Blonde Roof Rat (blonderoofrat.com) is a small, personal, non-commercial educational project about keeping and breeding domesticated roof rats. This page explains, in plain language, what information the site collects, what it does not, and the choices you have. It is written to be read, not to bury things in legal boilerplate. If anything here is unclear, email blonderoofrat@gmail.com and ask.
Effective date: June 6, 2026. We will update this page when our practices change, and note the new date here.
The short version
- This site sets no cookies for ordinary visitors.
- We use no advertising, no affiliate links, and no third-party trackers (no Google Analytics, no Facebook pixel, nothing of the kind).
- We count page views, on-site searches, and which links people click, all anonymously and without cookies, only to learn what is useful and improve the site.
- If you email us, that stays private. We will not publish anything you send without your permission.
- We do not sell, rent, or trade your information to anyone, ever.
- Some pages embed YouTube videos; when those load, YouTube (Google) can see your IP address and set its own cookies.
Who runs this site
This is a personal educational project, not a company. The person responsible for it can be reached at blonderoofrat@gmail.com. That email is the right place for any question or request about your information or this policy.
1. Information we collect automatically (anonymously)
Anonymous usage analytics
We keep simple, anonymous counts of how the site is used: which pages are viewed, what people search for on the site, and which links and discovery cards are shown and clicked. This is done without cookies and without any personal data: no name, no email, no account, and nothing that identifies you as an individual. Automated bot traffic is filtered out. We use this only to understand what visitors find useful and to improve the site, its tools, and the information we provide.
Server and security logs
Like virtually every website, our web host (and any content-delivery or security network we use, such as a CDN) automatically records technical details for each request: your IP address, your browser type (user agent), the page requested, and the date and time. These logs are used to keep the site running, protect it against abuse and attacks, and diagnose problems. We do not use them to build profiles of individual visitors.
2. Cookies
For ordinary visitors, this site sets no cookies of its own. There are only two narrow exceptions: (1) if someone logs in to manage the site (the owner), WordPress sets the functional cookies needed to stay logged in; and (2) embedded third-party content and any security/CDN service may set their own cookies (see section 6). Because we do not track you across other websites, there is no advertising tracking to opt out of, and your browser’s Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal is respected by default.
3. When you contact us privately
When you email us (for example, through the Contact page), we receive whatever you choose to send: your email address, your name if you give it, and your message. We use it only to reply to you and to keep a record of our correspondence.
We keep your message private. We will not publish it, your name, or your contact details. The one exception is when a question or story would be genuinely useful to other keepers in general. If we ever want to share something from a private message publicly (for example, to answer a common question), we will first remove all identifying information so that you cannot be identified, and we will share only the general substance. If you would rather we not use even an anonymized version, just tell us and we won’t.
If you ever notice identifying information about yourself that has made it onto the site by mistake, tell us and we will take it down promptly, at your request.
4. Anything you post publicly
The site does not currently host public comments or submissions. If we add a way for you to post publicly (such as comments, reviews, a forum, or a crowdsourced contribution), we will tell you clearly, at the point where you post, exactly what will be visible to others and what will not. We will never move something you intended privately into a public space without your approval and permission. You can also ask us to edit or remove something you posted publicly, and we will do so wherever we reasonably can.
5. Accounts (when available)
The site does not offer user accounts yet. We plan to add them so we can provide personalized tools (for example, remembering your location to show the rules that apply to you). When accounts launch, this policy will be updated with the specifics. In the meantime, here is our standing commitment:
- Export: you will be able to request a copy of the information we hold about you, in a portable electronic format.
- Correction: you will be able to correct your information.
- Deletion: you will be able to request deletion of your account and the personal information associated with it, at any time, and we will honor it.
6. Embedded content from other websites
Many of our pages embed videos from our YouTube channel, and the site may display avatars from a service such as Gravatar. Embedded content from another site behaves as if you had visited that site directly: those third parties (such as YouTube and Google) may collect your IP address, set their own cookies, and track your interaction with their embedded content, under their own privacy policies, which we do not control. If this concerns you, you can avoid it by not playing embedded videos and by using your browser’s privacy tools.
7. What we do not do
- No advertising and no ad networks.
- No affiliate links and no paid product placement.
- No selling, renting, or trading of your information, to anyone, for any purpose.
- No third-party analytics or marketing trackers (no Google Analytics, no Facebook pixel, etc.).
- No building of advertising or behavioral profiles about you.
8. Your rights and choices
Depending on where you live (for example, the EU and UK under the GDPR, or California under the CCPA), you may have legal rights over your personal information, including the right to know what we hold, access a copy, correct it, delete it, receive it in a portable format, and object to or restrict certain uses.
Because the site collects almost no personal data about ordinary visitors (our analytics are anonymous and cookieless), for most people there is little or nothing to access or delete. Where we do hold personal information (for example, an email you have sent us, or, in the future, an account), you can exercise these rights by emailing blonderoofrat@gmail.com, and we will respond. California residents: we do not sell or share your personal information.
9. Children’s privacy
This site is intended for a general audience and is not directed at children under 16. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
10. How long we keep information
Our usage analytics are anonymous aggregate counts, kept to track trends over time. Server logs are kept for a limited period for security and then rotated out by our host. Emails you send us are kept as long as needed to help you and to keep a record of our correspondence, and you can ask us to delete them.
11. How we protect your information
The site is served over an encrypted connection (HTTPS). We keep the software updated and limit who can access the site. No method of transmission or storage is ever perfectly secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect the small amount of information we hold.
12. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as the site grows (for example, when accounts launch). We will update the effective date above and, for significant changes, note them clearly.
13. How to contact us
For any question about this policy, or any request about your information, email blonderoofrat@gmail.com.