Privacy Policy

The short version

There are no accounts, no logins, and no newsletter. The only place the site asks for personal information is the optional contact form, described below. It has no database of its own.

It does load Google Analytics and Google AdSense on every page, and those two do collect information about your visit. The sections below say exactly what.

Google Analytics

Every page loads Google Analytics 4, property G-Z7G87YTF92. It records which pages you view, how long you stay, and roughly where you are, based on your IP address. It also records your device type, browser, screen size, and how you arrived at the site. It sets cookies in your browser to recognise repeat visits.

On top of that automatic collection, this site deliberately sends Google Analytics an event when you do certain things:

• Run a search on the site — the text you typed is sent.
• Look up a ZIP code or region in the planting calendar — the text you typed is sent.
• Use the "use my location" button in the regional finder — the site works out which state or province you are in and sends only that. Your coordinates are not transmitted.
• Open a species guide, click an affiliate link, share a page, or download or print a resource.
• Open a sanctuary's map or website from the sanctuary directory — the name of the sanctuary and which link you used are sent.

On location specifically: if you press "use my location" and grant the browser permission, your device gives the page your coordinates, the page converts them to a state or province, and only that two-letter code leaves your browser. The coordinates themselves are never sent anywhere and are not stored. Declining the permission prompt sends nothing at all.

You can stop all of this with a tracking blocker, or with Google's own opt-out browser add-on.

Google AdSense

Every page loads Google AdSense under publisher ID ca-pub-2126447226061786. Google uses cookies and similar technology to serve and measure advertising, and depending on your settings and location, to personalise which ads you see.

Google explains what it collects, and lets you turn personalised advertising off, at its Ads Settings page. Doing that does not remove ads; it changes how they are chosen.

Other services that see your IP address

Loading any page means requesting files from a few other places, and each of those requests reveals your IP address and browser to the company serving them:

• Google Fonts — typefaces are served from fonts.googleapis.com and fonts.gstatic.com.
• Unsplash — most photographs on the site are served from images.unsplash.com.
• The host — the site itself is served from a content delivery network, which keeps standard server logs.

The contact form

When you submit the contact form, the name, email address, topic and message you enter are sent from your browser to this site's server. From there they go to two places: they are emailed to hi@raisingabutterfly.com using Brevo, an email delivery service, and saved as a record in Airtable, an online database, so that a message is not lost if one of the two is unavailable. Brevo and Airtable process this data on the site's behalf, under their own privacy policies. Brevo is based in France and Airtable in the United States.

Nothing else is collected by the form: it sets no cookies, loads no third-party script, and does not record your IP address. Your details are used only to reply to you, are never added to a mailing list, and are kept only as long as they are useful to answer you. To have your message and details deleted, email hi@raisingabutterfly.com.

Things kept only in your browser

A few features save data locally so they survive a page refresh. This data stays in your browser's local storage, is never transmitted to the site, and is not readable by anyone else:

• Your recent searches on the site — the most recent 50, used to show search history.
• Release records you enter in the butterfly release logger, including the raiser or organisation name, dates, species, and any coordinates you enter or autofill.
• Your high score in the caterpillar arcade game.

Clearing your browser's site data for this domain deletes all of it permanently. The release logger contents are not backed up anywhere, so export anything you want to keep before you clear it.

Children

This site is written for the adults who run butterfly projects — teachers, parents, homeschoolers, camp and club leaders — not for children. It does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13.

If you believe a child has sent personal information through the contact form, email hi@raisingabutterfly.com and it will be deleted.

Your choices

• Use a tracking or ad blocker, or your browser's privacy settings, to stop the analytics and advertising scripts loading at all.
• Install Google's Analytics opt-out browser add-on.
• Turn off personalised advertising in Google's Ads Settings.
• Decline the browser location prompt, or simply do not use the "use my location" button.
• Clear this site's data in your browser to delete everything stored locally.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to ask what personal data is held about you, to have it corrected or deleted, or to object to its processing. Because this site holds nothing about you itself, most such requests are really about Google, and are best made to Google directly.

For anything in an email you have sent, or to ask a question about this policy, write to hi@raisingabutterfly.com. This policy is governed by the law of Ontario, Canada.

Changes to this policy

If what the site collects changes, this page changes with it, and the effective date above is updated. There is no mailing list to notify, so the date is the thing to check.