1. What We Collect
- Account details — your name, email address, and a securely hashed password when you create a business account.
- Listing & submission content — business info, photos, event details, news stories, and the name/email you attach to a submission.
- Newsletter signups — your email address.
- Advertising inquiries — your name, business, email, and message.
- Technical basics — like most websites, our hosting provider keeps standard server logs (IP address, browser type, pages requested) for security and troubleshooting. We use a session cookie to keep you logged in; we do not run third-party ad trackers.
2. How We Use It
- To publish and moderate the content you submit (that's the point of the Site!);
- To run your account and let you manage your listing;
- To contact you about your submissions, your account, our services, and — with your consent — news and offers from Rockford-IL.com, by email, phone, or text;
- To send the newsletter you signed up for;
- To respond to advertising inquiries;
- To keep the Site secure and prevent spam and abuse (including maintaining a blocklist of abusive email addresses).
3. Who We Share It With
We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with service providers who help us run the Site:
- Web hosting — our hosting provider stores the Site's database and files;
- GoHighLevel — our marketing and communications platform, which we use to manage contacts and send emails (newsletter signups, notifications, password resets, and advertising follow-ups);
- Weather data — the homepage weather widget requests forecast data from Open-Meteo directly from your browser; we don't send them your personal information.
We may also disclose information if required by law or to protect the Site and its users.
4. What's Public
Content you submit for publication — business listings, photos, event details, news stories — is meant to be public and will be visible to anyone once approved. The submitter name on events and stories may be visible to our team; we do not publish your email address.
5. How Long We Keep It
Account and listing data stays as long as your account is active. Newsletter emails stay on the list until you unsubscribe or we remove you. Submission records and inquiries are kept as long as they're useful for running the Site. You can ask us to delete your data at any time (see Section 7).
6. Security
Passwords are stored using modern one-way hashing, connections use HTTPS, and admin access is restricted. No website can promise perfect security, but we take reasonable measures to protect your information.
7. Your Choices & Rights
- Unsubscribe from marketing emails at any time via the link in the email or by contacting us;
- Update your listing and account details from your dashboard;
- Request deletion of your account, content, or email from our lists by writing to information@rockford-il.com — we'll act on verified requests promptly.
8. Children
The Site is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information.
9. Changes
If we change this policy, we'll update the date at the top. Meaningful changes will be noted on the Site.
10. Contact
Privacy questions or requests: information@rockford-il.com