Terms, Privacy & Community Rules

1. Terms of use

PetShare & Shop (“PSAS”, “we”, “us” or “our”) provides an online pet community and marketplace. Features may include profiles, feeds, private messages, groups, blogs, events, scrapbooks, shopfronts and marketplace services.

By creating an account or using PSAS, you agree to the terms, privacy information, cookie information and community rules contained on this page.

You are responsible for keeping your account credentials secure and for activity carried out through your account.

You must not:

• provide deliberately false account information;
• impersonate another person or organisation;
• attempt to access another person's account without permission;
• use PSAS for fraud, phishing, malware or other unlawful activity;
• bypass a block, suspension, ban or other safety restriction;
• create or use another account to evade moderation action.

2. Minimum age & youth safety

PSAS requests a date of birth so we can apply our minimum-age requirement and appropriate age-related protections. You must provide accurate age information and must not attempt to circumvent age safeguards.

Members aged 16 or 17 may receive additional safety protections. These may include stronger profile privacy settings, restrictions on private messages with people who are not accepted friends and additional safeguarding attention where reports concern a youth account.

A full date of birth is not intended to be displayed publicly on a PSAS profile.

PSAS may restrict or close an account where we reasonably believe that the minimum-age requirement has not been met or age information has deliberately been falsified.

3. Community rules

PSAS is intended to be a friendly and respectful pet community. Members must treat other people and animals appropriately.

We do not permit content or behaviour involving:

• harassment, bullying or persistent unwanted contact;
• credible threats or encouragement of violence;
• hateful or discriminatory abuse;
• sexual or exploitative content involving children;
• grooming or inappropriate contact with children;
• fraud, scams or deliberate deception;
• spam or phishing;
• impersonation;
• illegal goods, services or activity;
• malware or attempts to compromise PSAS systems;
• animal cruelty, neglect or exploitation;
• unlawful infringement of intellectual-property or other rights.

Blocking

Members may block other accounts. Blocking may prevent the members involved from finding, viewing, contacting, mentioning or interacting with one another through PSAS.

Reporting

Members may report accounts, content or behaviour to PSAS. Reports may be reviewed by authorised administrators. Serious safeguarding reports may receive increased priority.

Knowingly submitting false or malicious reports may itself be treated as misuse of PSAS.

4. Moderation & account safety

Where reasonably necessary to protect members, animals, the marketplace or PSAS, we may:

• remove or restrict content;
• issue warnings;
• restrict commenting, posting or messaging;
• restrict marketplace activity;
• temporarily suspend accounts;
• permanently ban accounts;
• take other proportionate safety action.

Members may receive moderation notices by email and/or through PSAS account-safety features.

Where an appeal or review mechanism is available, a member may use the Account Safety or Support facilities to ask PSAS to review a decision.

5. Your content & intellectual property

You are responsible for text, photographs, videos, audio, blogs, comments, listings and other material that you upload or share.

You must own the content or otherwise have the rights or permission required to use it.

You retain ownership of your original content. By submitting content to PSAS you grant PSAS a non-exclusive permission to store, process, display, reproduce and technically adapt it only as reasonably necessary to operate, secure and provide the service.

PSAS branding, original software and design belonging to PSAS may not be copied or commercially exploited without permission.

If you believe something on PSAS infringes your rights, contact Support with enough information for us to identify and review it.

6. Marketplace

PSAS may enable independent sellers to operate shopfronts and offer products or services. Unless PSAS is expressly identified as the seller, products listed by independent sellers are sold by that seller.

Sellers are responsible for:

• accurate and lawful listings;
• product descriptions and prices;
• product safety and applicable labelling requirements;
• fulfilment and delivery obligations;
• appropriate customer communications;
• returns, refunds and cancellations where legally applicable;
• their tax and regulatory obligations.

Counterfeit, stolen, dangerous or unlawful goods are prohibited.

Consumer rights

Nothing on PSAS removes statutory consumer rights. Applicable rights concerning faulty goods, distance sales, cancellation, returns and refunds continue to apply.

PSAS marketplace tools may help buyers and sellers manage cancellations, returns, refunds, disputes and problem reports.

Payments & payouts

Payments may be processed by third-party payment providers whose own terms and privacy practices may apply.

PSAS may delay or restrict marketplace payouts where reasonably necessary to address refunds, disputes, chargebacks, suspected fraud, safety investigations or legal requirements.

Additional seller onboarding agreements, fee terms and payout rules may apply to marketplace sellers.

7. Animal welfare

Animal welfare is a core PSAS rule.

Content, listings or behaviour involving cruelty, deliberate neglect, dangerous treatment, illegal animal activity or exploitation may be removed and may result in immediate moderation or account action.

