Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

Find Laundromat Near Me ("we," "us," or "our") operates the website located at https://findlaundromatnearme.com. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you visit our laundromat directory website. By using our website, you consent to the data practices described in this policy. If you do not agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy, please discontinue use of our site immediately.

We are committed to protecting your privacy and handling your personal data responsibly and transparently. This policy applies to all information collected through our website, including any related services, features, and content we offer.

2. Information We Collect

Information You Provide Voluntarily

We may collect personal information that you voluntarily provide to us when you:

• Contact Forms: Submit a contact form or inquiry, including your name, email address, phone number, and message content.
• Account Registration: Create an account on our platform, including your name, email address, and password.
• Laundromat Claim Requests: Submit a request to claim or verify ownership of a laundromat listing, including your name, business name, role/title, email, phone number, and proof of ownership documentation.
• Reviews and Feedback: Submit reviews, ratings, or feedback about laundromat locations.
• Newsletter Subscriptions: Subscribe to our email communications, including your email address.

Information Collected Automatically

When you visit our website, we automatically collect certain information about your device and browsing activity, including:

• IP Address: Your Internet Protocol address, which may indicate your general geographic location.
• Browser Information: Browser type, version, language preference, and operating system.
• Pages Visited: The pages you view, the links you click, the date and time of your visit, and the duration of your session.
• Referring URL: The website that referred you to our site.
• Device Information: Device type, screen resolution, and unique device identifiers.
• Cookies and Similar Technologies: Small data files placed on your device to enhance your browsing experience and enable certain features. See our Cookie Policy section below for full details.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for the following purposes:

• Operating Our Directory: To maintain, improve, and deliver the laundromat directory service, including displaying accurate listings, search results, and location information.
• Responding to Inquiries: To respond to your questions, comments, and requests submitted through our contact forms.
• Verifying Laundromat Claims: To process and verify business ownership claim requests for laundromat listings.
• Analytics and Improvement: To analyze usage patterns, monitor site performance, identify technical issues, and improve the user experience.
• Advertising: To serve relevant advertisements through Google AdSense, including interest-based advertising where consent has been provided.
• Fraud Prevention: To detect, prevent, and address fraud, abuse, security risks, and technical issues.
• Legal Compliance: To comply with applicable laws, regulations, legal processes, or enforceable governmental requests.

4. Cookie Policy

Our website uses cookies and similar tracking technologies to enhance your experience, analyze traffic, and serve advertisements. A cookie is a small text file that is stored on your device when you visit a website.

Types of Cookies We Use

Managing Your Cookie Preferences

You have several options for managing cookies:

• Consent Banner: When you first visit our site, a cookie consent banner will appear allowing you to accept all cookies, reject non-essential cookies, or manage your preferences.
• Browser Settings: Most web browsers allow you to control cookies through their settings. You can typically set your browser to block or delete cookies, though this may affect site functionality.
• Google Ad Settings: You can manage Google's use of advertising cookies by visiting Google Ad Settings.
• NAI Opt-Out: You can opt out of interest-based advertising from Network Advertising Initiative members at NAI Consumer Opt-Out.
• DAA Opt-Out: You can opt out of interest-based advertising from Digital Advertising Alliance participants at DAA Consumer Choice.

5. Interest-Based Advertising

We use Google AdSense to display advertisements on our website. Google AdSense is an advertising service provided by Google LLC that uses cookies, including the DoubleClick DART cookie, to serve ads based on your prior visits to our website and other sites on the Internet.

When you have not provided consent for personalized advertising (via our cookie consent banner), we instruct Google to serve only non-personalized ads by applying the data-npa="1" attribute to all ad units. Non-personalized ads are targeted using contextual information rather than your browsing history.

Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to our site and other sites on the Internet. You may opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google Ad Settings.

For more information about how Google uses data when you use our site, please visit How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.

6. Third-Party Services

Our website uses the following third-party services that may collect information about you:

• Google Analytics: We use Google Analytics to understand how visitors interact with our website. Google Analytics collects information such as how often users visit the site, what pages they visit, and what other sites they used prior to coming to our site. We use this information solely to improve our website. Google Analytics collects only the IP address assigned to you on the date you visit our site, rather than your name or other identifying information. Google's ability to use and share information collected by Google Analytics is restricted by the Google Analytics Terms of Service and the Google Privacy Policy.
• Google AdSense and DoubleClick: We use Google AdSense to display advertisements. Google and its advertising partners may place and read cookies on your browser or use web beacons to collect information for the purpose of serving targeted advertisements. See Section 5 above for details and opt-out options.
• Google Maps: We embed Google Maps on certain pages to display laundromat locations. Google Maps may collect data about your interaction with the map, including your IP address and location data. This data is governed by Google's Privacy Policy.
• Google Fonts: We use Google Fonts to render typography on our website. When you load a page, your browser connects to Google's servers to download font files. Google may log your IP address and browser information in connection with this request. See Google Fonts Privacy for details.

