Privacy Policy
This policy explains how Illustrated You collects, uses, shares, protects, and deletes information when you visit illustratedyou.com, join our waitlist, create an account, contact support, or order a personalized pet book — either directly from us or through Amazon.
Information we collect
Website and waitlist: your email address, signup time, unsubscribe status, and limited technical information such as browser, device, referring page, pages viewed, and performance measurements. We also keep our own record of the pages you view and the steps you take here, tied to a random visitor id in a cookie — see Site activity and your visitor id below.
Orders and personalization: the pet photos, pet name, dedication, and other personalization you submit, the order reference, and fulfillment status.
Orders placed on this site: the email address you enter at checkout and the shipping name and address needed to deliver the book. Stripe processes the payment — your card details go directly to Stripe and we never receive or store your card number. We keep an identifier for the payment so we can match a refund to the right order.
Orders placed on Amazon: the personalization you submit through the listing plus the order reference and shipping information Amazon provides us to fulfill it. Amazon processes that payment and we do not receive your full payment-card number.
Account: if you create one, your email address, a password we store only as a one-way hash, and the sign-in sessions attached to it. An account is optional; you can order without one.
Photos of the finished book: if you choose to send us one after your book arrives, we keep the photo and, separately, whether you ticked the box giving us permission to show it on this site and in our advertising — along with the exact wording you agreed to and when. Sending a photo is entirely optional, ticking the box is a separate choice, and you can withdraw that permission at any time by writing to us.
Support: your email address, the name and order number you give us if you give them, the message you write, and any photos or documents you provide when requesting help or a replacement.
How we use information
We use information to create, review, print, ship, and support your personalized book; take payment and issue any refund; communicate about an order or replacement; operate accounts and the waitlist; prevent fraud and misuse; secure and improve the website; comply with marketplace, tax, and legal obligations; and maintain necessary business records. We do not use customer photos for advertising or a public gallery without separate, express permission.
Pet photos and AI illustration
Your photo is used to generate the illustrated pet character and to check that the finished artwork resembles the pet you submitted. Some processing is performed by contracted AI and cloud providers acting for us. We do not use customer photos to train our own models, and we select and configure providers so customer content is not used to train their general-purpose models.
How we email you about an order
When you order on this site we email you a confirmation containing a private link to your order's status page, and we email again when it ships. That link is what proves the page is yours, so it works without a sign-in — and it means anyone who has the link can see that order's status, read or change the dedication that will be printed in the book, and send us a photo of it once it arrives. We store only a one-way hash of the link, never the link itself, which is why we can send you a fresh one but can never resend the old one. Asking for a new link immediately retires the previous one. If you think a link has been seen by someone it should not have been, request a new one from the order lookup page or ask us.
Order email of this kind is not marketing and has no unsubscribe link, because turning it off would mean you could not follow your own book. Marketing and waitlist email is separate, always carries a working one-click unsubscribe, and opting out of it never affects the email about an order you placed.
When we disclose information
We disclose only the information needed to providers that help us host the site, measure site performance, send email, process payments, process AI illustrations, store production files, print and ship books, and provide support. Our payment processor is Stripe, which handles your card details under its own privacy policy and as a processor acting for us. Amazon separately handles the marketplace transaction under its own privacy policy. We may also disclose information when required by law, to protect customers or our service, or as part of a business transfer subject to appropriate safeguards.
We do not sell personal information. We use analytics to measure our site and our own advertising, as described below, and we use one advertising platform's measurement tool (Meta) in a way that may count as “sharing” for cross-context behavioral advertising under California law: it lets us show our own advertisements to people who have visited this site. We do not let analytics providers use your visit to build advertising profiles for others, and you can opt out of the Meta measurement as described under Analytics and cookies.
Site activity and your visitor id
We record what happens on this site: which pages you view and which steps you take through ordering a book — a photo accepted, an email given, a cover painted, an address saved, a checkout started. Each record is tied to a random visitor id we set in a cookie on your first visit. That id is a random number and nothing else. It is not your name, and on its own it tells us nothing about who you are.
Once you give us your email address — at the reveal step, or at checkout — we connect that browsing history to your customer record, so that when you write to us we can see what actually happened, and so we can understand which parts of the site work and which parts do not. We use it to serve and improve our own shop. We do not sell it. The only thing an advertising platform receives is a one-way hash of the address itself, to measure our own advertisements — never this browsing history, and never the readable address. See Analytics and cookies.
What we strip before storing it. Web addresses are cut back to the page and its advertising campaign details before anything is written down, so this record never contains your pet's name, your email address, an order or payment identifier, or any private link. We do not store your IP address or your browser's user agent with it.
