Effective date: October 21, 2026
Guinea Pig Haven (“we,” “us,” “our”) is a guinea pig care website at https://guineapighaven.com, owned and operated by Marlinda Davis in North Carolina, USA. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect when you visit our site, how we use it, and the choices you have. We keep data collection to what we need to run and improve the site.
Information We Collect
Information you give us
- Comments: your name, email address, optional website, and comment text. We also collect your IP address and browser user agent to help detect spam.
- Contact form messages: your name, email address, and whatever you write in your message.
Information collected automatically
- Usage and device information: pages you visit, how long you stay, how you arrived (for example, from a search engine or Pinterest), your approximate location (city or region level), browser, device type, and similar technical details. This is collected through cookies and similar technologies, mainly by Google Analytics.
We do not ask for or knowingly collect sensitive information such as financial or health data about you.
How We Use Your Information
- To publish and moderate comments
- To reply to messages you send us
- To understand which content is helpful so we can improve the site
- To keep the site secure and protect it from spam and abuse
- To meet legal obligations
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.
Cookies are small files stored on your device. Guinea Pig Haven uses:
- Comment cookies: if you choose to save your name, email and website when commenting, these are stored for one year so you don’t have to retype them.
- Analytics cookies: set by Google Analytics to measure site visits and usage (see below).
- Affiliate cookies: if you click an Amazon affiliate link, Amazon may set a cookie on its own site to credit us for qualifying purchases (see Affiliate Links below).
- Embedded content cookies: set by services such as YouTube or Pinterest when their content is embedded on a page (see below).
- Site administration cookies: used only by people who log in to manage the site.
You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Blocking some cookies may affect how parts of the site work.
Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics 4, connected through Google Site Kit, to understand how visitors use our site. Google Analytics uses cookies to collect information such as the pages you visit, time on page, referring sites, device and browser type, and approximate location. Google processes this data on our behalf to provide reports; we do not use it to identify you personally.
- Learn how Google uses data from sites that use its services: https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites
- Opt out of Google Analytics on all websites with Google’s browser add-on: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout
Affiliate Links
Some pages contain affiliate links, including links to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, Guinea Pig Haven earns from qualifying purchases. When you click an affiliate link, the retailer may use cookies to track that the visit came from our site. We do not receive your name, payment details or other personal information from retailers. Their use of your data is covered by their own privacy policies. See our Affiliate Disclosure for details.
Embedded Content From Other Websites
Articles may include embedded content such as YouTube videos or Pinterest pins. Embedded content behaves exactly as if you visited the other website. Those sites may collect data about you, use cookies, add their own tracking, and monitor your interaction with the embedded content, especially if you are logged in to an account with them.
Comments and Gravatar
An anonymized string created from your email address (called a hash) may be sent to the Gravatar service to check whether you use it. Gravatar’s privacy policy is at https://automattic.com/privacy/. After your comment is approved, your profile picture is visible publicly next to your comment.
Comments may be checked by an automated spam detection service, such as Akismet.
Images on the Site
If you upload images to the website, avoid images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS). Visitors to the site can download and extract location data from images.
We share information only as needed to run the site:
- Service providers: our web host, Google (Analytics), Automattic (Gravatar and spam checking) and our contact form provider, which process data on our behalf.
- Legal reasons: if required by law, or to protect the rights, safety or security of Guinea Pig Haven, our visitors or others.
- Password resets: if you request a password reset, your IP address is included in the reset email.
We do not sell or rent your personal information.
How Long We Keep Information
- Comments: kept indefinitely, along with their metadata, so we can recognize and approve follow-up comments automatically.
- Contact form messages: kept only as long as needed to respond and for reasonable record-keeping, then deleted.
- Analytics data: kept according to our Google Analytics retention setting of 14 months.
- Registered users (if any): profile information is kept until the account is deleted. Users can view, edit or delete their personal information at any time, except their username.
Your Choices and Rights
You can:
- Ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you
- Ask us to correct or delete your personal data
- Opt out of Google Analytics using the add-on linked above, or block cookies in your browser
Depending on where you live, including certain US states and the EU/UK, you may have additional rights, such as the right to know what we collect, to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal data (we do neither), or to appeal a decision about your request. To make a request, use our Contact page and include the email address you used on our site. We may need to verify your request, and we will respond within the time required by applicable law. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.
Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control: many browsers offer a “Do Not Track” setting. There is no common standard for responding to it, so our site does not currently change its behavior based on it. Where required by law, we treat a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal as a request to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal data.
Visitors From Outside the United States
Guinea Pig Haven is operated in the United States. If you visit from another country, your information will be processed in the United States, where data protection laws may differ from yours. Where EU or UK law applies, we rely on your consent (for analytics cookies) and our legitimate interest in running and securing the site (for comments and spam protection).
Children’s Privacy
Guinea Pig Haven is written for adults caring for guinea pigs. It is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has submitted personal information through our site, please contact us and we will delete it.
How We Protect Information
We use reasonable safeguards, including a secure (HTTPS) connection, to protect information. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.
Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy as our site grows, for example if we add an email newsletter or new tools. When we do, we’ll change the effective date at the top of this page. Significant changes will be noted on this page.
Contact Us
Questions or requests about this Privacy Policy? Reach us through our Contact page at https://guineapighaven.com/contact/.