Privacy Policy

The short version

We collect what we need to answer you, build your website and run your plan. We don't sell your personal information. You can ask to see it, fix it or delete it at any time.

This policy covers what AI Local Biz ("we", "us") does with personal information when you visit AILocalBiz.com, use our free tools, contact us or become a customer.

What we collect

Information you give us

Contact details. Your name, email address and phone number, when you fill in a form, start a sign-up, ask for a report or get in touch.
Business details. Your business name, industry, city and website address, plus anything you send us so we can build your site, such as your logo, photos, services and service areas.
Messages. What you write or say to us by form, email, text or phone.

Payment information

Payments are handled by Stripe. Your card details go straight to Stripe. We don't see or store your full card number. Stripe tells us that a payment went through, the status of your plan, and a few details such as the card type, its last four digits and your billing postal code.

Information collected automatically

How you use the site. The pages you view, the buttons you click, when you visited and the site that sent you to us.
Your device. Browser and device type, screen size, language and a rough location based on your IP address.
How you found us. Campaign details and ad click identifiers from the link you followed. We keep these in a cookie on our own site so we know which marketing is working.
Security signals. Your IP address and checks that tell real visitors from bots, so we can block spam and abuse of our forms.

Information from our free tools

When you request the AI Visibility Check or another free check, we use the business name, industry, city and website address you enter, and we look at public information on that website. We keep the results so we can send them to you.

Why we use it

To reply to you and give you what you asked for, such as a report or a call back.
To build, launch, host and improve your website, and to do the monthly work in your plan.
To set up your plan, take payment and send receipts and service messages.
To send marketing email, only where you have agreed to it.
To understand which pages and ads bring in customers, and to make the site better.
To keep the site secure and stop spam, fraud and abuse.
To meet our legal, tax and accounting duties.

Privacy laws differ depending on where you live. In general, we rely on one of these reasons to use your information:

Your consent. For marketing email, and for analytics and advertising cookies where the law asks for consent. You can withdraw it at any time.
A contract with you. To build your website and deliver your plan once you sign up, or to take steps you ask for before you sign up.
Legitimate business reasons. To answer enquiries, keep the site secure and understand how it is used, in ways that don't override your rights.
Legal duties. To keep the records the law requires.

If you live in Canada, we collect, use and share personal information with your knowledge and consent, as Canadian privacy law requires. Filling in a form and sending it to us is how you give that consent for the purpose shown on the form.

Marketing email

We send marketing email only to people who have asked for it. Our forms have a separate consent box for marketing email. It is never ticked for you, and you don't have to tick it to use the site, get your report or become a customer. This is how we meet the express consent rules in Canada's anti-spam law (CASL).

Every marketing email says who it is from and has an unsubscribe link, as CASL and the US CAN-SPAM Act require. Use the link and we stop. You can also ask us to stop through the contact page.

If you start a sign-up and don't finish it, we send a reminder only if you agreed to hear from us. Service messages are different from marketing: receipts, the report you asked for and messages about your website or your plan are sent because you need them.

Cookies and analytics

We use three kinds of cookies and similar tools:

Essential. Needed for the site to work and stay secure, such as the bot checks on our forms. These are always on.
Analytics. Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager show us which pages people visit and how they use the site.
Advertising. Tools from Google and Meta tell us when an ad led to a sign-up, so we know which ads are worth running.

Where the law asks for consent before these tools run, including Quebec's Law 25, analytics and advertising tools stay off until you say yes. You can change your choice at any time.

If you live in a US state with a privacy law that lets you opt out of targeted advertising, or of the sale or sharing of personal information, you can opt out of our advertising tools the same way. We don't sell personal information for money.

We may also confirm events such as a sign-up to Google and Meta from our own servers. Those messages follow the same choices you make about cookies. You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings.

AI tools

Our free AI Visibility Check asks AI tools, such as ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews, who they recommend for your kind of business in your town. To do that, we send those AI providers questions that include the business name, industry and city you entered, and other public details about the business. We don't send them your email address or phone number.

We also use AI tools to help build and improve customer websites. The information we use for that is business information, such as your services, your service area and your public business details.

We share personal information with companies that help us run the business. They may use it only to do work for us. They fall into these groups:

Hosting and security. Cloudflare hosts the site and protects it from attacks and spam.
Payments. Stripe handles checkout, billing and tax.
Email. An email delivery provider sends our messages and reports.
Analytics and advertising. Google and Meta, as described under Cookies and analytics.
AI providers. For the free check and for building websites, as described under AI tools.
Business tools. The customer management, project and error-tracking tools our team uses to follow up with you and keep the site running.

We may also share information with our professional advisers, with authorities when the law requires it, and with a buyer if the business is sold or merged. In that case this policy keeps applying to your information.

Where it is stored

Our service providers run their systems in the United States and other countries, so your information may be stored and used outside your province, state or country, including outside Quebec. Wherever it goes, we require our providers to protect it.

How long we keep it

We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the reasons in this policy. For customers, that is the life of your plan plus the time we must keep billing and tax records. For enquiries and free reports, that is as long as it is useful for answering you. After that we delete it or strip out anything that identifies you.

How we protect it

The site runs over an encrypted connection. Access to personal information is limited to the people and providers who need it to do their work. Forms are protected against bots and abuse. No system is perfectly secure, so if a breach puts your information at real risk, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you can ask us to:

See it. Get a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
Fix it. Correct anything that is wrong or out of date.
Delete it. Erase your information, unless we must keep it by law.
Withdraw consent. Change your mind about marketing email or cookies at any time. It won't affect anything we did before you changed it.
Opt out. Say no to targeted advertising and to the sale or sharing of your information, where your local law gives you that right.

To use any of these rights, reach us through the contact page. We may need to confirm who you are before we act. We won't treat you differently for using your rights. If you aren't happy with our answer, you can complain to the privacy regulator where you live.

Children

Our site and services are for business owners. They are not aimed at children, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you think a child has sent us information, tell us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as our services or the law change. When we do, we change the date at the top of this page. If a change is a big one, we will tell customers by email before it takes effect.

Contact us

Questions about this policy or your information? Reach us through the contact page. The person in charge of privacy at AI Local Biz will reply. Our Terms of Service cover the rest of how we work together.