If you do not want to be recorded, turn on Global Privacy Control in your browser or extension — we check for it on every request and record nothing at all when it is set, and we honour the older Do Not Track signal the same way. You can also ask us what we hold about you, or ask us to delete it, using our support page or support@illustratedyou.com.
Analytics and cookies
We use Vercel Web Analytics and Speed Insights to understand aggregate visits, page performance, and technical errors, and Google Analytics to understand how visitors use the site — pages viewed, steps of the ordering flow reached, purchases completed, and which link, search result, or advertisement brought a visit (including ad campaign identifiers carried in the address of the page you arrived on). Google Analytics sets cookies and processes this information for us under its own terms.
What analytics receives is deliberately limited. We strip web addresses before they are sent, so analytics never receives your pet's name, a photo, an email address, an order or payment identifier, or any private link from this site — measurement covers what was done, never who your pet is. We have configured Google Analytics for measurement only: no advertising personalization, and no use of your visit for Google's own advertising products. Essential storage may be used for security, forms, and site operation.
We also use Hotjar to see how the site is used — anonymised heatmaps and replays of how pages are scrolled and tapped — so we can fix what confuses people. Hotjar masks what you type, and we additionally mark your pet's photo, your address and email, the dedication, and every order page so they are redacted before anything leaves your browser. It does not run at all on the pages reached through a private link — your order page, the page for sending us a photo of the book, and the page you land on after paying — because the address of those pages is itself the key to your order. Hotjar processes this information for us under its own terms.
When we advertise on other platforms, we measure whether those advertisements lead to orders here. If you arrive from an advertisement on ChatGPT, the landing address carries an OpenAI-generated click reference, and an OpenAI measurement script on our site stores it in a cookie for about 30 days so that a purchase can be credited to the advertisement. When you order, OpenAI receives that click reference, the order amount, and which book was ordered. The OpenAI script may also detect contact details you type into our forms — such as an email address — and include them with those events in hashed form to improve conversion matching: the value is normalized and one-way hashed (SHA-256) in your browser first, and the readable text is never sent to OpenAI. Your pet photos, your pet's name, your dedication, and your payment details are never part of advertising measurement in any form.
We advertise on Facebook and Instagram, and we use Meta's measurement tools to see whether those advertisements lead to orders and to show our advertisements to people who have visited this site. On our public pages — the homepage, the book pages, and the about, support and legal pages — Meta's script records a page view and which book you looked at, and sets two Meta cookies in your browser that identify the click and the browser to Meta for up to 90 days. It does not run on the ordering flow, the order confirmation, order tracking, or your account, so Meta never receives those pages' addresses. When you give us your email, we paint your cover, you start checkout, or you complete an order, our own server tells Meta that a lead, a cover, a checkout, or a purchase happened, with the amount and which book, together with those two Meta cookies, your IP address and your browser's user-agent string (its browser and device type), which Meta requires with every such report.
We also include hashed identifiers with those reports, so that Meta can tell whether the person who ordered is the person who saw the advertisement — without it, we cannot tell which advertisements are worth running. Each report carries a one-way hash (SHA-256) of your email address, and a purchase report also carries hashed forms of your phone number, city, state, ZIP code and country. Meta receives only those hashes; the readable text is never sent, and your name and street address are never sent in any form, hashed or otherwise. If you have Global Privacy Control or “Do Not Track” turned on, we send no report and therefore no identifier. We have also turned off Meta's automatic collection of what you type. Meta processes this information under its own terms; we send every report with Meta's “Limited Data Use” setting, which restricts how Meta may use it for people in California and other U.S. states with similar laws.
These purchase reports are sent by our own server after your payment completes, not by your browser, so that an order still counts if you close the tab. To make that possible we hold the advertising click references described above, your IP address, your browser's user-agent string and the hashed identifiers on the order record until the report has been sent, and we delete them from it as soon as it has. If you have Global Privacy Control or “Do Not Track” turned on, none of them is stored in the first place and no report is sent at all.
To opt out of the Meta measurement, turn on Global Privacy Control or the “Do Not Track” setting in your browser: we then load no Meta script and send Meta no reports. You can also limit how Meta uses information from other sites in your Meta account's Off-Facebook activity and ad settings. If we add advertising or tracking technology beyond what this section describes, we will update this policy and provide any consent controls required by law before using it.
Retention and deletion
What changed on September 4, 2026. We used to delete your pet's photo and the files made from it automatically, 30 days after your book was delivered. We no longer do that for a book ordered on this site: we keep them until you ask us to delete them, so that we can reprint your book, put a wrong one right, and make your next book without asking you to send the same photo again. This applies to everything we hold, including photos and personalization you gave us before that date — there is no separate rule for older orders. You can have all of it erased at any time; see How to have it deleted below. Books ordered through Amazon are unchanged and still on the 30-day clock described further down.
