Privacy Policy

We sell one book. To do that we need your email, your payment, and somewhere to post it. We do not sell your data, we do not rent it, and we do not add anyone to a marketing list without them asking. If you want everything we hold about you deleted, email franki@toloseadog.com and we will do it.

This site is operated as To Lose a Dog, the publishing project behind the book of the same name. For any privacy question, including a request to access or delete your data, write to franki@toloseadog.com. A person reads that address.

Order information. When you pre-order, Shopify collects your name, email, billing and shipping address, and payment details. Shopify processes the payment; we never see or store your card number. We receive and store your name, email, order number, order totals, and order status so we can send you updates about the book you bought.

Gift details, if you send the book to someone. Their first name, optionally their dog’s name, and an optional message from you. If you supply their email address, you must confirm you are authorised to give it to us. That confirmation is enforced technically: without it the address is discarded before it is ever stored.

Anything you choose to tell us about your dog. The pre-order hub has a form where you can write about your dog. It is entirely optional, you can delete it yourself at any time, and it is never published without separate explicit permission.

Usage data, only when you allow it. Pages viewed, referring host, approximate location derived by a measurement provider, and allowlisted campaign parameters if you arrived from an ad or social post. We never send your order details or gift message to these tools.

You will receive at most one email from us, and only if the buyer told us they had your permission to share your address. It tells you a book is coming and includes whatever message they wrote.

You are not subscribed to anything. There is no list to leave. We will not email you again unless you write to us first, and we do not pass your address to anyone. If you would rather not have been contacted at all, tell us and we will delete your details immediately.

Every company below is a processor we genuinely use:

• Shopify: checkout, payment, addresses, and order records. Shopify is the source of truth for your order.
• PostgreSQL on Hetzner: the database holding order, gift, and email records.
• Resend: delivery of the emails we send you.
• Cloudflare: hosting and delivery of this site, and private storage and delivery of the digital bonus.
• Google Analytics, Meta Pixel, and Microsoft Clarity: measurement of how the site is used. Microsoft Clarity also records sessions, meaning it can replay how a page was scrolled and clicked.
• Mentionwell: the blog.

We deliberately switch all measurement off on your pre-order pages. Those pages are reached with a signed link that acts as a key to your order, and handing that link to analytics vendors would hand them access to it. No analytics or session recording runs anywhere under /preorder.

• We do not sell or rent personal information.
• We do not add buyers to a marketing list as a side effect of purchasing. Book-progress emails are the only marketing we send, and every one carries a working unsubscribe link.
• We never subscribe a gift recipient to anything, under any circumstances.
• We do not put your name, email, or order number in a web address.

Links to your pre-order hub are signed and expire; they contain an opaque identifier rather than your order number or email. Order data received from Shopify is encrypted with AES-256-GCM before it is written to our database, and decrypted only at the moment it is processed. All traffic is served over HTTPS.

No system is perfect, and we will not pretend otherwise. If a breach ever affects your data, we will tell you.

• Order records: kept while your pre-order is open and afterwards for as long as tax and accounting rules require.
• Gift details: kept until the book ships and the notification you asked for has been sent.
• Anything you wrote about your dog: kept until you delete it. You can do that yourself from your pre-order hub.
• Unsubscribe records: kept indefinitely, on purpose. Forgetting that you opted out is how people get emailed again by mistake.
• Raw order data received from Shopify: held encrypted only until processing succeeds, then erased.

Wherever you live, you can ask us for a copy of what we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Email franki@toloseadog.com. We will not ask you why.

If you are in the UK or the European Economic Area, our lawful bases are: performing our contract with you (fulfilling and supporting your order), your consent (book-progress emails, and a gift recipient’s notice), and legitimate interests (keeping the site working and secure). You may object to processing based on legitimate interests, withdraw consent at any time, request portability of your data, and complain to your local data protection authority.

If you are in California, you have the right to know what we collect, to delete it, to correct it, and not to be discriminated against for exercising those rights. We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising in exchange for money.

What happens before you choose depends on where you are. In the European Union, the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the Crown Dependencies, and wherever we cannot tell, all optional measurement is off until you allow it. Everywhere else, analytics starts on and you can turn it off; if your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, analytics starts off instead. Advertising measurement is off everywhere until you allow it, and a Global Privacy Control signal keeps it off even if you allowed it before. We work out which rule applies from the country your connection comes from, and remember it in a small cookie that holds the rule and nothing about you.

You can allow analytics, advertising measurement, both, or neither. Necessary technology remains available so the site and checkout work. Use the “Privacy choices” link in the footer to change or withdraw your choice at any time. Withdrawing stops future optional collection and clears storage owned by this site where technically possible; a checkout you had already started is still reported when it is paid. If your browser does not let this site store your choice, all optional measurement stays off. We run no measurement at all on pre-order account pages.

Analytics covers Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity. When analytics is on at the moment you start checkout, we note your Google Analytics visitor and visit identifiers on the order, and when the order is paid our server reports the purchase to Google Analytics under that visit, so we can see which pages lead to orders. No name, email address, or address is sent. Advertising measurement covers Google, Meta, and enabled TikTok campaign attribution. Shopify’s official integrations measure hosted checkout and paid orders only under their applicable consent controls.

This site is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their information. If you believe a child has given us personal data, write to us and we will delete it.

Our processors operate in the United States and elsewhere, so your information may be transferred and stored outside your country. Where the law requires a transfer safeguard, our processors rely on standard contractual clauses or an equivalent mechanism.

If this policy changes materially, we will update the date at the top and, where the change affects how we contact you, tell you by email. The pre-order remains charged today · cancel any time before it ships, and the book is still estimated to ship December 2026.