Privacy Policy

About This Policy

FurSlot is booking, no-show deposit, and client management software built for professional dog groomers in the United States. This Privacy Policy explains what information the service collects, why it is collected, who it is shared with, how long it is kept, and what choices you have. It applies to furslot.com, the FurSlot web application, and the public booking pages that groomers publish for their own clients. FurSlot is operated from the State of Utah, and the service is intended for use by businesses located in the United States.

Two different kinds of people read this policy. The first is a groomer: the business owner or staff member who signs up for a FurSlot account and uses the software to run a grooming business. The second is a client: the pet owner who books an appointment on a groomer’s booking page or whose details a groomer enters into the software. The sections below make clear which of the two is being described, because FurSlot’s responsibilities are different for each.

Your use of the service is also governed by our Terms of Use. If you have a question about anything in this policy, write to us at hello@furslot.com and a person will answer you.

Our Two Roles

FurSlot plays two distinct roles, and understanding the difference explains almost everything else in this policy. For a groomer’s own account information, which includes the account email address, password, shop name, city, business settings, plan, and billing status, FurSlot is the controller (called the “business” under California law). We decide why that information is collected and how it is used, and the commitments in this policy are ours to keep directly to the groomer.

For the client and pet records that a groomer enters or receives through their booking page, FurSlot is a service provider and processor acting on that groomer’s behalf. The groomer is the controller of those records. We store and process them to deliver the software the groomer is paying for, and we act on the groomer’s instructions. We do not use a groomer’s client and pet records for our own purposes, we do not market to a groomer’s clients, and we do not combine one groomer’s client list with another’s.

This means the groomer is responsible for their own relationship with their clients. Each groomer is responsible for giving their clients appropriate notice of how the grooming business collects and uses information, for collecting valid consent where consent is required, including consent to receive text message reminders, and for making sure the records they enter are accurate and lawfully obtained. If you are a pet owner and you want to see, correct, or delete the records a grooming business holds about you, contact that grooming business first. FurSlot will assist the groomer in responding, as described in the section on your rights.

Information We Collect

Groomer account information. When a groomer creates an account we collect an email address, a password, the shop name, the city the business operates in, and the timezone. As the groomer configures the software we also store business hours, the list of services offered, the per breed price and duration matrix, deposit and cancellation fee settings, and the current plan and billing status of the account.

Client and pet records. These are entered by the groomer or submitted by a pet owner through the groomer’s public booking page. They include the client name, mobile phone number, pet name, breed, coat condition, appointment history, notes the groomer writes about the pet or the visit, vaccination notes, and whether the client agreed to receive SMS appointment reminders.

Payment information. FurSlot never stores full card numbers. All card data is collected and held by Stripe, our payment processor. What FurSlot receives and stores is limited to whether a card is on file, the last four digits of that card, and the status of a payment or subscription.

Technical information. Our hosting infrastructure keeps standard server logs, which include information such as the requested address, timestamps, and general request metadata. We also keep limited aggregated usage data. Both exist for reliability, troubleshooting, and abuse prevention. FurSlot does not run third party advertising, does not use cross site tracking technology, and does not sell personal information.

How We Use Information

We use groomer account information to create and secure the account, to authenticate sign in attempts, to render the dashboard and booking page correctly for the shop’s hours and timezone, to calculate prices and appointment durations from the breed matrix, to bill the correct plan, and to send necessary service messages such as password resets and billing notices.

We use client and pet records only to operate the features the groomer has chosen: showing available times on the booking page, creating and updating appointments, calculating a breed aware price and duration, holding or charging a deposit or cancellation fee according to the groomer’s settings, sending the appointment reminder the client consented to receive, and giving the groomer the history and notes they need to serve the pet safely.

We use technical information to keep the service available, to investigate errors and outages, to detect and stop abuse such as automated signup attempts or fraudulent bookings, and to understand aggregate usage patterns so we can improve the product. We do not use this information to build advertising profiles.

We do not use personal information to train third party artificial intelligence models, and we do not disclose client or pet records to anyone other than the subprocessors listed below that are necessary to deliver the service.

Legal Bases for Processing

FurSlot is a United States service and most of the personal information we handle is governed by state privacy laws rather than by a formal lawful basis framework. Where a law that requires a stated legal basis applies to a particular individual, the bases we rely on are set out here so that our reasoning is on the record.

We process groomer account information because it is necessary to perform the contract between FurSlot and the groomer, as described in our Terms of Use. We process client and pet records on the documented instructions of the groomer, who is the controller of that information and is responsible for establishing its own basis with its clients. We rely on consent for SMS appointment reminders, captured at the time of booking. We rely on our legitimate interests in operating a secure and reliable service for server logs, abuse prevention, and aggregated usage measurement. We rely on legal obligation for the retention of financial and tax records.