8. Privacy notice

PSAS respects your privacy and processes personal information only for legitimate service, safety, marketplace, security and legal purposes.

Information we may collect

• username, email address and account identifiers;
• date of birth and age-safety status;
• profile information and privacy choices;
• posts, media, blogs, comments and other submitted content;
• friendships, messages and community interactions;
• blocks, reports and moderation records;
• seller, shop, purchase, order and transaction information;
• support communications;
• browser, device, session and security information;
• IP addresses and information used for abuse or fraud prevention;
• other information required to provide PSAS or meet legal duties.

How we use information

We may process information to:

• create and administer accounts;
• provide community features;
• provide marketplace and order services;
• apply age and youth-safety protections;
• provide messaging and privacy controls;
• detect security threats, fraud, spam and abuse;
• investigate reports and enforce PSAS rules;
• provide customer support;
• send account, security, order and moderation communications;
• maintain and improve the service;
• comply with legal and regulatory obligations.

Lawful bases

Depending on the activity, processing may be necessary to provide our service or perform a contract, comply with legal obligations, support legitimate interests such as operating and securing PSAS, or take place with valid consent where required.

Profile visibility

PSAS provides privacy settings that determine who may see certain profile information and content. Youth accounts may have additional mandatory privacy protections.

Third-party services

We may use service providers for hosting, email, security, payments, media processing, fulfilment and other infrastructure. Information is shared with providers only where reasonably necessary for the relevant service.

International processing

Some service providers may process information outside the United Kingdom. Where required, appropriate mechanisms or safeguards will be used for international transfers.

Retention

Information is retained only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected and for applicable safety, fraud-prevention, financial, tax, legal and dispute requirements.

Some limited records may therefore remain after account deletion where retention is legally required or reasonably necessary.

9. Cookies & similar technologies

Cookies are small files or browser technologies that can store information relating to a website visit.

Essential technologies

PSAS may use cookies and local-storage technologies required for features such as:

• login sessions;
• account security;
• CSRF and anti-abuse protections;
• member preferences;
• shopping-basket functionality;
• core platform operation.

Analytics and other non-essential technologies

PSAS may introduce analytics or similar technologies to understand how the service is used and improve its operation.

Browser settings can also be used to view, delete or restrict stored cookies. Disabling essential technologies may prevent parts of PSAS from functioning properly.

10. Security

PSAS uses technical and organisational safeguards intended to protect accounts and information.

These may include:

• password hashing;
• email verification;
• anti-bot verification;
• login-rate limiting;
• session protections;
• blocking and reporting controls;
• age and youth-safety controls;
• moderation and audit systems;
• additional authentication measures where appropriate.

No internet service can guarantee absolute security. Members should use a strong, unique password and contact PSAS if they suspect unauthorised access.

11. Your data-protection rights

Depending on the circumstances and lawful basis, applicable UK data protection law may provide rights including:

• access to your personal information;
• correction of inaccurate information;
• erasure in appropriate circumstances;
• restriction of processing;
• objection to certain processing;
• data portability in applicable circumstances;
• withdrawal of consent where processing relies on consent.

You may also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office regarding the handling of your personal information.

12. Service communications & marketing

PSAS may send necessary service communications such as:

• email verification;
• password-reset messages;
• security alerts;
• order information;
• support responses;
• moderation and account-safety notices.

Marketing communications, where introduced, will be handled separately in accordance with applicable consent and opt-out requirements.

13. Availability & changes

We aim to keep PSAS available and reliable but cannot guarantee that every feature will always operate without interruption or error.

Features may be maintained, updated, replaced or discontinued where reasonably necessary.

This document may also be updated when PSAS features, law, regulation or our practices change. Significant changes may be accompanied by additional notice or fresh acceptance where appropriate.

14. Liability & statutory rights

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability where doing so would be unlawful.

Nothing in these terms removes statutory consumer rights.

Subject to applicable law, PSAS is not responsible for losses that could not reasonably have been foreseen when these terms were agreed or losses arising solely from matters outside our reasonable control.

15. Account closure

Members may request account deletion using the account controls provided by PSAS.

Deletion may not immediately erase every record where limited retention is required for financial records, fraud prevention, safety investigations, disputes, taxation, legal duties or legal claims.

16. Governing law

These terms are governed by applicable United Kingdom law, subject to any mandatory consumer rights or protections that apply.

17. Contact, questions & complaints

For questions about your account, privacy, safety, marketplace use or these terms:

PetShare & Shop
Email: support@petshareandshop.com
Support: PSAS Support Centre

PetShare & Shop is part of the SASW Platform.