Privacy & Cookie Policy

This Privacy Policy is effective as of: 1st OCTOBER, 2016

PetBacker.com ("PetBacker") values your privacy. In this Privacy Policy ("Policy"), we describe the information that we collect about you when you visit our website, https://petbacker.com, communication system or mobile application (the "Platform") and use the services available on the Platform ("Services"), and how we use and disclose that information.

If you have any questions or comments about the Privacy Policy, please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. This Policy is incorporated into and is subject to the PetBacker Terms of Use, which can be accessed at www.petbacker.com/terms. Your use of the Website and/or Services and any personal information you provide on the Platform remains subject to the terms of the Policy and PetBacker's Terms of Use.

A. Collection of Your Personal Information

1. COLLECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We collect personal information from service professionals offering their products and services as well as from consumers searching for those service professionals. Both consumers and service professionals are required to create an account to be able to access certain portions of our Platform, such as to submit questions, participate in polls or surveys, to request a quote, to submit a bid in response to a quote, and request information. The type of personal information that we collect from you varies based on your particular interaction with our Platform.

Consumers: During the Account registration process, we will collect information such as your name, zip code, and email address. You also may provide us with your telephone number, mailing address, and demographic information (e.g., gender, age, political preference, education, race or ethnic origin, and other information relevant to user surveys and/or offers). We may also collect personal information that you post in your Offer, Profile, Wants, or Feedback, and any comments or discussions you post in any blog, chat room, or other correspondence site on the Platform, or any comments you provide during dispute resolution with other users of the Platform.

Service Professionals: If you are a service professional and would like to post any information about yourself, we will require you to register for an Account. During the Account registration process, we will collect your business name, telephone number, address, zip code, travel preferences, a description of your services, a headline for your profile, first and last name, and email address. In addition, you may, but are not required to, provide other content or information about your business, including photographs and videos. We also may collect payment information, such as credit card information, from you.

If we deem it necessary, in our sole and absolute discretion, we may also ask for and collect supplemental information from third parties, such as information about your credit from a credit bureau (to the extent permitted by law), or information to verify any identification details you provide during registration.

2. COLLECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION FROM SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

You may log into our Platform through your Facebook account. If you do so, you must enter the email address and password that you use for your Facebook account. We will ask that you grant us permission to access and collect your Facebook basic information (this includes your name, profile picture, gender, networks, user IDs, list of friends, date of birth, email address, and any other information you have set to public on your Facebook account). If you allow us to have access to this information, then we will have access to this information even if you have chosen not to make that information public.

We store the information that we receive from Facebook with other information that we collect from you or receive about you.

Facebook controls the information it collects from you. For information about how Facebook may use and disclose your information, including any information you make public, please consult Facebook's privacy policy. We have no control over how any third party site uses or discloses the personal information it collects about you.

3. COLLECTION OF AUTOMATIC INFORMATION, USE OF COOKIES AND OTHER TRACKING DEVICES

The Personal Data are provided to PetBacker therefore expressly and voluntarily by the User. The Personal Data can be obtained by PetBacker by:

a. accessing the Service, and/or

b. using Cookies.

Data obtained by PetBacker by placing Cookies in the Observer or the User device are not used to identify the Observer or the User through these data, but to allow PetBacker to draw up statistics regarding the use of the Platform.

The User is responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the Personal Data submitted to the Platform. Inaccurate information will affect the User’s ability to access the Platform and PetBacker’s ability to contact the User as described in this Privacy Policy.

a. We and our third party service providers, which include ad networks, use cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies to collect information about your use of our Platform and Services, such as your browser type, your ISP or operating system, your domain name, your access time, the URL of the previous website you visited, your page views, your IP address, and the type of device that you use. We also track how frequently you visit our Platform and use our Services. We use this information (including the information collected by our third party service providers) for Platform analytics (including to determine which portions of our Platform are used most frequently, what our users like/do not like), to assist us in determining relevant advertising (both on and off our Platform), to evaluate the success of our advertising campaigns, and as otherwise described in this policy. Currently, we do not honor browser requests not to be tracked.

