Privacy Policy

1. Who runs this site

Smith Lake NOW (the “site”) is a community and local-business platform for Smith Lake, Alabama. This policy explains what personal information the site collects, how it is used, and the choices you have.

Needs review Name the legal entity that operates the site and its mailing address. None has been supplied, so none is stated here.

2. Information we collect

• Account information: your email address, display name, and password (stored only as a protected hash by our authentication provider). Optional profile details include a photo, cover image, bio, phone number, and lake area.
• Content you post: posts, comments, photos and videos, listings (including the address or approximate area you choose to show), lake alerts, and inquiries. Public content is visible to everyone, including people who are not signed in.
• Messages: private messages between members are visible to the people in the conversation.
• Business information: if you add or claim a business, its name, address, hours, contact details, photos, and the claim details you submit.
• Property location: a listing may have an exact location that is kept private; the public page shows an exact pin or an approximate area depending on what the lister chooses.
• Usage information: pages viewed, how you arrived (for example from a link in a Facebook group), your device and browser type, and an approximate city taken from your network connection, recorded by our own first-party analytics so we can understand what is useful and keep the site secure. See “Analytics” below.
• Technical information: your device and browser type and IP address are processed by our hosting and security providers to deliver the site and prevent abuse.
• Payment information: when paid features are available, payments are handled by our payment processor. We receive limited details such as the card brand and last four digits and the status of a payment, not the full card number.

3. How we use information

• Provide the site: accounts, listings, the directory, the feed, messaging, search, and notifications.
• Keep people safe: moderation, spam and abuse prevention, security, and enforcing our Terms.
• Communicate with you: transactional messages such as sign-in links, verification, replies to inquiries, and notices about your account or listings.
• Marketing email only where you have given consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
• Understand and improve the site using aggregated first-party usage information.
• Meet legal obligations and keep the records we are required to keep.

4. How information is shared

We do not sell your personal information and we do not run third-party advertising trackers on the site.

• Publicly: what you choose to post or list, and your public profile, according to your privacy settings.
• With other members: messages you send, and details you include in inquiries.
• With service providers that run the site on our behalf: hosting, database, authentication and file storage, email delivery, and bot protection on forms. When enabled, payment processing and marketing email providers.
• When required by law, to protect people’s safety or our rights, or to investigate abuse.

Needs review Confirm the “do not sell” statement and the provider list (they change if providers are added), and whether a business-transfer clause is wanted.

5. Cookies and similar technologies

We do not use third-party advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. If Google Analytics is ever switched on it loads only for visitors who accepted analytics, and this page will say so before it does.

• Essential cookies keep you signed in and protect forms.
• Analytics choice cookie (sln_consent): remembers whether you accepted or declined analytics, for 180 days.
• Analytics cookies, only if you accept: a random visitor id (sln_vid, up to 13 months) that lets us recognize a returning visit, and a short visit cookie (sln_vis, 30 minutes) that lets the site connect a completed sign-up to the visit it came from. Neither contains your name, email or account id.
• A first-party session identifier (sln_sid) counts a post view once per browser session.
• Our sign-in and sign-up forms use a bot-protection check from Cloudflare (Turnstile), which may set its own cookies to do its job.

Needs review Confirm the cookie list against what a lawyer considers “essential” and re-check this section if an analytics provider is added.

6. Analytics

Smith Lake NOW measures its own traffic with software it runs itself. We do this to learn which pages are useful, which links (for example the ones we post in Facebook groups) bring people to the site, how many people sign up, and when the site is busy. We do not use it to identify anyone, we do not sell it, and we do not combine it with advertising profiles.

• What is recorded: the page address (without the part after a question mark, except campaign tags such as utm_source), the time, the website you came from, your device type and browser family, your language, and a city-level location taken from your network connection by our hosting provider. Coordinates are rounded to about one kilometre and describe the city of the network, not your street or your device.
• What is never recorded: your IP address, passwords, private messages, what you type into forms, search wording that looks sensitive, payment card details, your exact location (we never ask your device for it), or your name and email together with your browsing.
• If you accept: a random visitor id is stored in a cookie so that returning visits can be recognized. It is kept up to 13 months.
• If you have not chosen: visitors in the United States are counted without any cookie or persistent id (a tab-only visit id that disappears when the tab closes). Visitors elsewhere, and visitors whose location cannot be determined, are not measured until they accept.
• If you decline, or your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track: nothing is sent or stored, and any analytics ids on your device are deleted.
• Members: a completed sign-up and a few first actions (such as a first post) can be counted so we can see whether our outreach works. The count carries no account id or email.
• Who can see it: only the site owner’s administrator account. Reports show counts and approximate places; a single visit is shown only with an opaque reference, never your IP address or a stable id.
• How long: individual page rows and events 90 days, visit records 400 days, and daily totals (no individuals) are kept indefinitely.
• Test traffic, automated browsers, search-engine crawlers and the owner’s own admin activity are labelled and left out of the visitor numbers.

Needs review Have a lawyer confirm that the United States cookieless default, the opt-in outside the United States, the retention periods and the wording above meet the privacy laws that apply. Nothing here claims legal compliance.

7. Your choices

To make a request, email sales@smithlakenow.com from the address on your account.

• Edit or remove your profile details and posts from your account.
• Control who can see your friends list in Settings.
• Choose which notifications you receive, and withdraw marketing consent at any time.
• Ask us to delete your account. We process requests with a 7-day cooling-off period during which the request can be cancelled, then remove or anonymize your profile and sign-in details.
• Some records must stay: audit logs, evidence of your consents, and financial history. Messages other people still read remain, shown as from a “Deleted member”.

Needs review Confirm the account-deletion wording and add any rights required by the privacy laws that apply (for example state privacy laws), plus how requests are verified.

8. How long we keep information

We keep information for as long as your account is active and as long as needed to run the site, resolve disputes, and meet legal and accounting requirements. When an account is deleted we remove or anonymize personal details, except for the records described above.

Needs review No fixed retention periods have been approved. Add specific periods if required.

9. Security

We use access controls, encrypted connections, and database-level permissions so members can only reach what they are allowed to see. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

10. Children

The site is intended for adults and is not directed to children.

Needs review Decide the minimum age (for example 13 or 18) and whether it is stated here and in the Terms.

11. Changes to this policy

We will post changes here with a new date and version. Material changes will be announced on the site or by email.

12. Contact

Questions about this policy: sales@smithlakenow.com.