Your data, and when I destroy it.
Effective August 1, 2026
Most privacy policies are written to protect the business from you. This one is written so you can tell exactly what I hold and exactly when it stops existing. The short version: nothing is sold, nothing is tracked across the web, and everything is deleted on a schedule instead of sitting on a hard drive forever.
What this site collects
Only what you type into the audit-request form and choose to send: your name, your business name, how you would like to be reached, your website address, and your message. Nothing else on this site collects anything about you.
There are no tracking cookies, no advertising pixels, no session recording, and no data brokers. This site stores exactly one thing in your browser: if you use the light and dark toggle, your choice is saved locally under the name theme so the page does not flash the wrong way round on your next visit. It never leaves your device, it is never sent anywhere, and clearing your browser data removes it.
What it gets used for
One thing: replying to you about your website. Your details are never sold, never rented, never shared for marketing, never used to build a profile, and never added to a mailing list you did not ask to join. There is no mailing list.
When it gets destroyed
Deletion is the default here, not something you have to chase. Every category has an end date.
- You asked about a website and we did not work together. Your message and contact details are deleted within 30 days of our last exchange. That includes the original email, so there is no quiet archive of people who once inquired.
- I audited your site and you did not hire me. My notes and findings about your website go in the bin with the rest of it, within 30 days. I do not keep a file on your business in case you come back later, and I do not sell what I noticed to anybody.
- We built something together. Your content, photos, logins, and project files are kept while I am working for you and for 90 days after handover, so you can come back for a file you misplaced. After that they are deleted. Everything was already handed to you at launch, which is the whole point of the ownership rules on the terms page.
- You paid an invoice. This is the one exception, and it is explained directly below.
The one thing I cannot delete
Records of money changing hands. If you pay an invoice, the record of that payment is business tax paperwork, and the law requires me to keep it, generally for 7 years. Erasing it on request is not something I am allowed to do, so I am not going to promise it here and then quietly not do it.
That record is a name, an amount, and a date. Your card number is not part of it and never was, because card details are entered on Stripe's own systems and never pass through this site.
Who else touches it on the way to me
An honest answer has to name them, because a promise to delete my copy means little if somebody else quietly keeps theirs. Each of these handles your information under its own privacy policy and on its own schedule:
- Web3Forms carries the audit-request form to my inbox.
- Google hosts that inbox, and the booking calendar if you pick a time.
- Stripe takes the payment if you become a client and pay online.
- Cloudflare serves these pages and keeps short-lived server logs, the way every web host does.
That is the entire list. When you ask me to erase your information I delete my copies and ask them to delete theirs, and I will tell you plainly what came back.
Have it erased today
You do not have to wait for one of those windows to run out, give a reason, or prove anything. Email or call and say you want your information deleted. It happens within seven days and you get a note confirming it is done. There is no account to log into and no form to hunt for, because asking a person is faster.
You can also ask what I hold about you and get a straight answer, or ask me to correct something that is wrong.
The businesses I audited
The numbers on this site come from hand-auditing 165 local businesses. Their names have never been published, are not in the code behind this website, and are not going to be. A public list of who has a broken website would be a list of neighbors to embarrass, which is the opposite of the job. If one of those businesses is yours and you would like my notes destroyed, say so and they are gone.
Children
This is a service for business owners. It is not aimed at children and does not knowingly collect anything about them.
If this policy changes
The effective date at the top changes with it. Any change that would keep your data longer than the schedule above applies to new inquiries, not backwards to yours.
Questions
Email info@laurelwebstudio.com or call (724) 201-9103. You will get a person, not a policy bot.
Related: how working together works covers ownership and the audit's rules of engagement, and the accessibility statement covers how this site is built to be used.