Where we rely on consent, that consent can be withdrawn at any time without affecting anything already done on the basis of it. A client can withdraw consent to SMS reminders by replying STOP to any message, and a groomer can turn reminders off for any client from the dashboard.

Data and Compliance: Why Each Category Exists and How Long We Keep It

Account email address and password. The email address identifies the account, is the address we send password resets and service notices to, and is the address a groomer signs in with. Passwords are stored only as scrypt hashes and are never stored in a form that can be read back. Purpose: authentication and account administration. Retention: for the life of the account, then erased under the schedule in the deletion section below.

Shop name, city, timezone, business hours, and service list. These exist to make the software behave correctly. The timezone and business hours determine which appointment slots are offered and when reminders are sent. The shop name and city appear on the public booking page so a client knows they are booking with the right business. The service list defines what a client can book. Purpose: delivery of the booking feature. Retention: for the life of the account.

Per breed price and duration matrix, deposit settings, and cancellation fee settings. A breed aware quote is the core of the product: it is how a groomer prices a double coated breed differently from a smooth coated one, and how the calendar reserves the right amount of time. Deposit and cancellation settings determine what a client is told and charged when they book. Purpose: pricing accuracy, scheduling accuracy, and honest disclosure to the client at the moment of booking. Retention: for the life of the account.

Client name, mobile phone number, pet name, breed, and coat condition. The name identifies who is arriving. The breed and coat condition drive the price and the appointment length and tell the groomer what to expect on the table. The mobile phone number exists for one narrow reason: to send the appointment reminder the client agreed to receive, and to let the groomer reach the client about their appointment. Purpose: running the appointment. Retention: as long as the groomer keeps the record, and no longer than the life of the groomer’s account.

Appointment history, groomer notes, and vaccination notes. Appointment history lets a groomer see what was done last time and quote consistently. Notes and vaccination notes are the groomer’s working record of the animal, covering matters such as handling requirements, sensitivities, and proof of vaccination that a shop may be required to keep. Purpose: continuity of service, animal safety, and the groomer’s own recordkeeping obligations. Retention: controlled by the groomer, who may delete any record at any time.

SMS consent records. When a client agrees to receive reminders we record that agreement. Purpose: this is the evidence that the message was requested, which is what telephone consumer protection rules require the sending business to be able to show. Retention: for as long as the client record exists, and, because it is a compliance record, for a reasonable period after any opt out so that the opt out itself can be proven.

Payment status, card on file indicator, and last four digits. The card on file indicator tells the groomer whether a deposit can be taken. The last four digits let a groomer and a client identify which card was used without exposing the card. Payment status shows whether a deposit or fee succeeded. Purpose: operating deposits and subscription billing. Retention: transaction and financial records are kept for as long as required by tax and accounting law, which is generally seven (7) years.

Server logs and aggregated usage data. These exist to keep the service running and to stop abuse, not to profile anyone. Purpose: reliability, security, and fraud prevention. Retention: a limited period, generally no longer than twelve (12) months, after which logs are discarded or retained only in aggregated form that does not identify an individual.

Payments and Card Data

All card data is handled by Stripe. When a client enters a card to secure an appointment with a deposit, or when a groomer enters a card to pay for their FurSlot subscription, that card information goes to Stripe and is stored by Stripe under its own security program and its own privacy policy. FurSlot does not receive, transmit, or store full card numbers, expiration dates, or security codes.

Deposits and cancellation fees are charged directly to the groomer’s connected Stripe account, which means the groomer is the merchant of record for money their clients pay them. FurSlot receives only the limited status information described above. Disputes and refunds relating to a deposit or a cancellation fee are between the client and the grooming business, with Stripe handling the underlying payment mechanics.

Because Stripe is a regulated payment processor, it retains its own records of transactions under its own legal and regulatory retention obligations. Closing a FurSlot account does not erase Stripe’s transaction records, and FurSlot cannot delete them on your behalf.

SMS Reminders and Consent

FurSlot can send a text message appointment reminder to a client. Consent to receive that message is captured at the time of booking, either on the public booking page or by the groomer recording that the client agreed. No reminder is sent to a client who has not given consent. We send one reminder per appointment. FurSlot does not send marketing, promotional, or bulk text messages, and the reminder feature may not be used to send them.

A client may opt out at any time by replying STOP to any message, which stops further messages to that number. Replying HELP returns help information and a way to reach support. Message and data rates may apply, and message frequency depends on how many appointments the client books. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.

