Privacy Policy

LivingRGV ("we", "us") operates a local business directory and events surface for the Rio Grande Valley, Texas. This policy describes what we collect, why, who we share it with, and what you can ask us to do about it.

Information We Collect

Account information. When you create an account we receive your email address. We never ask you for a password, and there is nowhere on this site to enter one — signing in is by emailed one-time link ("magic link") or by Google sign-in. If you use Google sign-in, Google provides us your email address and basic profile information; we never receive your Google password.

Business listing information. If you claim or submit a business listing, we collect the business details you provide: name, address, phone, hours, description, category, website, booking links, and images you upload.

Inquiry information. When you send a message to a business through our site, we collect your name, email address, and message. We do not ask for a phone number. We also record a timestamp and the exact wording of the consent you agreed to when you sent it, so the record describes what you actually saw on screen rather than what a policy says you saw.

Event submissions. Event title, description, dates, venue, and images.

Payment information. If you subscribe to a paid tier, payment is processed by Stripe. Card numbers and payment credentials never reach our servers. We store only a Stripe customer identifier, a subscription identifier, the plan, its status, and the current billing period end date.

Usage information. We use Google Analytics 4 to understand aggregate traffic. This involves cookies and collects information such as pages viewed, approximate location derived from IP address, device and browser type, and referring site.

Abuse prevention. When you submit a form — an inquiry, a business submission, an event — we separately record the IP address the request came from, so we can limit how many submissions one source makes in a day. That record contains an IP address and a timestamp and nothing else: it is not linked to your name, your message, or your account.

Technical information. Standard server and security logs, and — where you consent to a legal document — the IP address and browser user-agent recorded alongside that consent, so the record is meaningful evidence of what was agreed and when.

Directory Listings Compiled From Public Sources

A substantial portion of our directory — 11,238 business listings as of this version — was compiled from publicly available sources rather than submitted by the businesses themselves. Those businesses did not sign up for LivingRGV and have not agreed to anything.

Listings of this kind contain only business contact information: name, address, phone number, category, hours, and similar operational details. They are not personal profiles, and we do not add personal information about business owners to them.

If you are the owner of a listed business, you may claim your listing to control its content, or ask us to correct or remove it by emailing privacy@livingrgv.com. We handle these requests by hand and will confirm when it is done.

How We Use Information

• To operate and display the directory, events, and editorial content.
• To deliver your message to the business you selected.
• To create and secure your account and authenticate sign-in.
• To process subscriptions and grant paid features through Stripe.
• To send transactional email — sign-in links, claim status, message notifications, billing notices.
• To moderate submitted listings, events, and images.
• To limit automated abuse of our forms.
• To understand aggregate site usage and improve the product.

We do not sell personal information. We do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we do not run advertising on this site.

Sharing Your Information

With the business you contact. When you send a message to a business, your name, email address, and message are delivered to that business. This is the purpose of the form, it is disclosed on the form itself before you send, and it is what you consent to at that moment. Once delivered, the business's own handling of your information is governed by its practices, not ours.

If a business has not claimed its listing on LivingRGV, there is no one to deliver to — the message is held and nobody is notified until someone claims it. The form tells you so before you send.

With service providers (subprocessors). We rely on the following, each of which processes data on our behalf:

| Provider | Purpose | Data involved | |---|---|---| | Vercel | Application hosting | Request and server logs | | Supabase | Database, authentication, file storage | Account, listing, message, and consent data | | Stripe | Subscription payments | Billing identifiers and payment data you enter with Stripe | | Resend | Transactional email delivery | Email address, message contents | | Cloudflare (Turnstile) | Bot and spam protection on our forms | Your IP address and a challenge token | | Google (Analytics 4) | Aggregate site analytics | Usage and device data, IP-derived location | | Google (Sign-In) | Optional authentication | Email address, basic profile | | Sanity | Editorial content management | Published editorial content only |

For legal reasons. We may disclose information where required by law, to enforce our Terms, or to protect the rights and safety of users or the public.

In a business transfer. If LivingRGV is acquired or merged, information may transfer as part of that transaction.

Cookies and Analytics

We use cookies that are necessary for the site to function — principally to keep you signed in — and Google Analytics 4 cookies for aggregate measurement. Cloudflare Turnstile, which protects our forms from automated abuse, may also set a cookie on pages that have a form. You can block cookies in your browser; signing in will not work without the necessary ones.

We do not use advertising, remarketing, or cross-site tracking cookies. There is no advertising pixel on this site.

Data Retention

We currently retain data indefinitely. There is no automated deletion, expiry, or archiving anywhere in our system — nothing is removed on a schedule, because no schedule exists. Account, listing, message, event, and billing records stay until someone acts on them.

Two categories are kept deliberately rather than by default: consent records, because a consent record that could be deleted would not be evidence of anything, and billing records, which we are required to keep for tax and accounting.

If you ask us to delete your account, we act on it by hand — see Your Choices.

Your Choices

• Access and correction. Sign in to view and edit your account, listings, and events.
• Claim or correct a listing. Use the claim flow on the listing page, or email us.
• Deletion. Email us to delete your account and we will do it by hand — there is no self-service delete button today. Deleting an account cancels any active subscription immediately and forfeits the remainder of the paid period (see the Terms). Some records do not belong solely to you and survive, with your account link and identifying details removed: listings you claimed revert to unclaimed and stay in the directory, events you submitted stay published, consent records are kept with the account link severed, and claim history is kept only as an anonymous record that a claim was made and decided on a date, with name, email, phone, and IP address erased. Billing records are kept as required for tax and accounting.
• Unsubscribe. Transactional email related to your account cannot be turned off while the account is open. We do not currently send marketing email; if that changes it will require a separate opt-in and will carry a one-click unsubscribe.
• Analytics. Use Google's opt-out browser add-on or block analytics cookies.

To make any of these requests, email privacy@livingrgv.com.

Texas Residents

Children

The service is not directed to children and we do not knowingly collect information from children.

Changes to This Policy

We publish a new version rather than editing a published one, and every prior version stays available at its own permanent URL. For material changes we notify registered users by email and display an in-app notice.

Contact

privacy@livingrgv.com