1. Introduction
This privacy policy explains how Home Is Where The Sauna Is (Business ID: 2445811-2, https://homeiswherethesaunais.com) (“we”, “us”, or “our”) collects, uses, protects, and handles your personal information when you visit or make a purchase from our website.
- We are the data controller responsible for your personal data under European law.
- We respect your privacy. We will never sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties.
2. What Information We Collect
We collect minimal personal data to run our website safely and efficiently.
Information You Give Us Directly:
Comments / When you contact us: When visitors leave comments on this site, we collect the data shown in the comments/contact form, as well as the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help with spam detection.
- When you leave a comment, an anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) is provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. In case you are, your profile picture will be displayed alongside your comment after it is approved.
When you buy from us: We collect your name, email address, phone number, billing address, and shipping address.
Payment details: All credit card payments are securely handled by Stripe. We never see, access, or store your credit card numbers or raw payment data.
Information Collected Automatically:
When you browse our website, we automatically collect basic technical data through our analytics and e-commerce tools. This data includes your IP address, browser type, device type, the pages you visit, and your general geographic region (such as country or state).
3. How We Use Your Information
We use your data only for specific, practical business operations:
- Order fulfillment: To process your payment, clear your order through customs, and ship your package to your US address.
- Customer support: To answer your questions, send tracking links, or help you with product setup.
- Legal compliance: To keep accurate business records, file our taxes, and comply with Finnish accounting laws.
- Website optimization: To look at basic website traffic trends so we can keep our store running smoothly.
4. Legal Basis for Processing Data
Under the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we must state our legal reasons for handling your data. Even though we sell exclusively to US customers, we process your information based on:
- Contractual necessity: We must process your address and contact details to deliver the products you purchased.
- Legal obligation: Finnish law requires us to retain transactional data for tax, customs, and corporate accounting purposes.
- Legitimate interests: To protect our website from fraud, secure our checkout, and understand general store performance.
5. Who We Share Your Data With
We only share your information with essential, trusted service providers who help us fulfill your order. These third parties are legally bound to protect your data and cannot use it for any other purpose:
- Payment gateway: Stripe, to securely process your transaction.
- Shipping carriers & logistics: Shipping carriers and logistics providers (such as FedEx) to transport, clear customs, and deliver your order.
- Technical service providers: Our website host and trusted providers of website security, performance, and analytics services.
- Government authorities: Only if strictly required by law, such as customs declarations or tax audits.
6. Cookies and Tracking
Functional cookies: We use essential cookies to make our website work (for example, keeping items in your shopping cart or securing the checkout page).
Affiliate tracking cookies: Whenever our web pages contain affiliate links, you are informed of it in advance. Clicking an affiliate link on our site places a third-party tracking cookie on your browser. This uses an anonymous tracking ID to notify the merchant that your visit originated from our site, allowing us to earn a commission if you make a purchase. No personal data (such as your name, email, or IP address) is stored or shared by us through this process.
Control and Consent: You can manage your preferences, block, or delete cookies through your web browser settings at any time. Because we operate under EU law, these affiliate cookies will not be placed on your browser unless you actively opt-in via our cookie consent banner. Please note that blocking functional cookies may cause parts of our online store to stop working properly.
7. Data Retention (How Long We Keep It)
- Accounting records: We store purchase history, invoices, and customer names for up to 7 years to comply with mandatory Finnish accounting and tax laws (Kirjanpitolaki).
- General data: Customer service emails and contact form submissions are archived once your inquiry or product warranty period is fully resolved.
8. Your Legal Rights
Regardless of your location, all our visitors have standard transparency rights regarding their data. You have the right to:
- Access: Request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
- Correct: Ask us to update or fix an incorrect email address, phone number, or delivery details.
- Delete: Request that we erase your personal data (provided we do not need to keep it for mandatory Finnish tax or accounting laws).
- Object: Object to us processing your data for general website analytics.
To exercise any of these rights, please email us directly using the contact details below. If you feel we have mishandled your data, you have the right to log a complaint with the Finnish Data Protection Ombudsman (Tietosuojavaltuutettu).
9. Data Security
- We use secure connection protocols (HTTPS/SSL) to encrypt data traveling between your browser and our website. Our payment system is completely outsourced to a PCI-compliant processor (Stripe).
- While we take industry-standard measures to safeguard your information, no system over the internet is completely bulletproof. We cannot guarantee 100% absolute security.
10. Third-Party Content and Links
Embedded content: Our website features embedded content, such as YouTube videos. Embedded content from other websites behaves exactly as if you visited that website directly. These platforms may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that content.
External links: Our website includes links to external sites (such as shipping carrier tracking tools or manufacturer guides). We do not control and are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those third-party sites.
11. Changes to This Policy
This privacy policy is effective as of July 28, 2026. We will update it, including the new date, if we change how we handle data.
12. Contact Us
If you have any questions or requests regarding your data, you can reach us at contact@homeiswherethesaunais.com.