Books ordered on this site. We keep your pet's photo, the personalization you gave us, and the illustrated files we make from them, for as long as you are a customer — until you ask us to delete them. We keep them so that we can reprint a book that arrives damaged, put right a book that arrives wrong, and make your next book without asking you to upload the same photo and type the same details again. Keeping it is what makes a reprint and a second book possible, and you can end it at any time.
How to have it deleted. Write to us — through our support page or by email to support@illustratedyou.com — and a person here erases your pet's photo, the personalization you typed, any personalize session you started and never finished, the illustrated files made from them, and the record of your visits to this site. If you have an account, ask us to close it and the same thing happens. There is no button that does it by itself, and that is deliberate: someone checks that we are erasing the right person's book before anything goes. You do not need a reason and you do not need an account. We may need to verify your identity and your order first, and we tell you when it is done.
Books ordered through Amazon are different, because what we hold there is customer information Amazon passes to us rather than a relationship you have with us. Those customer inputs — the personalization and the fulfillment details Amazon provides — are deleted no later than 30 days after confirmed delivery, and sooner when they are no longer needed after a cancellation.
The finished book is our own work. The illustrated pages and the cover we produced are kept on both channels as the record of what we printed and sent — that is what a reprint is made from, and what a dispute about a printed book is settled with.
Support attachments are kept with the support correspondence they belong to; on the Amazon channel they are deleted on the same 30-day clock when they show the pet, except where a case is still open at that point, in which case we keep only the files needed to resolve it and delete them as soon as it is closed. Backups expire on controlled schedules. We retain minimized order, consent, security, tax, and accounting records for as long as required for legitimate business or legal purposes. Waitlist email addresses are kept until you unsubscribe or the launch campaign ends, whichever comes first.
Two more things are worth saying plainly rather than leaving implied. Direct order records — the email and shipping address for an order you placed here — are the record of a transaction between us, and are removed when you ask us to delete your information. Support correspondence is kept as the record of what was asked and what we did about it, which is what makes a decision about a damaged book auditable; when you ask us to delete your information we remove your address from those messages rather than keeping them attached to you. A personalize session you started and never paid for is treated the same way as an order: if you gave us an email address, we keep it — the photo, the cover we painted, and what you typed — so that you can come back to it and so we can help you if you write to us, until you ask us to delete it, by the same route above. If you never gave us an address, it is deleted about a week later, photo included, because there is nobody to keep it for.
Your privacy choices
You may unsubscribe using the link at the bottom of any marketing or waitlist email we send. It takes one click, needs no sign-in, and takes effect immediately. You will still receive email about an order you actually placed — see the section above on why those are separate.
If you do not want your visit recorded at all, turn on Global Privacy Control in your browser — we check for it on every request, record no site activity when it is set, and load no advertising measurement script and send no advertising report for that visit.
You may also use our support page or email support@illustratedyou.com to request access, correction, or deletion of personal information, or to ask what information we hold. We may need to verify your identity and order before completing a request. We will not discriminate against you for exercising an applicable privacy right.
Your California rights
If you live in California, you can ask us to tell you what personal information we hold about you and where it came from, to correct it, or to delete it. We do not sell personal information. Our use of Meta's measurement tools, described under Analytics and cookies, may count as “sharing” for cross-context behavioral advertising, and you have the right to opt out of it: turn on Global Privacy Control in your browser, which we honour as an opt-out request on every visit, or email us. That sharing includes the hashed identifiers described in that section; turning on Global Privacy Control stops them along with the reports they travel in. We send Meta every report under its Limited Data Use setting. Email support@illustratedyou.com to make a request; we may need to verify your identity first, and we will not treat you differently for asking.
Visitors outside the United States
We sell and ship only within the United States, on this site and on Amazon's United States marketplace, and we operate from the United States — so any information you send us, including a waitlist signup, is processed there. If you are outside the US and would like us to delete your information or stop contacting you, email support@illustratedyou.com and we will do it.
Security
We use administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect personal information, including access controls, encryption in transit, restricted production access, and deletion procedures. No online system can be guaranteed completely secure, so please do not send sensitive information that we do not request.
Children
The website and customization process are intended for adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13. Launch books star pets, not children. If you believe a child has submitted information, contact us so we can delete it.
Changes and contact
We may update this policy as the service changes. We will post the new version and revision date here before a material change takes effect. Questions and privacy requests may be sent to support@illustratedyou.com, or by mail to Illustrated You, 1107 Fair Oaks Ave #438, South Pasadena, CA 91030-3311.
Questions? Email support@illustratedyou.com.