Cookie & Privacy Policy

PetClassifieds.co.uk

Last updated: 11 October 2026

At Pet Classifieds, we respect your privacy and aim to explain clearly how personal information is collected and used when you visit https://www.petclassifieds.co.uk, create an account, publish a pet advertisement or contact another member.

Our website primarily serves people in the United Kingdom, but it is operated from Western Australia, Australia. This policy explains how we handle information in that cross-border setting, including your rights under applicable UK data protection law.

1. Who is responsible for your information?

The organisation responsible for deciding how and why personal information is processed on Pet Classifieds.

Contact form: https://www.petclassifieds.co.uk/contact

Being based in Australia does not remove our obligations under UK data protection law where that law applies to our activities involving people in the UK.

2. Information we collect

Depending on how you use the website, we may collect:

Account information: Your name or display name, email address, login credentials stored in protected form, account preferences and registration details.
Advert information: Listing titles, descriptions, photographs, advertised locations, prices, contact preferences and any seller or breeder identification and licence details you supply.
Messages and enquiries: Messages you send through our website, enquiries to advertisers, attachments if messaging attachments are enabled, and correspondence with our support team.
Marketplace activity: Saved searches, favourite listings, listings you view or post, reports you submit, and records associated with account safety or moderation.
Technical and usage information: IP address, browser and device information, approximate location inferred from IP address, access times, referral pages, security events, and cookie or similar technology identifiers.
Location information: The town or region you enter or select. If you actively permit your browser to share more precise location information, we may use it to help identify nearby listings or locations.
Transaction information: If you purchase an optional paid service, information about the service, payment status and billing records. Payment card details, where applicable, are handled according to the arrangements of the relevant payment provider.
Third-party sign-in data: If social sign-in is offered and you choose it, the information the sign-in provider makes available to us, such as an email address and account identifier.

We generally obtain this information directly from you, from your use of the website, or from service providers involved in features you choose to use.

We may also receive information from other members who report a listing or account, and from legitimate fraud-prevention or legal enquiries.

Please do not include sensitive personal information, full identity documents, unnecessary financial details or information about another person in a public advertisement.

3. Why we use personal information and our legal bases

Under the UK GDPR, where it applies, we rely on an appropriate legal basis for each purpose:

Providing the service — contract: Registering and securing your account, publishing and managing listings, delivering messages, responding to account requests, and supplying optional paid services.
Running a safer marketplace — legitimate interests: Preventing spam, scams and unauthorised access; investigating reports; moderating advertisements and messages where necessary; keeping technical logs; and protecting users, animals and the website. Our legitimate interest is operating a reliable and secure marketplace, balanced against your rights.
Improving the website — legitimate interests or consent, as applicable: Understanding how the site performs, identifying technical problems and improving navigation or features. Any cookies or tracking technology must also meet the separate rules described below.
Meeting legal requirements — legal obligation: Retaining information where required, responding to lawful requests and complying with applicable legal, tax or regulatory duties.
Optional marketing and tracking — consent or another lawful basis where permitted: Sending promotional communications when lawful and placing non-exempt analytics, advertising or similar technologies on your device where the law requires permission.
Handling disputes and claims — legitimate interests or legal obligation: Maintaining relevant evidence and protecting our legal rights or those of affected users.

Where we rely on consent, you may withdraw it at any time. Withdrawal does not make previous lawful processing unlawful.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, you may object, and we will consider the objection under applicable law.

Some information, such as a valid email address and account credentials, is necessary to create and maintain an account. You can browse many public listings without registering. Information marked optional need not be provided, but certain features may not function without it.

4. Public adverts and information shared with other members

A classifieds website is designed to make advertisements discoverable.

Information you choose to include in a public advert, such as photographs, descriptions, location, display name and any publicly displayed contact details, may be visible to visitors, search engines and other websites that link to or index the advert.

Other users may see information you choose to make available in your profile or provide when communicating with them.

Private messages are not intended to be public, although authorised access may be necessary to operate the service, investigate complaints, prevent abuse or comply with law.

Please avoid publishing your home address, date of birth, identification numbers, bank details or other information that is unnecessary for an advertisement.

