Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Dog Happiness (operated by DOG HAPPINESS, ABN 60 126 567 184) collects, uses, stores, and discloses personal information. We are committed to handling personal information in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

We may collect the following types of personal information:

When you submit content (reviews, photos, corrections):

• Your name or display name
• Email address
• The content you submit (text, photos)
• The venue the submission relates to

When you use the site:

• Your IP address and approximate location (used to show nearby venues)
• Browser type, device type, and operating system
• Pages visited, time spent, and navigation patterns
• Referral source (how you arrived at the site)
• Session recordings and interaction data (clicks, scrolls, mouse movements) collected in anonymised form for user experience analysis

When you contact us:

• Your name and email address
• The content of your message

We use personal information for the following purposes:

• To operate and improve the Dog Happiness website and service.
• To process and display community contributions (reviews, photos, corrections) on the site.
• To verify and moderate user-submitted content.
• To respond to your enquiries or feedback.
• To show you relevant nearby venues based on your location (with your permission).
• To analyse site usage, understand user behaviour, and improve the user experience.
• To comply with legal obligations.

We collect and use personal information based on:

• Consent — for location access and optional submissions.
• Legitimate interest — for site analytics, security, and service improvement.
• Legal obligation — where required by Australian law.

We use the following services to understand how the site is used and to improve the experience:

• Google Analytics — collects anonymised usage data (pages visited, session duration, device type). Google’s privacy policy applies to data processed by Google Analytics.
• PostHog — collects product analytics data to help us understand feature usage and improve the site.
• Microsoft Clarity — collects anonymised session recordings and heatmaps (clicks, scrolls, mouse movements) to help us understand how users interact with the site. Microsoft’s privacy policy applies to data processed by Clarity.

You can opt out of analytics tracking by adjusting your browser settings or using browser extensions that block tracking scripts.

If you allow location access in your browser, Dog Happiness uses your approximate location to show nearby venues. Location data is processed in real time and is not stored on our servers.

You can revoke location access at any time through your browser settings.

Dog Happiness uses the following third-party services that may process personal information:

• Google Maps Platform — for maps, venue geolocation, and related data. Google’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy apply.
• OpenStreetMap — for supplementary map and amenity data. OpenStreetMap’s terms apply.
• Vercel — for website hosting. Vercel’s privacy policy applies.
• Neon — for database hosting. Neon’s privacy policy applies.

We encourage you to review them.

Personal information is stored on servers located in the United States (via Vercel and Neon). We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, modification, and disclosure. However, no data transmission or storage system is completely secure.

Where personal information is transferred outside Australia, we take reasonable steps to ensure that the overseas recipient handles the information consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles, as required under APP 8.

We retain personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes described in this policy, or as required by law. Specifically:

• Community contributions (reviews, photos) are retained for as long as the associated venue page exists on the site, unless you request removal.
• Contact enquiries are retained for up to 12 months.
• Analytics data is retained in anonymised form.

Under the Australian Privacy Principles, you have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you.
• Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal information.
• Request deletion of your personal information, subject to any legal obligations that require us to retain it.
• Withdraw consent for location access or other optional data collection at any time through your browser settings.

To exercise these rights, contact us at contact@doghappiness.com.au.

Dog Happiness is a general-audience website. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If you believe a child has submitted personal information to us, please contact us and we will take steps to delete it.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The “Last updated” date at the top indicates when changes were last made. We encourage you to review this page periodically.

If you believe we have breached the Australian Privacy Principles, you can contact us at contact@doghappiness.com.au. We will investigate and respond within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may lodge a complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at www.oaic.gov.au.

For questions about this Privacy Policy or to make a privacy-related request:

Email: contact@doghappiness.com.au
Post: PO Box TBC