Privacy Policy

Last updated: November 3, 2026

What we collect

Only what you type into our forms (your name, contact details, and your request), any email you send us, the billing email you enter at checkout, the claim and subscription records described below, the location described under Your location, and standard server logs such as IP address and browser type. We use Cloudflare Turnstile to block bots. We do not run advertising trackers or analytics cookies, and a quote request is shared, or sold, only as described under Who gets your quote request.

How we use it

To answer your inquiry, to show businesses near you, to send your quote request to the businesses described under Who gets your quote request (sending it to them is the purpose of the service) and to the additional contractors described there, to verify listing claims and send their confirmation and manage links, and to run Claimed Listing subscriptions. Nothing else.

Who gets your quote request

When you send a quote request, we send it (your name, contact details, location, the kind of work and your message) to:

• every Verified business on GroundRoster that serves your area and does the kind of work you chose, unless you sent it from a Verified business's own page or card, in which case it goes to that business alone. "Serves your area" means the business is in your state and you are within its service distance (50 miles until it sets one), measured from its listed location to your ZIP code, or to your city if you give no ZIP code in your state. If either location can't be placed, it serves your area only if it is in your city. Verified businesses are businesses with a paid Claimed Listing, a subscription that includes receiving these requests, and there can be any number of them in an area; and
• the business whose page you sent it from, if it is not a Verified business and we pass your request on to it ourselves. We don't send it to such a business automatically.

By submitting a quote request you also agree that we may share or sell it (your name, contact details, location and what you need) to additional licensed contractors who serve your area, and that they may contact you about it. You can opt out of this at any time, as described under Retention and your choices.

Each business that receives your request may contact you about it, and handles your information under its own practices, not ours.

Listing claims and manage links

When you claim or confirm a listing we keep your name, email, phone and message, and the company, address, ZIP and website you give, with the claim. They are used to check and correct the listing and to contact the business, and to reach you about it. Where the state's licensing record gives an email address for the license, we may send a confirmation link to that address. A confirmed claim gets a private manage link. For both kinds of link we store only a one-way fingerprint (a hash) of the link, never the link itself, so an old link can't be recovered from our records; a lost manage link is replaced with a new one, and the old one stops working. A request to revise your listing details that you send through your manage link is kept with your claim, so we can review it. While a listing is a Claimed Listing, a service distance set through its manage link is shown publicly, on the listing and on the pages of cities within it, as the business's own statement. So is the text it writes there, on its listing and its card; each change is emailed to us for review.

Your location

Our homepage lists businesses near you. To choose them, our hosting provider, Cloudflare, estimates your approximate location from your IP address, and we show you the nearest town to that estimate. We use the estimate only to choose and label that list. We keep a daily count of these lookups by state and town, with no IP address or other identifier.

If you tap 'Use my precise location' (or have already allowed this site to use your location), your browser, with your permission, sends GroundRoster your device's coordinates, rounded in your browser to about a kilometer. We use them only to list businesses near you. We do not sell or share them, use them for advertising, or connect them to your name or a quote request. We keep a daily count of the nearest town for our traffic statistics, never the coordinates.

Like every request to this site, the requests that carry these locations are recorded in our request logs at our hosting provider, which keep them for up to 7 days. We set no cookie and store nothing else on your device for this. Your browser remembers whether you allowed location, and you can change that in your browser's settings at any time; the list works without it.

California residents: the device coordinates may be "precise geolocation," a kind of sensitive personal information under the CCPA. We collect and use them only to show you the businesses you asked to see, and we do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for any other purpose.

Usage statistics

We count page views, searches by place, and taps on listing buttons (call, email, website, request a quote), by day and by listing. These counts carry no name, email address, IP address or device identifier.

Payments

Stripe processes all payments. Card numbers go to Stripe directly and never touch our servers; Stripe's own privacy policy governs its processing. For a Claimed Listing we keep the Stripe customer and subscription IDs, the subscription's status and the end of its current billing period, so we know which listings are paid.

Service providers

These companies process data on our behalf: Cloudflare (hosting, security, estimating approximate location from IP addresses, and forwarding mail sent to our address), Resend (delivers the emails our forms generate, which carry what you submitted), Google (our email provider), and Stripe (payments). We also use providers of AI tools, as described under AI tools. Beyond that, we share personal information only as described under Who gets your quote request, or where the law requires it.

AI tools

We, and companies that work for us, may use artificial intelligence (AI) and other automated tools to do the things this policy describes. For example, they may help us read, sort, summarize and draft replies to the messages, quote requests and listing claims we receive, keep our records, research public information about listed businesses, and write or check content on this site and the messages we send. This can include the information you give us, such as your name, contact details, request and messages.

The AI tools we use are provided by other companies, which process that information under their own terms and privacy policies. Those terms may let a provider keep information for a time and use it to provide and improve its services. We do not use AI to make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects.

Directory listings are public records

Listings display professional licensing information published by state and county licensing authorities: business information from official public records, not data collected from consumers. A business can claim its listing through its profile page to ask us to revise its listing details, and can tell us where our copy doesn't match the state's record. Contact details that licensing records give (phone, email, website) are kept in our records and are not displayed unless the business buys a Claimed Listing.

Retention and your choices

We keep form submissions only as long as needed for the purposes above. To ask what we hold about you, or to have it corrected or deleted, email hello@groundroster.com and we will respond by email. California residents: sending your quote request to the businesses described under Who gets your quote request is a disclosure you direct when you submit it. Sharing it with additional contractors may be a "sale" or "sharing" of personal information as the CCPA defines those terms. To opt out at any time, email hello@groundroster.com with the subject "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information". We will not discriminate against you for using these rights.

Age

This site is intended for adults: homeowners and property owners arranging work, and the well and septic pros who perform it.

Changes

Updates are posted on this page with a new date.