Privacy Policy

What we collect

When you order we receive your name, email address, delivery address, the words you chose for the card, and what you bought. That is the whole list.

We never see your card number. Payment happens on a page hosted by Stripe, and what comes back to us is a confirmation, the last details needed for the receipt, and nothing you could pay with.

Your basket and your light or dark preference are stored by your own browser and stay there. Neither is sent to us as a basket. What does leave is the count described under visitor measurement: the product, its price and how many, with nothing attached that says who you are.

Visitor measurement

We use Google Analytics to count visits, see which pages people actually read, and follow the shape of a sale: a necklace added to a basket, a checkout started, an order finished. It sets a cookie and tells us things like which country you arrived from, roughly, and which page you landed on. It runs on every page of this shop.

Because it measures the sale, it is told which necklace and which options went into the basket and what the order came to. What it is never given is anything that identifies you to us: not your name, not your address, and not the words you chose for the card. We use it to answer questions like "is anyone finding the shop, and do baskets turn into orders", not to follow a person.

When you use the search box, the words you type are sent to Google Analytics along with how many necklaces matched them. We read that to find what people look for and cannot find, which is how the range gets better. It is the search term on its own, with nothing attached that says who typed it. It is not sent to Meta.

If you are in the European Economic Area, it sets no cookie at all. We tell Google to treat you as not having consented, so you are counted without being stored, and there is no banner to dismiss because there is nothing to agree to.

We also count page views with Umami, which runs on a server we rent and manage ourselves rather than on an analytics company's. It records the page you opened, the site that sent you here, your browser, device and screen size, your language, and roughly where you are, down to the city. It sets no cookie and stores nothing in your browser. Your IP address is used to work out that location and to tell one visit from another, and it is not saved. Page addresses are recorded without anything after a question mark, so the words in a search are not kept this way.

We also keep our own count of what goes into baskets, on our own server rather than Google's: which necklace, which options, what it costs and how many. It sets no cookie and carries nothing that says who you are. Not your name, not your address, not the words you chose for the card. We keep it for three months and then it is gone. It tells us which designs people actually want, which is a different question from which pages they opened.

When a search finds nothing, we also keep the words you typed, on our own server, so we can see what people come looking for and we do not sell. Searches that DO find something are not kept this way. It is the words on their own, with nothing attached that says who typed them, and it is gone after three months.

If you start typing names into one of our personalized necklaces and leave without adding it to your basket, we count that. Only that. The names you typed are not sent anywhere: they are drawn in your browser to show you how the necklace will look, and they reach us only if you place the order.

If you would rather not be counted by Google, any browser setting or extension that blocks Google Analytics works here, and nothing on this site behaves differently when you do. Google's own opt-out is at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. Our own basket count is part of this site rather than someone else's code, so a blocker does not stop it. What it records is the product and never the person.

Facebook and Instagram advertising

We advertise on Facebook and Instagram, and to know whether that is worth paying for we run Meta's measurement code on this shop. It sets a cookie of its own, called _fbp, and it tells Meta when a page is opened, when a necklace is looked at, when one is added to a basket and when a checkout is started. Once an order is paid for, our own server tells Meta what it came to and which country it is going to.

Your email address and the country are scrambled before they are sent, into a string that cannot be turned back into either. Meta are not told your name, your street address, your IP address, or the words you chose for the card.

They do learn which necklaces you look at and add to a basket, along with the price and the description shown on the page, because that is what the measurement is for and because Meta's code reads the page it is on. The message we send when an order is paid for carries only the total and the country, not a list of what was in it.

This is the part of the site that can follow you elsewhere. Meta may recognise you on Facebook or Instagram and show you our advertising there. That is what it is for, and it is the one thing on this site that works that way.

If you are in the European Economic Area, none of it happens. The code is never loaded, so no Meta cookie is set and nothing about your visit is sent. If an order is going to an address in the EEA, nothing is sent when it is paid for either. Not a scrambled version, not a count, nothing. We have no way for you to agree to it and no banner to ask you with, so the honest answer is not to run it.

Anywhere else, any browser setting or extension that blocks Meta works here, and nothing on this site behaves differently when you use one. Your Facebook ad settings also control what Meta does with it.

The review invitation

On the page you land on after paying, we offer you the chance to be sent a review survey by Google. Taking it is entirely your choice and nothing happens unless you opt in on that page.

To make the offer at all, that page sends Google your email address, your order reference, the country it is shipping to and the date we expect it to arrive. Nothing else goes with it: not your name, not your street address, not the words on your card and not which necklace you bought. If you opt in, Google emails you later and any rating you give is about us as a shop, not about a specific product.

If you do not opt in, Google does not email you. The offer appears only on that one page, only once, and never on any other part of this site.

If you leave without paying

The basket has an optional email box. Filling it in saves you typing your address again on the payment page, because we pass it to Stripe to fill that field in for you. Leaving it blank is fine and changes nothing about your order.

If you start paying and then leave without finishing, we are told that a basket was left behind and what it was worth. If you gave us an email address we keep it with that record. If you did not, there is nothing on it that says who you are.

Stripe gives us a link that would rebuild that basket, and it stops working after 30 days. We do not send any email about a basket left behind. If that ever changes, an address you typed into the box above is the only one we would have to send it to.