The groomer is responsible for the accuracy of the consent they collect and for the accuracy of the phone number they enter. A groomer must not enter a phone number for a client who has not agreed to be contacted, must not reuse a number collected for another purpose, and must honor any opt out request a client makes to them directly, including by removing the number from the record. FurSlot processes these messages on the groomer’s instruction and relies on the groomer’s representation that consent was properly obtained.

Text messages are delivered through Twilio. Twilio retains message logs, including the destination number and delivery status, under carrier requirements and applicable regulatory obligations. Those logs are held by Twilio under its own retention schedule and are not erased by deleting a record in FurSlot.

Cookies and Sessions

FurSlot uses a single category of cookie: a session cookie that keeps a groomer signed in. It is a stateless cookie signed with an HMAC, which means it carries a signed identifier of the account and an issue time rather than a lookup key into a tracking database. Its only function is authentication. Without it, a groomer would have to enter their password on every page.

We do not use advertising cookies, analytics cookies that follow you to other websites, pixels, fingerprinting, or any other cross site tracking technology. There are no third party trackers embedded in the FurSlot application or in a groomer’s public booking page. Because we do not track across sites, there is no cross context behavioral advertising to opt out of.

Signing out clears the session cookie. Sessions also expire on their own, and changing an account password invalidates outstanding password reset links for that account.

How We Share Information and Our Subprocessors

We do not sell personal information, we do not share it for cross context behavioral advertising, and we do not rent, trade, or otherwise disclose it to data brokers or advertisers. The only routine disclosures are to the service providers below, each of which performs a specific function that the software depends on and each of which is bound to use the information only to provide that service to us.

Stripe processes payments, deposits, cancellation fees, and subscription billing, and holds all card data. Twilio delivers SMS appointment reminders and therefore receives the destination phone number and the message content. Resend delivers transactional email such as password resets, booking confirmations, and account notices, and therefore receives the recipient email address and message content. Supabase hosts the database in which account records, client and pet records, and appointments are stored. Vercel hosts and serves the application itself and generates the server logs described above.

Beyond those providers, we may disclose information when we are required to do so by law, by valid legal process, or by a lawful government request; when disclosure is necessary to investigate suspected fraud, abuse, or a threat to the safety of any person; or to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims, including enforcing our Terms of Use. If FurSlot is ever involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, account information may be transferred as part of that transaction, and the recipient would remain bound by the commitments in this policy for information transferred.

Our subprocessors may store or process information on infrastructure located in the United States and, in some cases, elsewhere. Each is engaged under terms that require appropriate confidentiality and security protections.

Data Retention and Deletion

Account data is erased within thirty (30) days of account closure or of a verified deletion request, except where longer retention is required by law or is necessary for the specific reasons named in this section. The exceptions are narrow and real: tax and financial records that must be kept to meet accounting and tax obligations, which are generally retained for seven (7) years; records needed to resolve an open dispute or to establish, exercise, or defend a legal claim; records needed to enforce our agreements, including unpaid amounts under the Terms of Use; records needed to detect, investigate, or prevent fraud and abuse; and records we are otherwise legally required to keep. Anything retained under one of these exceptions is limited to what the exception actually requires and is deleted once it no longer applies.

A groomer does not have to wait for account closure to remove information. Individual client records, pet records, and appointment records can be deleted at any time directly from the dashboard, and a deletion there removes the record from the groomer’s working data. A groomer can close the entire account from Account Settings, which begins the thirty (30) day erasure described above for the account and the records under it.

Backups are retained on a rolling basis for disaster recovery and are overwritten in the ordinary course. Information that has been deleted from the live system may persist briefly in backups until that rotation completes, and it is not restored to the live system except as part of a full recovery from an outage.

Two categories are outside our control and are worth stating plainly. Stripe retains its own transaction records under its own legal and regulatory retention obligations, and closing a FurSlot account does not erase them. Twilio retains message logs under carrier and regulatory requirements, and those logs remain subject to Twilio’s retention schedule after a record is deleted in FurSlot.

Security

Passwords are stored only as scrypt hashes with per account salts and are compared using a constant time comparison, so the plain text password is never written to our database and cannot be recovered from it, not even by us. Sessions are carried in cryptographically signed cookies, which means a session token cannot be forged or altered without invalidating the signature. Completing a password reset invalidates every outstanding reset link for that account.

The application enforces per shop data isolation. Every write and every read of personal information is scoped to the account identified by the signed session, not to any identifier supplied in a web address or a form submission. One shop cannot read, edit, or delete another shop’s clients, pets, appointments, or settings. Where a business has staff accounts, access is validated against the owning account before any record is returned.

