Privacy Policy
Gale-Force LLC, of Duvall, Washington, runs alerts.city (the app and website) and gale-force.com (the website business). This policy covers both, for the two kinds of people who use them: residents who open alerts.city, and businesses that claim a listing, buy a plan or buy a website.
The short version: we collect as little as we can, we do not sell data, we show businesses counts and never people, and residents can use alerts.city without an account.
Residents
You do not need an account. Alerts, river levels, roads, cameras and the Local page work without signing in.
Location. If you allow it, your browser or phone gives alerts.city your location so it can show what is near you and sort businesses by distance. That happens on your device; the coordinates are sent to our server only to answer that request and are not stored against you.
What our server sees. Like every website, our server and Microsoft Azure (our host) log the requests they receive: the page, the time, your IP address and browser type. We use Azure Application Insights to count page views, searches, clicks and errors so we know what works and how much alerts.city is used. Retention is 90 days. These counts are what we publish each month and what we show businesses ("43 people viewed your listing this month"). We do not build profiles of residents and we do not sell or share this data with advertisers.
Cookies and storage. alerts.city keeps small settings on your device (your chosen city, what you last looked at, whether you dismissed a notice). No third-party advertising cookies, no tracking pixels.
Push notifications. If you turn them on, your browser gives us a subscription token so we can send alerts you asked for. Turn them off in your browser and the token is deleted.
Accounts (optional). If you make an account (to save routes, events or a business), we keep your email and display name and a hashed password, or the identity your sign-in provider gives us. We email you only about things you asked for.
Third parties that see resident data. Microsoft Azure (hosting, logs, Application Insights); the mapping and tile providers named on the map; camera, river, weather and road feeds we display (they see nothing of you). Nothing else.
Businesses
When you claim a listing we keep your name, email, phone, the business you claimed and how you proved it (a code sent to the listed phone, a match on your email domain, or a review by us). We may keep a note of that check.
What you publish (hours, description, menu, prices, search words, specials, photos, logo) is public by design: it appears on alerts.city, in search, on a website we build for you, and in feeds we make available to our own sites. Do not put anything on a listing you do not want public.
Photos you upload for reading. A menu or product photo can be read by an AI vision model to draft a list of what you sell. The image is sent to that model's provider for the read and is not used by us to train anything. We keep the image on our media store while it is on your listing.
Automated checks. Search words, specials and photos are checked automatically (including by an AI model) for the content rules in our Terms. A person can review the result. We log what was checked and the outcome.
Payments. Card payments are taken by Stripe. Stripe sees your card, name, email and billing address; we see your name, email, the last four digits, what you bought and the invoices. We never store a card number. Stripe's own privacy policy applies to what it holds. Stripe Tax uses your billing address to work out sales tax.
Square. If we set up online ordering, the Square account is yours and Square's privacy policy governs it. We hold the sign-in only while setting it up, and you should change it when we hand over.
Domains. A domain we register for you is registered in your name with the registrar; your contact details go on the registration as the registrar requires (usually behind their privacy proxy).
Stats we show you. Your dashboard shows counts: how many people saw your listing, opened it, called, asked for directions, clicked your website or menu, and which searches led to you. Counts come from resident telemetry above and never identify a resident. We do not show you who searched (we do not have that information anyway).
Email from us. A monthly stats email, renewal notices, receipts, and notes about your listing or website. No marketing lists, and we do not share your email with anyone.
Third parties that see business data. Stripe (payments and tax), Microsoft Azure (hosting and email delivery), GitHub (where a website's files live if you take the transfer), the AI model provider for reads and checks, the domain registrar, and Twilio for a claim code by text. Each sees only what its job needs.
Both
We do not sell personal data and we do not share it for advertising. We share it only with the providers named here, when the law requires, or to protect someone from harm.
Keeping and deleting. Request logs and telemetry: 90 days. Accounts and business content: as long as the account exists, then deleted within 30 days of a request to close it, except invoices and tax records we must keep (seven years) and copies in backups, which roll off in 90 days. A business's basic facts (name, address, phone, hours, links) are public information and may stay on the directory after the owner's account closes, as they were before it was claimed.
Your rights. Email hello@gale-force.com to see what we hold about you, correct it, or delete it. We answer within 30 days. Washington residents have the rights in the Washington My Health My Data Act where it applies (we collect no health data) and other applicable state laws.
Children. alerts.city is for the whole town, but we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Accounts are for adults.
Security. Connections are encrypted (HTTPS). Passwords are hashed. Secrets live in Azure configuration, not in code. If a breach affects you we will tell you as Washington law requires.
Changes. We will post changes here with a new date; for a material change we email account holders.
Gale-Force LLC · Duvall, Washington · hello@gale-force.com