A basket left behind and the email list below are separate records. Signing up in the footer does not mean you will be emailed about a basket, and leaving a basket behind does not put you on the list.

The email list

There is a signup box in the footer of every page, and another on the page you reach after ordering. Both are optional, neither is filled in for you, and nothing on this site pops up to ask.

Typing an address into one of those boxes does not put you on the list. We store the address, which of the two boxes it came from, the time, and a one-way fingerprint of the network address it arrived from, and then we send one email asking whether you meant it. Only clicking the link in that email adds you. If you never click it, nothing is ever sent to you.

Every message from the list carries a link that takes you off it, and your email program's own unsubscribe button works as well. One click is enough, there is no form and no questions, and it works whether or not you ever confirmed. We keep the record that you asked to stop, because that is what stops you being added again by mistake.

The list is not sold, rented or shared with anyone. We keep your address for as long as you are on the list. If you leave, we keep the address on a do-not-send record rather than deleting it, because a deleted address is one that can be added again by the next person who types it into the box. Ask us and we will remove that record too.

An address you give at checkout is not on this list. That address is used to send your receipt and to tell you when your order ships, which is what you gave it to us for. It is never copied onto the list. The two are separate records and nothing moves between them.

The signup box runs a check that you are not a machine, handled by Cloudflare, who host this site. Almost every time it decides on its own and you see nothing at all. When it cannot tell, it shows you one box to tick. It sets no cookie, it does not follow you anywhere else, and nothing it collects goes to an advertiser. It is there because typing an address into that box makes us send an email, and without it somebody could point that at a stranger.

Asking a question

The round button in the bottom corner of every page opens a box for questions about this shop. What you type there, and the earlier questions and answers in that same conversation, go to our server and to an AI model run by Cloudflare, who host this site, so it can write an answer from this shop's own pages. The answer comes from that model rather than a person, and it can be wrong.

We keep no copy of the conversation, and nothing about it is saved in your browser: it is gone when you leave the page. What we keep is a count of questions asked and of the ones it could not answer, with nothing attached that says who asked, for three months.

When it cannot answer, you can leave your question with your email address so a person can reply. We keep that question and address for 90 days and then delete them. The address is used to answer you and nothing else: it is not the email list and it is never added to it. The box runs the same check that you are not a machine as the signup box, handled by Cloudflare.

What we do not do

Beyond the measurement, the advertising and the invitation described above, there is no session recorder and nothing that reads what you type before you send it: we checked, and the words you put on a card do not leave your browser until you order. We do not sell or rent your details, we do not build a profile of you ourselves, and we do not send marketing email unless you have asked for it and confirmed it by clicking a link we sent you. That last promise is load bearing rather than a description of a shop that sends nothing: the list described above exists, and this sentence is what governs it.

Who else handles your order

Six companies see part of it, each because they do a job we cannot:

• Stripe takes the payment and holds the card details we never see. They also get your email and address to check the payment is genuine.
• Our fulfillment partner makes the necklace and posts it, so they get the delivery name and address and the artwork for your card.
• Cloudflare host this site, the order records and the printed card artwork.
• Google get your email address, order reference, delivery country and expected arrival date, and only those, so they can offer you the review survey described above. They get nothing at all if you never reach the confirmation page.
• Pinterest are told that an order happened, what it was worth and which country it is going to, so we can see whether the pins we post lead anywhere. Your email address and the country are scrambled first, into a string that cannot be turned back into either. They are not told your name, your address, or what you had written on the card. Nothing is sent until an order is paid for, and nothing about browsing this site reaches them at all.
• Meta, who run Facebook and Instagram, are told when you add something to your basket and when you start checking out, and separately, once an order is paid for, what it was worth and which country it is going to. Your email address and the country are scrambled first, into a string that cannot be turned back into either. They also receive the identifier their own cookie put in your browser, and the name and version of the browser itself. They are not told your name, your address, your IP address, which necklace you bought, or what you had written on the card.
• If your order is going anywhere in the European Economic Area, Pinterest are told nothing. Not a scrambled version, not a count, nothing. We have no way for you to agree to it and no banner to ask you with, so the honest answer is not to send it. Orders to the United Kingdom are sent, on the same basis as the visitor counting described further up this page.

That means your details leave New Zealand. The workshop that makes and posts your necklace is in the United States, and the payment and hosting companies operate across several countries. There is no way to make the necklace otherwise.

The words on your card

The To and From lines are stored with your order and sent to the workshop, because they get printed. They are treated as part of the order and nothing else. We do not read them for any other purpose, and they are never used in marketing without asking you first.

How long we keep it

Order records are kept for seven years, which is what New Zealand tax law requires of business records. Card artwork is removed once the order has been delivered and the window for a remake has passed.

Your rights

Under the Privacy Act 2020 you can ask what we hold about you and have anything wrong corrected. Email hello@ashbyhousestudio.com and we will answer within 20 working days, which is the limit the Act sets.

You can ask us to delete your details. We will, except for the order records tax law requires us to keep, and we will tell you exactly what is staying and why.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled it, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at privacy.org.nz.

Contact

hello@ashbyhousestudio.com. A person reads it.