records.
• Right to restriction of processing: you can ask us to limit how we use your data in specific circumstances, such as where you contest the accuracy of the data or object to processing pending verification.
• Right to data portability: where processing is based on consent or contract and is carried out by automated means, you may have the right to receive certain data you provided to us in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format, and to transmit that data to another controller where technically feasible.
• Right to object: you can object to processing based on legitimate interests, including profiling based on those interests, and we will stop unless we demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds that override your interests or where processing is needed for legal claims.
• Rights related to automated decision-making: we do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing that produce legal or similarly significant effects. If that changes in future, we will explain the logic and your rights.
• Right to lodge a complaint: if you believe we have handled your data unlawfully, you have the right to complain to the Data Protection Commission ("DPC") in Ireland, or to your local supervisory authority if you reside elsewhere in the EEA.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us through our Contact page. We may need to verify your identity before responding, and we will generally answer within one month, which may be extended in complex cases as permitted by GDPR.

10. Data security

We take the security of personal data seriously. We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures designed to protect your information against accidental loss, unauthorised access, alteration, or disclosure. These measures include, where appropriate, the use of encryption in transit (such as HTTPS), access controls for our systems, secure development practices, monitoring for suspicious activity, and storing passwords using strong one-way hashing so that they are not readable by our staff.

No method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is completely secure. While we strive to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee absolute security. You are responsible for keeping your account credentials confidential and for choosing a strong, unique password.

11. Children's privacy

Dogmarket.ie is intended only for individuals who are 18 years of age or older. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18. If you are a parent or guardian and believe that a person under 18 has provided us with personal data, please contact us through our Contact page so that we can take appropriate steps to remove the information and, where appropriate, close the account.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, legal requirements, or best practice. When we make material changes, we will take reasonable steps to bring them to your attention, such as posting an updated policy on this page, changing the "last updated" date, and, where appropriate, notifying you by email or through a notice on the site.

We encourage you to review this page periodically. Your continued use of Dogmarket.ie after an update takes effect will be subject to the revised policy, except where applicable law requires a different approach.

13. Contact

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, how we use your personal data, or if you wish to exercise your data protection rights, please contact us through our Contact page. We will do our best to respond promptly and to work with you to resolve any concerns.