Privacy Policy

1. About This Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how EquineListings.com ("EquineListings", "we", "us", or "our") collects, uses, stores, shares, and protects personal information when you visit our website, create an account, place or respond to advertisements, send messages, subscribe to our newsletter, or otherwise use our services (collectively, the "Services").

This Policy forms part of, and should be read together with, our Terms and Conditions. By using the Services, you acknowledge that your personal information will be processed as described in this Policy.

2. Information You Give Us

We collect the information you choose to provide, including:

• Account details — your name, email address, password (stored only in a securely hashed form), phone number, address, and account type (buyer or seller).
• Business and profile details — for sellers and businesses, your business name, website, biography, logo, and business contact details.
• Listings — descriptions, prices, locations, photographs, videos, and details about horses, animals, products, properties, or services you advertise.
• Messages — messages and attachments you send to other users through our messaging features, and to our team through support tickets.
• Community content — posts, photographs, videos, comments, reactions, and reports you publish in the community area.
• Contact form messages — your name, email address, optional phone number, the topic and content of your message.
• Newsletter subscription — the email address you subscribe with.
• Payment information — details of purchases such as packages and upgrades. Card payments are handled by our payment provider; we do not store full card numbers on our systems.

3. Information We Collect Automatically

When you use the Services, we automatically collect certain information, including:

• Sign-in activity — the date and time of sign-ins, your IP address, and browser or device information, which we use to keep accounts secure.
• Usage information — searches you make, listings you view or save, and interactions with advertisements, such as views, clicks, calls, and email enquiries, which we use to run the marketplace and report statistics to advertisers.
• Technical information — your IP address, browser type, device information, and pages visited, recorded in server logs for security and troubleshooting.
• Contact form and search records — the IP address from which a contact form message or search was sent, to help us prevent spam and abuse.

4. How We Use Your Information

We use personal information to:

• Provide, operate, and maintain the Services, including your account, listings, messaging, and community features.
• Display your listings and public profile information to other users.
• Process purchases and provide receipts and account notices.
• Send service emails, such as account confirmations, listing updates, message notifications, security alerts, and replies to your enquiries.
• Send our newsletter, where you have subscribed to it.
• Respond to contact form messages and support requests.
• Detect, investigate, and prevent fraud, spam, abuse, security incidents, and breaches of our Terms and Conditions.
• Moderate content and act on reports from users.
• Understand how the Services are used and improve them.
• Comply with legal obligations and enforce our rights.

5. Information Other Users Can See

Some information is public by its nature:

• Listings, including their photographs, videos, descriptions, price, and location, are visible to anyone who visits the website.
• Seller and business profile information shown on listings may be visible to visitors.
• Community posts, comments, and your display name are visible to visitors.
• Messages you send are visible to their recipients.

Please think carefully before including personal information, such as a home address or phone number, in public content.

6. Email and the Newsletter

Our emails, including the newsletter, are sent through our email delivery service.

If you subscribe to the newsletter, we use your email address to send you news, new listings, guides, and updates from EquineListings. Every newsletter contains a link to unsubscribe. When you unsubscribe, we keep a record of your address marked as unsubscribed so that we do not email you again.

Unsubscribing from the newsletter does not stop service emails that relate to your account, listings, messages, or purchases.

7. Cookies and Similar Technologies

We use cookies and similar technologies that are necessary for the Services to work, including:

• A session cookie that keeps you signed in and remembers your session.
• A security cookie that protects forms against cross-site request forgery.
• Local browser storage that remembers display preferences, such as light or dark mode.

Where enabled, third-party services described in the next section may also set their own cookies or collect information from your browser, including for live chat and advertising.

You can control cookies through your browser settings. Blocking necessary cookies may prevent parts of the Services, such as signing in, from working.

8. Sharing Your Information

We do not sell your personal information.

We share personal information only where necessary, with:

• Other users — as described in section 5, for example when you publish a listing or send a message.
• Service providers — who help us operate the Services, such as website hosting, email delivery, payment processing, live chat support, and advertising services. They may process information only to provide their services to us.
• Advertising partners — where advertising is enabled, advertising networks such as Google may collect information from your browser to display and measure advertisements, under their own privacy policies.
• Professional advisers — such as lawyers and accountants, where necessary.
• Authorities and others — where required by law, or where reasonably necessary to protect the rights, safety, or property of EquineListings, our users, or others, including to investigate fraud.
• Business transfers — as part of a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or part of our business, where your information may be transferred to the new owner.

9. Third-Party Services

The Services use or link to third-party services, which may include live chat, payment processing, web fonts, advertising, and social networks. When you interact with these services, the relevant provider may collect information under its own privacy policy. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third parties, and we encourage you to read their policies.

10. How Long We Keep Information

We keep personal information for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Policy, including to provide the Services, keep records of transactions, resolve disputes, prevent fraud and abuse, and meet legal, tax, and accounting obligations.

When information is no longer needed, we delete or anonymise it, or, where that is not possible, store it securely and isolate it from further use.

11. How We Protect Information

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal information, including encrypted connections, hashed passwords, access controls for our administrators, and records of account sign-ins.

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. You are responsible for keeping your password confidential.

12. Your Choices and Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights over your personal information, which may include the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you.
• Correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Request deletion of your personal information.
• Object to or restrict certain processing.
• Receive a copy of your information in a portable format.
• Withdraw consent where we rely on consent, such as for the newsletter.

You can update much of your account information yourself from your dashboard, and you can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time using the link in any newsletter.

To make any other request, please contact us using the details in section 15. We may need to verify your identity before responding. Nothing in this Policy limits any rights you have under applicable law.

13. Children

The Services are not directed at children, and you must be legally capable of entering into a binding agreement to create an account. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us so that we can take appropriate steps.

14. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this Policy. Your continued use of the Services after changes have been published means that the updated Policy applies to your use.

15. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your personal information, or you wish to exercise your rights, please contact us through our Contact Us page or using the contact details published on EquineListings.com.