b. Geo-location Information – IP address of the User’s device or mobile device’s GPS (to offer an improved User’s experience) - most mobile devices allow the User to control or disable the use of location services for applications in the device’s settings menu. PetBacker may also collect this information even when the User is not using the Platform if this connection is enabled through the settings or device permissions;

c. Usage Information – information about the User’s interaction with the Platform such as the pages or content the User views, the User’s searches for listings, bookings the User have made and other actions on the Platform;

d. Log Data and Device Information - log data and device information such as details about how a person has used the Platform, IP address of the used device, browser type or the webpage software information a person has visited before coming to the Platform, access dates and times, hardware and software information, device event information, unique identifiers and Cookies data (collected when a person accesses and uses the Platform even without creating an Account or log in) – this information is used to verify that visitors of the Platform meet the criteria required to process their requests.

e. Cookies. We and our third party service providers collect information from you by using cookies. A cookie is a small file stored on user's computer hard drive containing information about the user. The cookie helps us analyze web traffic or informs you about your use of a particular website. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual, tailoring its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences. When you visit the Platform, we may send one or more cookies (i.e., a small text file containing a string of alphanumeric characters) to your computer that identifies your browser.

Some of these cookies may be connected to third-party companies or websites. The terms of use of such cookies are governed by this Policy and the privacy policy of the relevant thirdparty company or website. For example, Google measures the performance of advertisements by placing cookies on your computer when you click on ads. If you visit the Platform when you have such cookies on your computer, we and Google will be able to tell that you saw the ad delivered by Google. The terms of use of these cookies are governed by this Policy and Google's Privacy Policy.

Disabling Cookies. You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you disable cookies you may be prevented from taking full advantage of the Platform because it may not function properly if the ability to accept cookies is disabled.

f. Clear GIFs, pixel tags and other technologies. Clear GIFs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies. In contrast to cookies, which are stored on your computer's hard drive, clear GIFs are embedded invisibly on web pages. We may use clear GIFs (a.k.a. web beacons, web bugs or pixel tags), in connection with our Platform to, among other things, track the activities of Platform visitors, help us manage content, and compile statistics about Platform usage. We and our third party service providers also use clear GIFs in HTML emails to our customers, to help us track email response rates, identify when our emails are viewed, and track whether our emails are forwarded.

g. Payment Transaction Information – information about the payment instrument used by the User for payment transactions through the Platform, date and time of the transaction, payment amount, payment instrument expiration date and billing postcode, the User’s PayPal email address, the User’s IBAN information, the User’s address and other details related to the transaction.

B. How petbacker Uses the Information We Collect

1. HOW PERSONAL INFORMATION IS USED

We collect your personal information and aggregate information about the use of our Platform and Services to better understand your needs and to provide you with a better Platform experience. Specifically, we may use your personal information for any of the following reasons: To provide our Services to you, including registering you for our Services, verifying your identity and authority to use our Services, and to otherwise enable you to use our Platform and our Services;

  • For customer support and to respond to your inquiries;
  • For internal record-keeping purposes;
  • To process billing and payment, including sharing with PayPal or other third party payment gateways in connection with Platform and/or PetBacker's products and Services;
  • To improve and maintain our Platform and our Services (for example, we track information entered through the "Search" function; this helps us determine which areas of our Platform users like best and areas that we may want to enhance; we also will use for trouble-shooting purposes, where applicable);
  • To periodically send promotional emails to the email address you provide regarding new products from PetBacker, special offers from PetBacker or other information about PetBacker that we think you may find interesting;
  • To contact you via email, telephone, facsimile or mail, or, where requested, by text message, to deliver certain services or information you have requested;
  • For PetBacker's market research purposes, including, but not limited to, the customization of the Platform according to your interests;
  • We may use your demographic information (i.e., age, postal code, residential and commercial addresses, and other various data) to more effectively facilitate the promotion of goods and services to appropriate target audiences and for other research and analytical purposes; To resolve disputes, to protect ourselves and other users of our Platform and Services, and to enforce our Terms of Use;
  • We also may compare personal information collected through the Platform and Services to verify its accuracy with personal information collected from third parties; and
  • We may combine aggregate data with the personal information we collect about you.

