Privacy policy

Overview

Texas Local Weekly LLC (“we,” “us,” or “our”) publishes local news for Texas communities through our website and email newsletters. This policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and the choices you have.

Information we collect

Newsletter subscribers

When you subscribe to a newsletter, we collect:

• Your email address
• The cities you subscribe to
• When you subscribed or unsubscribed, and any reason you choose to give for leaving

Members and account holders

When you create an account or become a member, we also collect:

• Your name, email address, and authentication credentials. Passwords are stored in hashed form and are not stored as readable passwords.
• Your membership details, including cities, billing interval, status, renewal dates, and any promo code or complimentary access
• Your activity on the site, such as bookmarks, stories you follow, article reactions, and poll responses
• Any feedback you give us when you cancel

Businesses and sponsors

When you submit a business or work with us as a sponsor, we collect your business name, category, city, address, website, social media links, phone number, email address, description, images, and login details. Some of this information may be published in our listings and sponsor features.

Email activity

Our emails contain tracking technology. For each newsletter, we record by recipient whether the email was delivered or failed, whether and when it was opened, which links were clicked, and whether it was reported as spam. Open data can be incomplete, and some email apps block or trigger it automatically.

Website usage and device information

When you visit our site, we and our service providers automatically collect information such as your IP address, pages viewed, referring site, time on site, general location, device type, and browser. We also use IP addresses to protect the site from abuse, including limiting repeated signup and checkout attempts.

Payment information

Card details are entered directly with Stripe and are not stored on our servers. We keep Stripe customer and subscription identifiers along with the status of your membership.

Cookies

We use cookies and similar technologies to:

• Run the site: keep you logged in, remember your membership selections during signup, and protect forms. These are needed for the site to work.
• Measure traffic: Google Analytics uses cookies to help us understand how the site is used.
• Process payments: Stripe may use cookies on checkout pages for payment processing and fraud prevention.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, though logging in and checkout may stop working. You can opt out of Google Analytics with the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. Our site does not currently respond to browser “Do Not Track” signals.

How we use your information

We use the information we collect to:

• Send the newsletters you signed up for, along with welcome messages and important service announcements
• Create and manage accounts and memberships, process payments, and send receipts or billing notices
• Provide member features such as bookmarks, followed stories, reactions, and polls
• Understand which stories and links readers find useful, and improve our coverage and website
• Keep our email lists healthy by finding failed addresses and honoring spam complaints
• Run business listings and sponsor features, and report on how they perform
• Prevent fraud and abuse, respond to you, and meet our legal obligations

How we use AI

We use artificial intelligence tools to assist with creating and preparing some text and images. AI tools may assist with tasks such as drafting, summarizing, organization, and image creation. Factual reporting is intended to be based on source material, including public records and other identified sources. AI-assisted content may contain errors or omissions. If you identify a potential factual error, please contact us at contact@txlocalweekly.com.

We do not send subscriber lists, reader email addresses, or payment information to AI providers to produce content. Information a business gives us for a listing or sponsor feature may be processed with AI to prepare that content.

Service providers

We share information with companies that help us operate the service, including providers of email delivery, payment processing, website analytics, hosting and storage, AI tools, internal team communication, and social media.

Depending on the service, information shared may include contact information, account and membership information, subscription and transaction identifiers, email engagement information, website usage and device information, and business or sponsor information. Service providers receive information as reasonably necessary to perform services for us.

When we share information

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not give or rent our subscriber lists to sponsors or other third parties for their marketing. Sponsors may receive summary performance figures, such as total link clicks, that do not identify individual readers.

Beyond our service providers, we may disclose information if the law requires it, to protect the rights or safety of our readers, our company, or others, or as part of a merger, sale, or transfer of our business.

Marketing emails and unsubscribing

Every newsletter includes an unsubscribe link, and we honor those requests. Unsubscribing does not end a paid membership. You can cancel a membership from your account. We may still send transactional messages, such as billing notices and account security emails, while you have an account.

How long we keep information

We keep personal information for as long as your subscription, membership, or account is active, and afterward as long as reasonably needed to honor unsubscribes, keep financial and tax records, resolve disputes, prevent abuse, and meet legal obligations. Then we delete or de-identify it.

Your rights and choices

You can ask us to:

• Access: confirm whether we process your personal information and give you a copy
• Correct: fix inaccurate information
• Delete: delete your personal information, except what we must or may keep by law
• Opt out: stop marketing emails, and stop any sale of personal data, targeted advertising, or profiling with significant effects. We do not currently do these things.

To make a request, email contact@txlocalweekly.com. We may need to verify your identity first, and we will respond within the time required by applicable law. We will not treat you differently for exercising your rights. If we decline a privacy request, you may appeal by replying to our response or by emailing contact@txlocalweekly.com with “Privacy Appeal” in the subject line. We will review the appeal and respond within the period required by applicable law. If we deny an appeal and applicable law requires it, we will provide information about how to submit a complaint to the appropriate regulator, including the Texas Attorney General.

Data security

We take reasonable measures to protect your information from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. However, no internet transmission or storage system is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Children’s privacy

Our service is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

Where we operate

Our service is intended for readers in the United States, and information is processed in the United States.

Changes to this policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated “Last Updated” date. If we make material changes, we may notify you by email or by posting a prominent notice on our website.

Contact us

Questions about this privacy policy? Contact us at:

Email: contact@txlocalweekly.com