Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 30, 2026

This policy explains what information SearchPetVets ("we," "us") collects, why, and how it's used and protected. SearchPetVets is a directory connecting pet owners with local veterinary clinics, groomers, and other pet-service providers.

Information we collect

• Business listing information — practice name, address, phone number, hours, services offered, and similar public business details, sourced from public directories (e.g. Google) or provided directly by the business when they claim their listing.
• Vendor account information — when a business claims its listing, we collect an email address and a securely hashed password, tied to that business's listing.
• Appointment request information — when a pet owner submits an appointment request to a practice, we collect the pet owner's name, email, phone number, and details of their request (service of interest, preferred days/times, notes) in order to relay the request to the practice.
• An automated summary of your request — we generate a short bullet summary of what you wrote so the practice's front desk can read it quickly. It is produced from your own words and is never a diagnosis.
• Symptom-checker text — what you type into our symptom-checker is sent to our AI provider to classify how urgently your animal may need care, and then discarded. We do not store it and it is not linked to you. We do apply a short-term, per-IP rate limit to prevent abuse.
• Whether the visit happened — the day after a scheduled appointment we may text the practice and email the pet owner to ask whether the visit took place. Answering is optional.
• Coupon/specials information — a phone number, used to issue and verify one-time discount codes if a pet owner claims a promotional offer.
• Reviews — if a pet owner submits a review, we collect the review text, a rating, and the information they choose to provide about their visit. Reviews are moderated before publication and are public once approved.
• Financial-assistance applications — only if you apply for help with veterinary costs, we collect your name and contact details, your city/state/ZIP, your animal's details, a description of the condition, a cost estimate, and your income range and insurance status. These applications are kept confidential and are never published.
• Standard server logs — IP address, browser type, and pages requested, for security, abuse prevention, and reliability.

What we don't do

• We do not use third-party advertising cookies, pixels, or trackers. There is no advertising pixel and no analytics tag on this site. (We do load web fonts from Google Fonts, which means Google's servers receive your IP address as part of delivering those font files. That is the extent of it.)
• We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with third parties for their own marketing.
• We do not store what you type into the symptom-checker.

How we use this information

• To connect pet owners with practices and relay appointment requests and replies (by email and/or SMS).
• To let a business verify ownership of and manage its own listing (via a one-time SMS verification code sent to the phone number already on file for that listing).
• To issue and verify one-time discount codes.
• To assess financial-assistance applications and, where appropriate, share them with veterinarians or charity partners who have offered to help.
• To operate, maintain, and improve the directory and search experience.

Your animal's health information and HIPAA

HIPAA does not apply here, and that is a category difference rather than a gap. HIPAA protects human health information held by health care providers and health plans. Information about your dog, cat, horse, or livestock is not human health information. We are also not a veterinary practice, so we hold no veterinary medical records — records your veterinarian keeps are governed by their own professional and state-law obligations.

SMS messaging

Program name: SearchPetVets Notifications. We send two kinds of text messages, each triggered by an action you take on the site: (1) a one-time appointment-request notification to a practice when a pet owner submits a request through the site, and (2) a one-time verification code when a business claims or logs into its listing. Message frequency: one message per appointment request or per login/claim attempt — this is not a recurring or marketing message program. Message and data rates may apply. For help, reply HELP or contact us at the address below. To stop receiving messages, reply STOP at any time.

Sharing

• The practice you choose — your appointment request, including your contact details, goes to that practice so they can respond. What they do with it afterwards is governed by their own privacy practices, not ours.
• Service providers necessary to operate the platform — our SMS provider (to deliver text messages), our email provider, our payment processor, and our AI provider (for the symptom-checker and request summaries) — solely to perform those functions on our behalf.
• Charity partners and participating veterinarians, only if you apply for financial assistance, and only so they can consider your application.
• Legal reasons — if required by law, or to protect our rights and the safety of our users.
• We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with third parties for their own marketing purposes.

Links to other sites

When you click through to an outside site — a telehealth service, a charity, or any other partner — you leave SearchPetVets and that organization's privacy policy applies, not ours. We may record that the click happened, and we may be compensated for it; where that's the case we disclose it next to the link itself. We do not send them your appointment details or your symptom-checker text.

Data retention

We keep information only as long as we need it, then delete or anonymize it:

• Appointment requests — 24 months, so a practice can follow up and so we can resolve any dispute about what was sent.
• Reviews — for as long as they are published.
• Financial-assistance applications — 24 months after a decision.
• Server logs — up to 12 months.
• Symptom-checker text — not retained at all.
• Records we must keep by law (for example, tax and payment records) are kept for the period the law requires.

Your choices and rights

• Ask us to access, correct, or delete information you've submitted — including requests, reviews, and applications — by contacting us below.
• Opt out of emails using the link in any email, and out of texts by replying STOP.
• Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights to access, correct, delete, or port your personal information, and to appeal if we decline a request. Contact us and we will honor them. We will not charge you or treat you differently for exercising them.

Security

Traffic is encrypted in transit, and vendor passwords are stored only as secure hashes, never in readable form. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable measures to protect your information.

Adults only

The service is intended for adults aged 18 and over. It is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If we learn that we have, we delete it promptly.

Changes

We may update this policy. Material changes will be posted here with a new "Last updated" date.

Contact us

Questions about this policy, or to exercise a right described above, can be sent to support@searchpetvets.com.