 

C. Electronic Newsletters, Invitations, Polls and Surveys

At our sole discretion, PetBacker may offer any of the following free services on the Platform, which you may select to use or receive at your option. Certain of the following services may require you to provide additional personal information as detailed below:

1. ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTERS

We may offer a free electronic newsletter to users. We will gather the email addresses of users who sign up for PetBacker for the newsletter mailing list. Users may remove themselves from this mailing list by opting out of receiving newsletters during the registration process, by following the link provided in each newsletter that points users to a subscription management page where the user can unsubscribe from receiving newsletters or by changing their preferences in their Profile Settings page.

2. "SEND TO A FRIEND"

Our Platform users can voluntarily choose to electronically forward a link, page, or document to someone else by clicking "send to a friend." To do so, the user must provide his or her email address, as well as the email address of the recipient. The user's email address is used only in the case of transmission errors and, of course, to let the recipient know who sent the email. The information is not used for any other purpose.

3. POLLING

We may offer interactive polls to users so they can easily share their opinions with other users and see what our audience thinks about important issues, Services, and/or the Platform. Opinions or other responses to polls are aggregated and are not identifiable to any particular user. We may use a system to "tag" users after they have voted, so they can vote only once on a particular question. This tag is not correlated with information about individual users.

4. SURVEYS

We may conduct user surveys from time to time to better target our content to our Platform users. We will not share individual responses from these surveys with any third party. We will share aggregate data with third party service providers, partners, and other third parties. We also will post aggregate data containing survey responses on our Platform; that data may be viewed and downloaded by other users of our Platform.

 

D. Children's Privacy

Our Services are not designed for children under 13. If we discover that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, we will delete such information from our systems.

 

E. Security

We employ procedural and technological security measures, which are reasonably designed to help protect your personal information from unauthorized access or disclosure. PetBacker may use encryption, passwords, and physical security measures to help protect your personal information against unauthorized access and disclosure. No security measures, however, are 100% complete. Therefore, we do not promise and cannot guarantee, and thus you should not expect, that your personal information or private communications will not be collected and used by others. You should take steps to protect against unauthorized access to your password, phone, and computer by, among other things, signing off after using a shared computer, choosing a robust password that nobody else knows or can easily guess, and keeping your log-in and password private. PetBacker is not responsible for the unauthorized use of your information nor for any lost, stolen, compromised passwords, or for any activity on your Account via unauthorized password activity.

 

F. Disclosure

We may share the information that we collect about you, including your personal information, as follows:

1. INFORMATION DISCLOSED TO PROTECT US AND OTHERS

We may disclose your personal information to prevent an emergency, protect or enforce our rights, enforce our Terms of Use and/or to protect the safety of users of our Platform and our Services or protect or enforce the rights of a third party, or as required by law.

2. INFORMATION DISCLOSED TO THIRD PARTY SERVICE PROVIDERS AND BUSINESS PARTNERS

We may contract with various third parties for the provision and maintenance of the Platform, Services and our business operations, and PetBacker may need to share your personal information and data generated by cookies and aggregate information (collectively, "information") with these vendors and service agencies. For example, we may provide your information to a credit card processing company to process your payment. The vendors and service agencies will not receive any right to use your personal information beyond what is necessary to perform its obligations to provide the Services to you. If you complete a survey, we also may share your information with the survey provider; if we offer a survey in conjunction with another entity, we also will disclose the results to that entity.

3. DISCLOSURE TO NON-AFFILIATED THIRD PARTIES IN FURTHERANCE OF YOUR REQUEST

Your request for services may be shared with third party websites with whom we have a contractual relationship in order to provide your request with maximum exposure. The post on the third party website will include the details of your request, including your location, but will not include your last name. Interested bidders, however, will be able to click on your request on such third party site, and will be directed to our Platform where they will have access to your first name and the first letter of your last name, as would any other service provider on our Platform interested in bidding on your request.