Once information has been copied or indexed by third parties, we may not be able to remove every copy.

5. Pet listings, breeder details and safety checks

For responsible pet advertising, we may process information such as a breeder's business status, licensing authority, licence number, reported animal-welfare concerns and evidence submitted to resolve disputes or verify compliance.

Where the law requires particular seller or licence information to appear in an advert, that information may be publicly displayed.

We may share relevant information with appropriate authorities where required or permitted by law, including in connection with suspected fraud, animal cruelty or unlawful trading.

6. Who we share information with

We share personal information only where there is a proper reason to do so, including with:

Other users and the public, to the extent that you publish information in listings or choose to send it to another member.
Website hosting, cloud, content-delivery, security, backup, email and technical-support providers, to help deliver and protect the website.
Analytics and advertising providers, including Google services where enabled, subject to applicable privacy and cookie requirements.
Payment providers, where optional paid features are purchased.
Professional advisers, regulators and law-enforcement authorities, where disclosure is lawful and appropriate.
A purchaser or successor operator, if the website or business is reorganised or transferred, with appropriate confidentiality and legal safeguards.

Service providers acting on our behalf are expected to use information only for authorised purposes and to protect it appropriately.

Some third parties may act as independent data controllers under their own privacy notices.

We do not publish your private account password or intentionally disclose your private messages to advertisers for their marketing purposes.

7. Information processed outside the United Kingdom

Pet Classifieds is managed from Western Australia. This means information relating to UK users may be accessed and processed in Australia.

Hosting, email, analytics, advertising and other suppliers may also process information in other countries.

Australia is not covered by a general UK data adequacy regulation.

Where a transfer is subject to the UK GDPR's restricted international transfer rules, we must ensure a valid legal transfer mechanism is in place, such as appropriate contractual safeguards or an applicable statutory exception.

The arrangement that applies depends on the parties and data flows involved.

Relevant processing locations and safeguards:

You may contact us for information about the safeguards relevant to your personal data.

8. How long we keep information

We retain personal data only for as long as reasonably needed for the purpose for which it was collected, including service delivery, security, compliance and resolving disputes.

As a general approach:

Account data is kept while your account remains active and for a limited period afterwards where necessary for legitimate or legal purposes.
Advertisements are retained while active and may remain for a period after expiry or removal for recovery, anti-fraud checks and disputes.
Messages and reports are retained as needed for the messaging service, safety investigations and legal claims.
Security logs and technical records are retained for a proportionate period needed to detect abuse and maintain the service.
Billing and financial records are retained for periods required by applicable accounting, tax and legal rules.
Backups are deleted or overwritten according to the applicable backup schedule.

When the applicable retention period ends, data is deleted or anonymised unless continued retention is lawful and necessary.

9. Cookies and similar technologies

Cookies are small files that a website may store on your device.

Our site and relevant providers may also use local storage, pixels and similar technologies. They can keep you signed in, remember preferences, help secure the website, measure usage or support advertising.

We group them by purpose:

Essential cookies: Used for functions such as account sessions, security, fraud prevention and remembering privacy choices. Where the law permits an exemption, these do not require optional cookie consent.
Preferences and functionality: Used to remember settings or improve the presentation of the service. The relevant legal exception or consent requirement depends on what each technology actually does.
Analytics: Used to understand site visits and improve the website. Limited statistical analytics may qualify for a UK legal exception if all conditions are met, including clear information and a simple, free way to object; other analytics require consent.
Advertising: Used for advertising delivery, measurement, personalisation or tracking. Cookies and similar technologies used for online advertising require consent under UK rules, even where advertisements are contextual rather than personalised.

Where required, we ask for permission before placing non-exempt cookies or activating non-exempt tracking.

You should be able to refuse as easily as accept, and to revisit your choices. Refusing optional cookies should not prevent you from using core account and browsing functions.

Cookie preferences:

Your browser may also let you block or delete cookies. Blocking essential cookies may affect login or other features.

10. Google Analytics and Google advertising

Where enabled, we use Google Analytics and Google advertising services (Google AdSense / Google Ads).

