MyTailMail ("we," "our," "us") is committed to protecting your privacy. This policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and your rights regarding your data.
Information We Collect
When you sign up for the MyTailMail waitlist, we collect:
- Your name and email address
- Your location (city/region)
- Your pet's information: name, species, breed, bio, allergies, dietary restrictions, toy preferences, and an optional photo
When you sign in, we collect authentication data (email address) processed through Firebase Authentication.
If you use The Yard, our community feed, we collect the photos, videos, captions, and comments you choose to post, along with likes, reports, and block lists you create. See "The Yard — Community Content & Moderation" below.
When you buy something, we collect your order details and your shipping address, and our payment processor, Stripe, collects your payment details. Addresses are stored in a locked-down system accessible only to our backend — never to other users. See "Address Privacy — Our Core Promise" below.
How We Use Your Information
We use your information to:
- Send you a welcome email that invites you to introduce your pet in The Yard
- Notify you about key MyTailMail updates
- Generate your unique referral code and track referrals
- Create custom stamps for your pets
- Communicate updates and product news (you can opt out at any time)
- Improve the product based on your preferences and feedback
We do not sell your personal information for money. See "Advertising and Measurement" below for what we share with Meta, and how to opt out.
Address Privacy — Our Core Promise
Sender and recipient addresses are never shared with each other. MyTailMail acts as the merchant of record for all gift fulfillment. Shipping addresses are stored in a locked-down data store accessible only to our Cloud Functions — never to other users or to client-side code.
The Yard — Community Content & Moderation
The Yard is our community feed for sharing pet photos and short videos. If you use it:
- Photos and videos you upload have location data (GPS/EXIF metadata) automatically stripped before publishing, so your device's location is never embedded in a public post.
- Some posts are reviewed by a human moderator before appearing in the feed; automated tools may also flag content for review, but do not make final decisions on their own. We do this to help keep the feed safe.
- Videos are automatically deleted from our storage approximately 7 days after posting to limit how long that media is retained; the surrounding post (caption, likes, comments) is unaffected.
- If you report a post or comment, we record your report along with the content reported so a moderator can review it. If you block another member, we store that block so we can filter their content from your view of the feed.
- Content you post to The Yard, including your pet's name and photo, is public. Anyone can view the feed without a MyTailMail account, and we may feature posts on our website and on our social channels. Featured posts are credited to your pet, never to you, and your address is never attached to anything you post. You can delete a post at any time.
- Your pet's bio and birthday are private by default. Either appears on your pet's public Yard profile only if you turn it on under "Shared on The Yard" in your profile, and you can turn it off at any time. A shared birthday shows the month and day only, never a year. A private bio is never used in our newsletter or printed on a postcard.
- If your account is deleted, we also delete your posts, comments, likes, and block list as part of that process.
Third-Party Services
We use the following services to operate MyTailMail:
- Firebase (Google) — authentication, database, file storage, and hosting. Data may be stored on Google's servers in the US.
- Resend — transactional email delivery (welcome emails, sign-in links). Your email address is shared with Resend solely to send you these emails.
- Google Analytics — anonymous website traffic analytics (no personal data shared).
- Google reCAPTCHA v3 — bot and fraud prevention. reCAPTCHA runs invisibly in the background and collects hardware and software information to generate a risk score. This data is sent to Google and is subject to Google's Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
- Stripe — payment processing. Your card details go directly to Stripe and are never stored by us.
- Meta (Facebook and Instagram) — advertising measurement and audiences. See "Advertising and Measurement" below.
We encourage you to review the privacy policies of these services.
Advertising and Measurement
Like most small businesses, we find new pet parents through ads on Facebook and Instagram. To keep those ads useful (and our ad budget small), we work with Meta Platforms, Inc. ("Meta"), the company behind both:
- On our website — the Meta Pixel lets us see when someone arrives from one of our ads and signs up. It uses cookies in your browser to do this.
- When you make a purchase — on our website or in our Android app, we let Meta know a purchase happened: what it was and the amount, along with details that help Meta recognize you as one of its users — your email, name, city, state, ZIP code, country and account ID, all scrambled first (see below) — plus your IP address and browser or app details. We never do this for purchases in our iPhone app.
- To find more pet parents like you — we may share a scrambled list of members' emails, names and locations with Meta (and, for customers, how much they've spent), so our ads reach people with similar interests and skip people who are already members. We only include members who agreed to hear from us.
Before anything leaves our systems, your details are scrambled using a method called hashing, so Meta can only use them to recognize people who already have a Meta account. Meta deletes anything that doesn't match, and uses what it receives under its own Privacy Policy.
We never sell your information for money. Some privacy laws still count sharing with an ad partner as a "sale" or "sharing," so we want to be upfront about it — and you can opt out anytime. Just email hello@mytailmail.com with the subject "Do not share," and we'll leave you out of everything we send to Meta. You can also adjust your ad settings on Facebook or Instagram, or block cookies in your browser.
Data Retention
We retain your information for as long as necessary to operate the service.
You can delete your account yourself at any time: sign in, open your Profile, and choose "Delete my account". Deletion is immediate and cannot be undone. If you can't sign in, email hello@mytailmail.com from the address on the account and we'll do it for you within 30 days.
Deleting your account removes your parent profile, your pets and their photos, your posts and comments in the Yard, your stamps, your saved postal address, and your sign-in credentials. Your conversations are closed and the other person is told the account was deleted.
Some records are kept: our log of emails we sent you, and any safety reports other members filed about your account — otherwise deleting an account would erase the reports against it. Orders and exchanges you paid for are retained as financial records but detached from your name and email. Payment details are held by Stripe, never by us.
Your Rights
You have the right to:
- Access the personal data we hold about you
- Correct inaccurate data
- Delete your account and your data — do this yourself from your Profile, at any time, without asking us
- Opt out of marketing emails at any time (use the unsubscribe link in any email)
- Opt out of us sharing your information with Meta for advertising (see "Advertising and Measurement")
For anything other than deletion, contact us at hello@mytailmail.com.
Children
MyTailMail is not intended for children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us immediately.
Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of significant changes by email or by posting a notice on our website. Continued use of MyTailMail after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.
Contact Us
Questions about this Privacy Policy? Contact us at:
hello@mytailmail.com
MyTailMail mytailmail.com