4. DISCLOSURE TO OTHER USERS OF OUR PLATFORM

If you are a service professional, the information that you post (other than your payment information) is available to other users of our Platform and our Services. Comments that users post to our Platform also will be available to other visitors to our Platform (see our discussion of User Generated Content below). In addition, we will post the results (in aggregate form) of surveys to our Platform. If you are a consumer, your first name plus first initial of your last name, zip code, as well as the details of your request, are available to all visitors to our Platform. Bidding professionals also will be permitted to see the consumer's full name and telephone number.

5. INFORMATION DISCLOSED TO LAW ENFORCEMENT OR GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

We will disclose your information, including, without limitation, your name, city, state, telephone number, email address, user ID history, quoting and listing history, and fraud complaints, to law enforcement or other government officials if we are required to do so by law, regulation or other government authority or otherwise in cooperation with an investigation of a governmental authority.

6. IN THE EVENT OF A CHANGE OF CONTROL OR BANKRUPTCY

In the event that PetBacker undergoes a change in control, including, without limitation, a merger or sale of all or substantially all of PetBacker's assets to which this Platform relates or other corporate reorganization in which PetBacker participates, and is thus merged with or acquired by a third party entity (a "Successor"), PetBacker hereby reserves the right to transfer the information we have collected from the users of the Platform and/or Services to such Successor.

In addition, in the event of PetBacker's bankruptcy, reorganization, receivership, or assignment for the benefit of creditors, or the application or laws or equitable principles affecting creditors' rights generally, PetBacker may not be able to control how your information is transferred, used, or treated and reserves the right to transfer the information we have collected from the users of the Platform and/or Services to non-affiliated third parties in such event.

7. INFORMATION DISCLOSED AT YOUR REQUEST

We may share your personal information with other Registered Users to whom you explicitly ask us to send your information or if you explicitly consent to such disclosure upon receipt of a specific Service. For instance, when you contract for a specific Service with another Registered User, PetBacker will send that Registered User a notice that includes the personal information that you have chosen to allow PetBacker to reveal to users with whom you contract.

 

G. Links to External Websites

The Platform may contain links to other websites or resources over which PetBacker does not have any control. Such links do not constitute an endorsement by PetBacker of those external websites. You acknowledge that PetBacker is providing these links to you only as a convenience, and further agree that PetBacker is not responsible for the content of such external websites. We are not responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide while visiting such external websites and such sites are not governed by this Policy. Your use of any external website is subject to the terms of use and privacy policy located on the linked to external website.

 

H. Updating, Deleting and Correcting Your Personal Information

You may choose to restrict the collection or use of your personal information in the following ways:

You can review, correct and delete your personal information by logging into the Platform and navigating to edit profile page in "My Profile" You must promptly update your personal information if it changes or is inaccurate. Typically, we will not manually alter your personal information because it is very difficult to verify your identity remotely. Nonetheless, upon your request we will close your Account and remove your personal information from view as soon as reasonably possible, based on your Account activity and in accordance with applicable law. We do retain information from closed Accounts in order to comply with the law, prevent fraud, collect any fees owed, resolve disputes, troubleshoot problems, assist with any investigations of any Registered User, enforce our Terms of Use, and take any other actions otherwise permitted by law that we deem necessary in our sole and absolute discretion. You should understand, however, that once you publicly post a Request, Offer, Want, Feedback, or any other information onto the Platform, you may not be able to change or remove it. Once we have deleted or removed your Account, you agree that PetBacker shall not be responsible for any personal information that was not included within your deleted and/or removed Account that remains on the Platform.

 

I. What Choices Do I Have Regarding Use of My Personal Information?

We may send periodic promotional or informational emails to you. You may opt-out of such communications by following the opt-out instructions contained in the email. Please note that it may take up to 10 business days for us to process opt-out requests. If you opt-out of receiving emails about recommendations or other information we think may interest you, we may still send you emails about your Account or any Services you have requested or received from us.

