Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

Information you submit

• Listing submissions (Add Your Business): business name, phone, email, street address, city, state, ZIP, service area, website URL, and the excavation categories that apply to your business.
• Listing claims: the same business details, plus any verification information you provide to prove you are authorized to manage the listing (for example, a license number, insured status, or ownership attestation).
• Contact / lead messages sent to a contractor through a listing: your name, phone, email, job-site address, project type, scope, timeline, access notes, and your message.
• Account information if you create an account to manage a claimed listing: phone and/or email, a password (stored only as a one-way hash), and multi-factor authentication details for staff or admin roles.
• Photos you upload to a listing you own or manage.

Information collected automatically

• Usage events, such as listing impressions, listing views, search results shown, phone-number reveals, telephone link clicks, website clicks, contact-form submissions, and directions clicks. These events may be associated with a session identifier and an IP address.
• Technical data from your requests, including IP address, browser user agent, and approximate location derived from IP. We log this for security, abuse prevention, and audit purposes.
• Cookies and similar technologies as described in Section 6.

Information from public sources

To keep the Directory useful before every business has claimed its listing, we may compile listings from publicly available business information. We also cache limited reference data — such as a business’s Google rating and review count — to keep listings current. The aggregate Google rating and review count are shown on a listing with Google attribution. Individual Google review text is never republished as Gradeline reviews; the only reviews shown publicly on a listing are first-party reviews submitted through Gradeline.

2. How We Use Information

• To publish and maintain listings so visitors can find and contact excavating contractors.
• To deliver contact and lead messages to the contractor you reached out to.
• To verify listing ownership when a business claims a listing.
• To operate, secure, and improve the Directory, including search relevance and fraud or abuse detection.
• To measure aggregate performance (for example, how often a listing is viewed or contacted) and to improve our local-content pages.
• To respond to your requests, including removal and data-access requests.
• To comply with legal obligations and to enforce our Terms of Use.

We do not sell your listing data or contact-form submissions to third parties.

3. What Is Published Publicly

The Directory is a public business listing service. When a listing is published, the following fields are visible to anyone: business name, phone, street address, city, state, ZIP, service area, website URL, category tags, hours, license number, insured status, years in business, crew size, photos, and any first-party reviews submitted through Gradeline.

The following fields are never shown publicly: your account email, your account password, internal identity and fit-scoring fields, outreach notes, individual Google review text, and any analytics or consent metadata.

4. Consent Records

When you add a business or claim a listing, you can choose how Gradeline may contact you: by phone and by SMS. Each choice you make is recorded as a separate, timestamped consent entry along with the IP address and user agent of the request. Consent records are append-only — we add new entries as your choices change and never overwrite the history of what you agreed to and when.

When you submit a contact or lead message to a contractor, your separate “consent to be contacted” choice is likewise recorded with a timestamp and IP address, and your message is delivered to that contractor so they can follow up with you directly.

The contact form also offers two separate, optional SMS opt-in choices — marketing texts (promotions and special offers) and non-marketing texts (about your quote request and related service communications). Both boxes start unchecked and are independent: you may accept one, both, or neither. For each choice we record the exact wording that was shown to you, the phone number, the date and time, and the IP address of the request.

If you opt in to SMS, Gradeline may text you one-time verification codes, listing/claim notices, and new-lead alerts. Message frequency varies; message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to any text to opt out, or HELP for assistance. See the SMS Messaging Terms in our Terms of Use for program details.

You can withdraw or change your consent at any time by emailing [email protected]. Withdrawal does not affect contact that has already occurred.

If you opt in to SMS, Gradeline may text you one-time verification codes, listing/claim notices, and new-lead alerts. Message frequency varies; message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to any text to opt out, or HELP for assistance. See the SMS Messaging Terms in our Terms of Use for program details.

5. Sharing & Third Parties

We share information only in these limited ways:

• With the contractor you contact. Your contact or lead message is delivered to the listed business so they can respond. That business is responsible for how it handles your message once received.
• With one contractor we select, for service requests. When you submit a general request through Request Services, we review it and share it with one contractor listed in the Directory who serves your area. Contractors may pay Gradeline for that referral. We do not share your request with more than one contractor or with anyone outside the Directory.
• With service providers that help us operate the Directory — for example, hosting, email delivery, and analytics providers. These providers process data on our behalf and under contract, and may not use it for their own purposes.
• To protect rights and safety. We may disclose information when we believe it is necessary to comply with law, to enforce our Terms, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Gradeline, our users, or the public.
• In a transfer of our business. If Gradeline is acquired or merged, information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to this Policy.

We are not a party to any agreement between you and a listed contractor, and we do not share your data with contractors other than the one you contacted.

No mobile phone number or SMS opt-in consent data is shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. This category excludes our SMS delivery vendor, which processes messages on our behalf under contract solely to send them, and does not use your number for its own marketing.

6. Cookies & Analytics

We use cookies and similar technologies to keep you signed in, to remember preferences, and to measure aggregate usage through our analytics provider. We do not use cookies to build advertising profiles on you across third-party websites.

You can control or delete cookies through your browser settings. Disabling cookies may affect features such as staying signed in to a claimed listing.

7. Data Retention

We keep listing information for as long as a listing is published or as needed to provide the Service. Account information is retained while your account is active and for a reasonable period afterward for audit and security purposes. Consent records and audit logs are retained as append-only records to maintain an accurate history of permissions and actions. Contact and lead messages are retained to provide a record of the introduction between you and the contractor and to support abuse prevention.

You can request removal of your listing at any time by emailing [email protected]. We will remove public listing information within a reasonable time, while retaining internal records required for security, audit, and legal compliance.

8. Security

We protect accounts with hashed passwords, single-use tokens for password resets and magic links, and time-limited one-time codes for phone verification. Sensitive tokens are stored as one-way hashes rather than plaintext. We log security-relevant actions (such as logins, claim verifications, and access grants) in an append-only audit log.

No method of transmission or storage is fully secure, however, and we cannot guarantee the security of information you submit to any online service.

9. Your Privacy Rights

If you are a U.S. resident, certain state laws — such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) — may give you the right to know what personal information we collect about you, to request deletion, and to opt out of any “sale” or “sharing” of personal information. Because we do not sell your personal information, there is no sale to opt out of.

If you are in the European Economic Area, the UK, or Switzerland, the GDPR gives you rights to access, correct, erase, restrict, or port your personal data, and to object to processing. We process listing and contact information under the legal bases of providing the Service you requested, our legitimate interests in operating and securing the Directory, and compliance with legal obligations.

To exercise any of these rights, email [email protected]. We will respond within the time required by applicable law and may ask for information to verify your identity.

10. Children’s Privacy

The Directory is intended for businesses and adults seeking excavation services. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 (or the minimum age in your jurisdiction). If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we will delete it.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as the Service evolves. We will update the “Last updated” date above and, for material changes, provide notice on the Directory. Continued use after a change takes effect constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

12. Contact

Questions about this policy or requests regarding your data should go to [email protected]. To request removal of a listing, email [email protected]. For anything else, use our support page.