These services may process identifiers, device information, page interactions and related usage information as described by Google.

Analytics data should not be described as necessarily anonymous: device or online identifiers can be personal data.

Advertising features may also involve tracking across websites or personalised advertising, depending on the settings and consent choices.

Where we use these services, we must configure them consistently with your privacy choices and applicable law.

Google's privacy information is available at:

https://policies.google.com/privacy

Google's advertising controls are available at:

https://myadcenter.google.com/

11. Emails and notifications

We may send service messages that are necessary for your account and activities, including registration emails, password resets, service anouncements, enquiries, listing updates and essential security notices.

Optional marketing emails will only be sent where permitted by applicable law, with any required consent and a clear way to unsubscribe.

You can also update available email notification preferences in your account settings.

Unsubscribing from promotional emails does not prevent essential operational or security communications.

12. Your privacy rights

Subject to conditions and exemptions under applicable law, you may have rights to:

Access the personal data we hold about you.
Correct inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
Request deletion of your personal data.
Restrict certain processing.
Object to processing based on legitimate interests, including profiling based on those interests.
Object at any time to use of your personal data for direct marketing.
Receive or transfer certain personal data in a portable format.
Withdraw consent where consent is the basis of processing.
Challenge qualifying decisions based solely on automated processing which have legal or similarly significant effects, where that protection applies.

We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request.

We will respond within the period required by applicable law, normally one month under the UK GDPR, subject to lawful extensions or pauses.

To exercise a right, contact our https://www.petclassifieds.co.uk/contact form.

Please tell us what you need without sending excessive personal documents.

13. Account changes and deletion

You can update some information through your account dashboard. You can request account deletion by contacting us.

Deleting an account does not always result in immediate erasure of every associated record.

We may retain information needed to comply with law, investigate serious abuse, address disputes or maintain secure backups for their normal lifecycle.

Public search results or copies retained by other websites may remain outside our control.

We will explain any material information that cannot be deleted when responding to a request.

14. Children and age restrictions

Pet Classifieds is a marketplace for adults.

Users must be 18 or older to register, advertise, arrange pet transactions or use member messaging features under our Terms of Use.

We do not knowingly invite children to create accounts.

If we discover an account belonging to someone below the minimum age, we may restrict it and take appropriate steps concerning their personal information.

Children may nevertheless encounter publicly accessible pages. We will consider applicable UK children's privacy requirements, including the Children's Code where the service is likely to be accessed by children.

An adult-only registration rule does not, by itself, remove those obligations.

15. Security and scam prevention

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures appropriate to our service to help protect personal data against accidental loss, unauthorised access, misuse and alteration.

No internet service can guarantee absolute security.

Please use a strong, unique password and be cautious about requests for deposits, identification documents, banking information or unexpected links.

Report suspicious listings or messages using the available website reporting and contact tools.

Where required by law, we will assess and report qualifying personal-data breaches to the appropriate regulator and notify affected individuals when required.

16. Automated tools and moderation

We may use automated checks to identify spam, suspicious sign-ins, potentially fraudulent listings or breaches of marketplace rules.

Relevant decisions may also involve human review.

If we carry out solely automated decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects and is governed by applicable UK GDPR safeguards, we will provide the required information and rights.

You may contact us if you believe an automated action affecting your account is incorrect.

17. Other websites and third-party services

Listings and website pages may contain links to third-party websites, payment services, social networks or veterinary and animal-welfare resources.

Those organisations may collect information under their own privacy notices. We are not responsible for their independent privacy practices.

18. Updates to this policy

We may update this policy when our services, suppliers, privacy practices or legal obligations change.

The date at the top will show when it was last revised.

We will take reasonable steps to draw material changes to users' attention where appropriate, and seek fresh consent where required.

19. Contact us

For privacy questions, cookie concerns, data requests or complaints, contact:

Pet Classifieds

Operated from Western Australia, Australia

Contact: https://www.petclassifieds.co.uk/contact

Our aim is to operate a useful and trustworthy UK pet classifieds service while treating personal information responsibly and transparently.