All traffic between your browser and FurSlot is protected by TLS encryption in transit. Card data is confined to Stripe and never enters our systems, which removes an entire category of risk from our environment. Access to production systems is limited to the personnel who need it to operate the service.

We describe our security honestly. FurSlot does not hold SOC 2, ISO 27001, or any comparable certification, and does not claim to be HIPAA compliant. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, and we do not promise that the service is immune from every possible attack. If we become aware of a security incident affecting personal information, we will investigate it, take steps to contain it, and notify affected users and any authority as required by applicable law.

Your Rights

Subject to applicable law and to the verification steps described below, you may ask us to give you access to the personal information we hold about you and to tell you the categories, sources, purposes, and recipients involved; to correct information that is inaccurate; to delete information we hold about you; and to provide a copy of information you gave us in a portable, machine readable format so that you can move it elsewhere. You also have the right to be free from retaliation or discriminatory treatment for exercising any of these rights.

You have the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information. Stated plainly: FurSlot does not sell personal information and does not share personal information for cross context behavioral advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of. We have not sold or shared personal information in the preceding twelve (12) months, and we do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for any purpose beyond what is necessary to provide the service.

How to make a request depends on which of our two roles applies. If you are a groomer, contact us at hello@furslot.com and we will handle your request directly as the controller of your account information. You can also exercise most of these rights yourself at any time from the dashboard and Account Settings. If you are a client of a groomer, direct your request to the grooming business that holds your records, because that business is the controller of them. FurSlot will assist that groomer in locating, correcting, exporting, or deleting your records, but we will not act on a client’s records without the groomer’s instruction, since doing otherwise would let a stranger alter a business’s records.

We verify requests before acting on them, using information we already hold rather than asking for new documents, and we will not ask for more information than is reasonably necessary to confirm who you are. We respond within the timeframe required by applicable law, and we will tell you if we need an extension and why. You may use an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf where the law allows it, and we may ask the agent for proof of authority.

California Privacy Rights

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act gives you the rights described above: the right to know what personal information we collect, use, and disclose and for what purposes; the right to delete personal information; the right to correct inaccurate personal information; the right to data portability; the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information; the right to limit the use of sensitive personal information; and the right not to be discriminated against for exercising any of them.

The categories of personal information we collect are set out in detail in the section on information we collect, and the business purpose for each category and its retention period are set out in the Data and Compliance section. The categories of third parties to whom we disclose personal information for a business purpose are our service providers, named individually in the sharing section. We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross context behavioral advertising, and we have not done so in the preceding twelve (12) months.

Where FurSlot acts as a service provider to a groomer, which is the case for all client and pet records, we process that information only to perform the services specified in our agreement with the groomer. We do not retain, use, or disclose it for any other purpose, we do not combine it with personal information received from other sources except as permitted by law, and we do not sell or share it.

To exercise a California right, write to hello@furslot.com with the request you want to make. We will acknowledge receipt, verify your identity in proportion to the sensitivity of the request, and respond within the statutory period. If we decline a request in whole or in part, we will tell you why.

Children's Privacy

FurSlot is a business tool sold to professional grooming businesses. It is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under the age of thirteen (13). A person creating a FurSlot account must be an adult acting for a business, as set out in our Terms of Use.

Groomers must not enter personal information about a child into client records. A booking should be made in the name of the adult responsible for the appointment and the payment. Notes about a pet should describe the animal and the service, not a minor.

If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under thirteen (13), we will delete it promptly. If you believe a child’s information has been entered into the service, write to hello@furslot.com and we will investigate and remove it.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as the product changes, as we add or replace a service provider, or as the law changes. When we do, we will revise the effective date shown on this page. The version posted here is always the version in force.

If a change materially affects how we handle personal information, for example a new category of information collected, a new purpose for existing information, or a new subprocessor with access to client records, we will give account holders advance notice by email to the address on the account or by a prominent notice inside the application before the change takes effect.

Continuing to use FurSlot after a change takes effect means the updated policy applies to you. If you do not agree with a change, you may close your account from Account Settings, and the deletion terms described above will apply.

How to Contact Us

For any privacy question, request, or complaint, write to hello@furslot.com. This is the address monitored for privacy matters, including requests to access, correct, delete, or export personal information, and questions about anything in this policy. Please tell us what you are asking for and which account or grooming business it relates to, so that we can find the right records without asking you for extra personal details.

If you are a pet owner asking about records held by a grooming business, contact that business first, because they control those records. If you cannot reach them, or if you have already tried and did not get a response, write to us and we will do what we can to help route your request to the right place.

FurSlot is operated from the State of Utah, United States. Where you have the right to complain to a regulator about how your personal information has been handled, you may do so, and we would appreciate the chance to resolve the issue with you first.