Privacy Policy

1. Information we collect

Information you give us

• Account. Your name, email address and password. We store only a one-way hash of your password, not the password itself.
• Profile. Optional details you add, such as a photo, a short bio and links to your social media profiles.
• Business listings. When you add, claim or edit a listing: the business’s name, description, category, address, phone number, email, website, hours, photos and social media links, and optional owner details (name, bio and photo). We also keep a private contact email for the owner.
• Claim requests. When you claim a listing, the information you give us to show the business is yours. We verify a claim either by emailing the address on the listing, in a message that includes your name, or by having our team review it.
• Messages to businesses. When you use a listing’s contact form, your name, your email or phone number, and your message. We send them to the business by email, through our email provider, and don’t save them in our database. Copies stay in the business’s inbox.
• Reports. When you report a listing, the reason, any details, and your name and email if you include them (they’re filled in for you when you’re signed in).
• Payments. Paid plans are handled by Stripe. Your card details go directly to Stripe; we never see or store your full card number. We keep your Stripe customer and subscription IDs, your plan and its status.
• Emails to us. Anything you send when you contact us.

Information collected automatically

• Saves and likes. The businesses you save or like, linked to your account. We also count how often each listing is viewed or contacted, as totals that aren’t linked to you.
• Searches. For keyword searches, the words, category and number of results, recorded in our analytics without your IP address or account.
• Website analytics. On the website, including website pages opened inside the iPhone app, our analytics records the pages you visit (including any search terms or location in the page address), your IP address, and your browser and device type.
• Sign-in and server data. When you sign in, we record your IP address and browser or device type with your session. Our servers also keep standard logs of requests, which include IP addresses and the addresses requested.
• Location. Only when you search “Near me” or sort results by distance. The iPhone app asks for your permission first, then sends your location with that search; it’s precise if you’ve allowed precise location. We use it to find nearby businesses and don’t save it to your account or our database, though it can appear in server logs and, on the website, in our analytics. If you type a city, state or ZIP code instead, we look it up with our geocoding provider.

Cookies and similar technologies

• Website. A sign-in cookie keeps you signed in for up to 7 days, and our analytics uses its own cookies to count visits. We don’t use advertising cookies. You can block or delete cookies in your browser, but you’ll need the sign-in cookie to use your account.
• iPhone app. The app itself doesn’t use cookies or advertising identifiers and doesn’t track you across other apps or websites. It keeps your sign-in in your iPhone’s Keychain. Website pages it opens, such as a listing’s contact form, use the website’s cookies and analytics.
• Spam protection. Our contact and report forms use Cloudflare Turnstile, which checks that a person, not a bot, is sending them.

2. How we use information

• To run the directory: show listings, search, find businesses near you, and keep your saves and likes.
• To run your account: sign you in, keep it secure, and send password reset emails.
• To publish and manage listings, verify claims, and process subscriptions.
• To deliver your messages to businesses.
• To review reports and prevent spam, fraud and abuse.
• To understand how the Service is used, in aggregate, so we can improve it.
• To meet our legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Use.

We don’t sell your personal information, and we don’t use or share it for targeted advertising. We may feature public listings to promote the directory, as our Terms of Use describe.

3. What's public

Business listings are public. Anyone, including search engines, can see a listing’s details, including any owner name, bio and photo added to it. Because this is a directory of Black-owned businesses, a listing indicates that its owners are Black, which can reveal their race or ethnicity. By adding or claiming a listing, you agree to that being public. Please don’t put anything in a listing that you don’t want to be public. Your account email, saves and likes are not public.

Photos you upload are stored at public web addresses. Photos can contain hidden details, such as where they were taken, so remove those before uploading if you don’t want to share them.

4. How we share information

We share information only as described here:

• Service providers that process information for us, under their own privacy terms: Stripe (payments and subscriptions); SMTP2Go (sending email); Geocodio (turning business addresses and typed locations into map coordinates); Cloudflare Turnstile (spam protection on our forms; see Cloudflare’s Turnstile privacy addendum); DigitalOcean (hosting our servers, database and uploaded photos); and Slack (alerting our team when a listing is reported, including the report’s details). Our website analytics (Matomo) runs on our own server.
• Businesses you contact. Your message and contact details go to the business you write to. How they use them is up to them.
• Apple. If you use the iPhone app, Apple may provide its publisher with App Store statistics and, if you choose to share them on your device, crash reports.
• Legal and safety reasons. When the law requires it, or to protect the rights, property or safety of our users, the public or I Am Black Business.
• Business transfers. If I Am Black Business is involved in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, including a transfer to an affiliated company, your information may be transferred as part of it, and this policy will continue to apply to it.

5. Keeping and deleting your information

We keep your information while your account is open and for as long as we need it to run the Service and meet our legal obligations.

You can delete your account at any time in the iPhone app (Profile → Delete account) or by emailing us from the address on your account. When you delete your account, we delete your account and profile, your saves and likes, your sign-in sessions and any pending claim requests, and remove your name and email from reports filed with your account’s email address. We cancel your subscriptions. For listings you own, you choose whether they stay in the directory without your owner details or are taken out of the directory; we keep a hidden record of a removed listing so it can be restored.

Some information can remain after you delete your account:

• Payment records that Stripe keeps, as the law requires.
• Emails already sent, and analytics records, which aren’t linked to your account.
• The text of reports you filed, and report alerts already sent to our team.
• Records of past claim decisions.
• Business details for listings that stay in the directory, including the record of who first submitted the listing.
• Photos you uploaded, which can stay in our storage. Email us and we’ll remove them.

6. Your choices and rights

• Update your profile and listings from your account and dashboard.
• Turn location access on or off for the iPhone app in your iPhone’s Settings.
• Block or delete cookies in your browser.
• Any newsletter or marketing email we send you will include a way to unsubscribe.

You can ask us for a copy of your information, or to correct or delete it, by emailing team@iamblackbusiness.com. Depending on where you live, including California and other US states, you may have further rights under privacy law; we’ll honor them as the law requires and won’t treat you differently for using them. We may need to confirm your identity before acting on a request, and you can use an authorized agent to make one. If we deny your request, you can appeal by replying to our decision.

7. Children

The Service isn’t meant for children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child under 13 has given us information, email us and we’ll delete it.

8. Security

We protect your information with encrypted connections (HTTPS), hashed passwords and restricted access to our systems. No system is completely secure, so we can’t guarantee the security of your information.

9. Where we process information

We’re based in the United States, and the Service is meant for people in the United States. If you use it from elsewhere, your information will be processed in the United States.

10. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we’ll update the effective date above. If a change is significant, we’ll tell you on the website or in the app, or by email, before it takes effect.

11. Contact us

Questions or requests about your privacy: