Privacy Policy

If you are just browsing, I do not collect anything personal about you at all. I only collect information when you place an order or send me a message, and only what I need to ship the order and reply to you. I do not sell your information, and I do not share it except with the services that make the store work.

When you order, I collect your name, email address, shipping address, and phone number, which is what the carrier and I need to get live animals to you. When you contact me, I collect your name, email, and whatever you write in your message. If you ask me to email you when a sold-out item is back, I keep your email address and which item you want, and nothing else. That is the whole list. I do not build profiles, I do not track you across other websites, and I do not collect or store your card number at any point.

Card payments are processed by Stripe, through an account held by Butterfly Effect Digital, the business that operates Firefly Medaka (owner Chris, Raleigh, North Carolina). Card charges appear on your statement as “B3D* FIREFLYMEDAKA.COM” and card receipts come from Butterfly Effect Digital. Your card details go directly to Stripe and are never stored on my site or servers. Stripe handles that information under its own privacy policy. For Bitcoin orders, I receive the shipping details you enter and the payment arrives directly to my Bitcoin wallet.

The chat helper is automated and anonymous: it does not know who you are, and conversations are not linked to your name, account, or order. To improve its answers, the questions it cannot answer and the anonymous text of conversations may be sent to me for review. If you use its send-to-Chris option, you are choosing to share the conversation along with the email address you provide so I can reply. Conversations that touch on personal crisis are never sent to me at all.

My contact form and my Bitcoin, Venmo, and Cash App order forms send what you enter to my email through this site. My email is routed through Cloudflare and delivered to a Google inbox. Order and contact emails are sent through Resend. Venmo and Cash App payments happen in those apps, which keep their own records under their own privacy policies.

This site is hosted on Cloudflare. Cloudflare processes basic technical information such as IP addresses in order to serve and protect the site.

This site sets no cookies of its own. I do not use advertising cookies and I do not run third party ad trackers. I do use Cloudflare Web Analytics, which is cookieless and tells me only aggregate things like how many people viewed a page. It does not identify you. Your shopping cart is stored locally in your own browser, not on my servers, which is why it stays with you between visits on the same device. Clearing your browser data clears your cart.

Firefly Medaka is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. The links on my Recommends page are affiliate links, so I may earn a commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. Amazon sets its own cookies when you visit its site, under its own privacy notice.

I use your information to process and ship your order, to contact you about that order, and to respond to questions. A back-in-stock request gets one email when the item returns, and then I delete the address. If you start a card checkout, tick the box to hear from me, and leave before paying, Stripe gives me your email and I send one short note with a link back to your cart. I never send more than one of those in a week, never after you have ordered, and every one has a link to opt out. Beyond that, I do not send marketing email unless you ask me to.

Order records live in Stripe and in my email inbox, and I keep them as long as I need them for business and tax purposes. Contact emails stay in the inbox. Back-in-stock requests are the one thing this site stores itself: the address waits for that one email and is deleted when it is sent, or after six months if the item never comes back. There is no other customer database sitting behind this site.

In practice this means your orders and any emails you have sent me. You are welcome to ask what I have, ask me to correct it, or ask me to delete whatever I am not required to keep. Email chris@fireflymedaka.com and I will take care of it.

This site is not directed at children under 13 and I do not knowingly collect their information.

Questions about privacy can go to chris@fireflymedaka.com.