7. Data Sharing

We do not sell your personal information to third parties. We may share your information only in the following limited circumstances:

• Service Providers: We share information with trusted third-party service providers who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or serving you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. This includes hosting providers, analytics services, and advertising networks.
• Legal Compliance: We may disclose your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect our or others' rights, property, or safety.
• Business Transfers: In the event of a merger, acquisition, reorganization, bankruptcy, or other sale of all or a portion of our assets, your personal information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you via email and/or a prominent notice on our website of any change in ownership or uses of your personal information.

8. Data Security

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. These measures include:

• HTTPS/TLS Encryption: All data transmitted between your browser and our servers is encrypted using industry-standard TLS (Transport Layer Security) protocols.
• Rate Limiting: We employ server-side rate limiting to prevent abuse and protect against automated attacks.
• Access Controls: Access to personal information is restricted to authorized personnel who need it to perform their job functions.
• Breach Notification: In the event of a data breach that affects your personal information, we will notify affected individuals and relevant supervisory authorities within 72 hours of becoming aware of the breach, as required by GDPR and applicable data protection laws.

While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security.

9. Data Retention

We retain your personal information only for as long as is necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, including to satisfy any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements:

• Contact Form Submissions: Retained for up to 3 years from the date of submission, after which they are securely deleted.
• Analytics Data: Google Analytics data is retained for 26 months, after which it is automatically deleted.
• Server Logs: Access and error logs are retained for 90 days for security and diagnostic purposes, then automatically purged.
• Cookie Consent Records: Records of your cookie consent preferences are retained for the duration of the consent cookie (1 year), after which you will be prompted again.

10. Your Privacy Rights

Rights Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

If you are a resident of the European Economic Area (EEA) or the United Kingdom, you have the following rights under the GDPR:

• Right of Access: You have the right to request copies of your personal data that we hold.
• Right to Rectification: You have the right to request that we correct any information you believe is inaccurate or complete information you believe is incomplete.
• Right to Erasure: You have the right to request that we erase your personal data, under certain conditions.
• Right to Restrict Processing: You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.
• Right to Data Portability: You have the right to request that we transfer the data we have collected to another organization, or directly to you, in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
• Right to Object: You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data, under certain conditions, including processing for direct marketing purposes.
• Right to Lodge a Complaint: You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, such as the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), if you believe we have violated your data protection rights.

Legal Bases for Processing: We process your personal data under the following legal bases:

• Contractual Necessity: Processing necessary for the performance of a contract with you (e.g., responding to your inquiries, providing directory services).
• Legitimate Interests: Processing necessary for our legitimate interests (e.g., improving our website, fraud prevention), where those interests are not overridden by your rights.
• Consent: Processing based on your explicit consent (e.g., personalized advertising, newsletter subscriptions). You may withdraw consent at any time.

We do not engage in automated decision-making or profiling that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you.

For transfers of personal data from the EEA/UK to the United States, we rely on Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) approved by the European Commission to provide appropriate safeguards for your data.

Rights Under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

If you are a California resident, you have the following rights under the CCPA and the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA):

• Right to Know: You have the right to request that we disclose the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, the categories of sources from which we collected the information, our business or commercial purpose for collecting the information, and the categories of third parties with whom we share the information.
• Right to Delete: You have the right to request that we delete personal information we have collected from you, subject to certain exceptions.
• Right to Correct: You have the right to request that we correct inaccurate personal information that we maintain about you.
• Right to Opt-Out of Sale: You have the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information. We affirm that we do not sell your personal information and have not sold personal information in the preceding 12 months.
• Right to Non-Discrimination: You have the right not to receive discriminatory treatment for exercising any of your CCPA rights. We will not deny you goods or services, charge you different prices, or provide you with a different level of quality for exercising your privacy rights.

To submit a request to exercise any of the above rights, please contact us at privacy@findlaundromatnearme.com. We will respond to verifiable consumer requests within 45 days of receipt. If we require more time (up to an additional 45 days), we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing.

11. Children's Privacy (COPPA)

Our website is not directed to children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we become aware that we have inadvertently collected personal information from a child under the age of 13 without verified parental consent, we will take steps to delete that information as quickly as possible.

If you are a parent or guardian and believe that your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us immediately at privacy@findlaundromatnearme.com so that we can take appropriate action.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technologies, legal requirements, or other factors. When we make material changes, we will update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, notify you by email or through a prominent notice on our website.

We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we are protecting your information. Your continued use of our website after any changes to this Privacy Policy constitutes your acceptance of those changes.

13. Contact Us

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us:

• Email: privacy@findlaundromatnearme.com
• Contact Form: https://findlaundromatnearme.com/contact
• Mailing Address: Available upon request by emailing privacy@findlaundromatnearme.com.