Last updated: [DATE]
Our duties
caninebreeder.co.uk lets breeders publish listings and lets buyers send messages, so it is a user-to-user service under the Online Safety Act 2023. Since 17 March 2025, services like ours have had to assess the risk of illegal content, take proportionate steps to prevent and remove it, give people an easy way to report it, and run a complaints process. Ofcom regulates these duties. We have carried out an illegal content risk assessment and review it at least once a year.
We also follow the Pet Advertising Advisory Group standard of removing non-compliant adverts within 12 working hours.
Who is accountable
[ACCOUNTABLE PERSON NAME AND ROLE] is the named individual accountable to the senior management of [COMPANY NAME] for our compliance with the illegal content safety duties and the reporting and complaints duties under the Act. You can contact them at [EMAIL] with the subject line “Online safety”.
What you can report
- Illegal content: adverts for banned types under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991; evidence of animal cruelty or neglect; fraud and scams; threats, harassment or hate; content that facilitates any offence; intimate images shared without consent; terrorism or child sexual abuse material. We treat these as priority.
- Breaches of our Listing rules: for example puppies offered under eight weeks, no photo with the mother, cropped ears, delivery offers or missing licence numbers.
- Harmful but not illegal content: abusive messages, misleading claims, or content that puts a buyer or animal at risk.
- Reviews that break our Review policy.
- Content about you that you believe is defamatory: see the separate route below.
- Concerns about your personal data: see our Data protection complaints procedure.
How to report
- Click Report on any listing, profile, review or message. You do not need an account.
- Or email [EMAIL] with the subject “Report”, including the web address of the content, what is wrong and any evidence such as screenshots.
- Or write to [COMPANY NAME], [ADDRESS].
You can report anonymously, but we cannot update you or ask follow-up questions if you do. If someone is in immediate danger, contact the police on 999 first.
What happens next
- Acknowledgement: automatically within one working day.
- Adverts that break the Listing rules or the law: target removal within 12 working hours of the report.
- Priority illegal content: removed as soon as we confirm it, and preserved as evidence where the law allows.
- Other reports: a decision within 5 working days, or 15 working days for complex cases. We tell you if it will take longer and why.
- Outcome: we tell you what we decided and, in general terms, what action we took. We do not share the other party’s personal data.
We tell the person who posted the content why it was removed, unless the law prevents us or doing so would put someone at risk. Where we suspect a crime we may pass evidence to the police (Action Fraud in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, or Police Scotland), the local authority licensing team, Trading Standards, or an animal welfare charity such as the RSPCA, Scottish SPCA or USPCA.
If we act against your content or account
If we remove your content, apply a strike or suspend your account, we send you a notice explaining which rule or law was involved and how to appeal. Strikes and bans work as described in our Advertiser and breeder terms.
Appeals
You can appeal any decision to remove content, decline a report, issue a strike, suspend or ban an account, or remove a verification badge.
- Appeal within 28 days of our decision by replying to the notice or emailing [EMAIL] with the subject “Appeal”.
- A different member of staff from the one who made the original decision reviews the appeal.
- We aim to decide within 10 working days and will explain the outcome: upheld, partly upheld or rejected.
- If we got it wrong we restore the content, remove the strike or reinstate the account, and refund pro-rata where our terms provide for it.
Complaints about how we handled a report
If you are unhappy with how we dealt with your report or appeal, email [EMAIL] with the subject “Complaint”. A director who was not involved reviews it and responds within 15 working days.
Ofcom does not investigate individual complaints about specific pieces of content, but it does monitor how services handle reports and you can tell Ofcom about your experience at ofcom.org.uk. We keep records of every report, decision and appeal so that Ofcom can check our process.
Defamation complaints: a summary
If you believe a statement about you on the Site is defamatory, we follow the procedure in section 5 of the Defamation Act 2013 and the Defamation (Operators of Websites) Regulations 2013. In short: you send us a notice containing specific information; within 48 hours we pass it to the poster (or remove the statement if we cannot contact them); the poster has 5 days to respond; and depending on that response the statement is removed or you are told how to take the matter further. The full steps, and what a valid notice must contain, are on our Defamation complaints procedure page.
Other places to get help
- Problems with a purchase from a breeder: Citizens Advice consumer service (England and Wales), Advice Direct Scotland, or Consumerline (Northern Ireland).
- Concerns about a breeder’s licence or welfare standards: the local authority named in the advert.
- Buying advice: Buying a puppy safely.