Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Letters from Dog Heaven is operated by STUDIO MERLIN, s.p., Simončičeva ulica 2, 8210 Trebnje, Slovenia (European Union). Registration number (matična številka) 8916764000, tax number (davčna številka) 98397346.

STUDIO MERLIN, s.p. is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. For anything in it, including any request about your rights, contact info@lettersfromdogheaven.com.

2. What we collect

• Account: your name, email address and a securely hashed password. We never store your password in readable form.
• Your dog's memorial: the name, breed, years, story, photos, memories, awards and quiz answers you choose to share, and the letters you write and receive.
• Candles: messages and names visitors leave at a memorial.
• Payment: if you subscribe, our payment processor (Stripe) handles your card details directly; we never see or store them. We keep a record of the subscription itself (plan, status, and Stripe's own customer reference) so your account reflects what you paid for.
• Sign-in activity: when you sign up or sign in, we record the approximate time, the type of event, and the IP address and browser it came from. This is kept for up to 400 days, then deleted automatically, and exists solely to protect your account (recognising unusual activity) and to keep the Service secure against abuse.
• Technical: a session cookie so you stay signed in, and standard server logs (IP address, time, page) kept briefly for security.

We do not use advertising trackers or third-party analytics.

Counting visits. We count how many people open each page, so we know whether anyone is finding us. No cookie is set for this and your IP address is never stored. Instead it is turned into a one-way salted hash together with your browser type and the date, which changes every day, so the same person on two days cannot be recognised as the same person and nothing here can be traced back to you. We also keep the website you arrived from, as a bare domain name only, never the full address. These counts are deleted after 120 days. Nothing is shared with anyone.

3. What we use it for

• Running your heaven: showing your dog's star, memorial and vault.
• Composing personalised letters from the details you shared.
• Signing you in, resetting passwords, and telling you about your letters.
• Processing payments and managing your subscription, through Stripe.
• Keeping the Service safe (rate limiting, abuse prevention, and, if a payment is ever disputed, showing the payment processor that the charge, its price and your ability to cancel were properly disclosed and used).

We do not sell your data, and we do not share it with anyone except the service providers strictly needed to run the site: our hosting provider, Stripe for payments, and an email provider for account and transactional email. Each of these is bound to use your data only to provide their service to us.

The person who runs this Service can see account-level information (email, name, plan, when you joined, and the sign-in activity described above) in a private dashboard used to operate the Service; nobody else has this access, and it is never shared or sold.

3a. Our legal basis for using it

• To perform our contract with you: running your account, showing your dog's memorial, composing and delivering letters, and taking payment for a plan you chose.
• Our legitimate interests: keeping the Service secure and free of abuse, keeping records of sign-in activity and emails we sent, defending a payment dispute, and sending occasional messages about the Service to people who have an account. You can object to these at any time, and every marketing email can be stopped with one click.
• Legal obligation: keeping accounting and tax records where the law requires it.
• Consent: where we ask for it, for example the optional calendar connection. You can withdraw consent at any time.

Providing your email address and password is necessary to have an account. Everything else, including photos, stories and memories, is entirely your choice.

3b. Where your data goes

Our servers are in the European Union. Some of the providers we rely on are based in, or may process data in, the United States: Stripe (payments) and Google (the help desk and, if you switch language, translation). Where data reaches a country outside the EU/EEA, those transfers rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or an adequacy decision, as applicable. We do not transfer your data anywhere else.

4. What is public

Your dog's star in the shared sky, their name, public memorial page, public photos and your first name (shown as "lit by …") are visible to visitors. Written memories are private by default. Letters are always private to your account.

5. Cookies

We use one essential cookie (ep_session) to keep you signed in. If you choose a language other than English, a translation cookie (googtrans) remembers that choice for Google Translate. No marketing cookies, no cross-site tracking by us.

5a. Translation by Google

The interface is translated by our own built-in dictionaries. When you pick a language other than English, the personal content on a page (letters, stories, memories, candle messages) is additionally translated in your browser by Google Translate. This loads Google's translation service, which receives the text being translated and your IP address, subject to Google's privacy policy. If you keep English selected, nothing is ever sent to Google.

5b. The help desk

The chat on our Help page is answered automatically. What you type there, and the answer given back, are sent to Google (Gemini) to compose the reply, subject to Google's privacy policy. We do not send your name, email address or anything from your account with it, so please do not type passwords, card numbers or anything you would not want processed that way. We keep a count of how many answers were given and what they cost us, but not the conversations themselves. If you would rather write to a person, email info@lettersfromdogheaven.com.

6. How long we keep it

Your memorial is meant to shine forever, so we keep your content until you delete it or ask us to. Sessions expire automatically. Sign-in activity records are kept for up to 400 days and then deleted automatically, on a rolling basis; the same applies to our internal record of emails sent to you. Server logs are rotated within a short period. If you delete your account, your account data, dogs, letters, memories, candles and sign-in activity are removed from the live database immediately; backups age out on a rolling schedule (currently 30 days).

7. Your rights (GDPR)

If you are in the EU/EEA you can ask us for access to your data, a copy of it, correction, deletion, restriction of processing, or portability, and you can object to processing. Write to info@lettersfromdogheaven.com and we will respond within 30 days. You may also complain to your data protection authority (in Slovenia: Informacijski pooblaščenec).

You can exercise the most important rights yourself, instantly, in Settings: change your password, manage or cancel your plan, and permanently delete your account together with everything it holds.

8. Security

Passwords are stored with strong one-way hashing, access to data is limited, and user content is escaped everywhere it is displayed. No internet service can promise perfect security, but we treat this place, and what you have entrusted to it, with care.

9. Children

The Service is not directed at children under 16. If you believe a child has given us personal data, contact us and we will delete it.

10. Changes

If this policy changes in a meaningful way, we will say so on the site before the change takes effect.