 

J. Third-Party Ad Networks

We participate in third party ad networks that may display advertisements on other websites based on your visits to our Site as well as other websites. This enables us and these third parties to target advertisements by displaying ads for products and services in which you might be interested. Third party ad network providers, advertisers, sponsors and/or traffic measurement services may use cookies, JavaScript, web beacons (including clear GIFs), Flash LSOs and other technologies to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content to you. These third party cookies and other technologies are governed by each third party's specific privacy policy, not this one. We may provide these third-party advertisers with information about your usage of our Site and our services, as well as aggregate or non-personally identifiable information about visitors to our Site and users of our service.

 

K. Your Full Name and Use of PetBacker Information

1. YOUR FULL NAME

As a Registered User of the Platform you will select a Full Name during the registration process. All of your activities on the Platform will be traceable to your Full Name. Certain other people, including other Registered Users with whom you have transacted business via the Platform, can see a large part of your activity on the Platform. If you book a service with a Registered User, cancel a scheduled service with a Registered User, receive an offer on your posted service from a Registered User, or have posted a service, PetBacker may send a notice to you or the appropriate Registered User that includes your Full Name. Thus, if you associate your real name with your Full Name, the people to whom you have revealed your name may be able to personally identify your Platform activities.

2. USING INFORMATION FROM PETBACKER

The Platform facilitates your sharing of personal information with others in order to negotiate, provide, and use the Services. If you agree to contract for a service with another Registered User, you may need to reveal your name, email, phone number, or personal address to that individual so that the service may be performed. Please respect the privacy of others. You agree to use the information of other users solely for the following purposes: (a) PetBacker-transaction-related purposes; and (b) using Services offered through the Platform.

3. ACCOUNT PROTECTION

Your password is the key to your Account. When creating your password you should use unique numbers, letters, special characters, and combinations thereof. In addition, DO NOT disclose your password to anyone. If you do share your password or your personal information with others, you are solely responsible for all actions taken via your Account. If you lose control of your password, you may lose substantial control over your personal information and be subject to legally binding actions taken on your behalf. Thus, IF YOUR PASSWORD HAS BEEN COMPROMISED FOR ANY REASON, YOU MUST IMMEDIATELY NOTIFY petbacker TO CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD.

 

L. User Generated Content

We invite you to post content on our Platform, including your comments, feedback, pictures, and any other information that you would like to be available on our Platform. If you post content to our Platform, all of the information that you post will be available to all visitors to our Platform. If you post your own content on our Platform or Services, your posting may become public and PetBacker cannot prevent such information from being used in a manner that may violate this Policy, the law, or your personal privacy.

 

M. Privacy Policy Updates

THIS POLICY IS CURRENT AS OF THE EFFECTIVE DATE SET FORTH ABOVE. PETBACKER MAY, IN ITS SOLE AND ABSOLUTE DISCRETION, CHANGE THIS POLICY FROM TIME TO TIME BY UPDATING THIS DOCUMENT. PETBACKER WILL POST ITS UPDATED POLICY ON THE PLATFORM ON THIS PAGE. PETBACKER ENCOURAGES YOU TO REVIEW THIS POLICY REGULARLY FOR ANY CHANGES. YOUR CONTINUED USE OF THIS PLATFORM AND/OR CONTINUED PROVISION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION TO US WILL BE SUBJECT TO THE TERMS OF THE THEN-CURRENT POLICY.

 

N. Notice to Non-United States Users

Our computer systems are currently based in the United States with Disaster Recovery in United States, so your personal data will be processed by us in United States where data protection and privacy regulations may not offer the same level of protection as in other parts of the world. If you create an Account with the Platform as a visitor from outside United States, by using the Platform, you agree to this Policy and you consent to the transfer of all such information to the United States, which may not offer an equivalent level of protection of that required in other countries, and to the processing of that information as described in this Policy.

O. Legal information and how to contact us

Under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) we have to say who the ‘controller’ is for services provided through our sites. The controller is the department responsible for protecting information and, in our case, is the PetBacker Data Protection Team, by emailing us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

If you would like to exercise your data subject rights or have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please address your request to the ‘Data Protection Team’ at the email above.

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