Privacy Policy

LivingRGV ("we", "us") is operated by LIVINGRGV LLC. We run a local business directory and events surface for the Rio Grande Valley, Texas. This policy describes what we collect, why, who we share it with, and what you can ask us to do about it.

Information We Collect

Account information. When you create an account we receive your email address. We never ask you for a password, and there is nowhere on this site to enter one — signing in is by emailed one-time link ("magic link") or by Google sign-in. If you use Google sign-in, Google provides us your email address and basic profile information; we never receive your Google password.

Business listing information. If you claim or submit a business listing, we collect the business details you provide: name, address, phone, hours, description, category, website, booking links, and images you upload.

Mobile phone number (business members). If you submit a business, claim a listing, or accept an invitation to manage one — or, as an existing member, from your dashboard — we ask for your own mobile phone number. It is required to become a member. We store it on your account and use it to contact you about your account and your listing. We use it to send you text messages only if you separately opt in; see Text messages below.

Inquiry information. When you send a message to a business through our site, we collect your name, email address, and message. We do not ask for a phone number. We also record a timestamp and the exact wording of the consent you agreed to when you sent it, so the record describes what you actually saw on screen rather than what a policy says you saw.

Quote requests. When you request a quote on one of our trade pages or use an estimate tool, we collect your name, email address, phone number, ZIP code, and the details of your request, and we record the exact wording of the consent you agreed to and when. By agreeing, you let LivingRGV contact you by phone, text message or email about the request.

Website chat. Most public pages on our site show a chat button, provided by HighLevel (LeadConnector). If you start a chat, the name, phone number, and messages you submit through it are processed by HighLevel on our behalf, so that we can answer you. The chat does not appear on pages that have their own phone-number or text-message sign-up form, or on our events pages.

Text sign-up (RGV Weekly Deals). You can sign up for our RGV Weekly Deals text messages without creating an account. We collect your mobile phone number. When you sign up with the box ticked we also record, as a consent record: the exact wording that was shown to you, the version of that wording, the date and time, the page you signed up on, your IP address, and your browser's user-agent (the device and browser information your browser sends with every request). We later add to the record your replies to our texts (such as Y, STOP, START and HELP) and when we sent each message to you.

Newsletter sign-up. To subscribe to the LivingRGV newsletter we collect your email address, and the city you choose if you choose one. When you sign up with the box ticked we also record, as a consent record: the exact wording that was shown to you, the version of that wording, the date and time, the page you signed up on, and your browser's user-agent. The newsletter sign-up and its consent record do not store your IP address in readable form. They keep only a scrambled (hashed) form of it, as evidence of the sign-up. The separate abuse-prevention record described under Abuse prevention below holds the IP address of the request, as it does for every form.

Event submissions. Event title, description, dates, venue, and images. If you choose Fill in from flyer, the flyer image you uploaded is read by our AI provider (Anthropic) to suggest values for the form; you check and edit them before you submit. This is optional, and the form works without it. Each time you use it we keep a record of the use (the time, and how large the request to our AI provider was) so we can enforce a daily limit and keep track of its cost: if you are signed in, the record is linked to your account; if you are signed out, it holds only a scrambled (hashed) form of your IP address, never the address itself.

Payment information. If you subscribe to a paid tier, payment is processed by Stripe. Card numbers and payment credentials never reach our servers. We store only a Stripe customer identifier, a subscription identifier, the plan, its status, and the current billing period end date.

Usage information. Two separate things, recorded by two separate systems.

Google Analytics 4, which we use to understand aggregate traffic across the site. This involves cookies and collects information such as pages viewed, approximate location derived from IP address, device and browser type, and referring site.

Our own interaction counts. We separately record when a business listing is viewed, when someone taps one of its action buttons — call, website, directions, booking, a social link — when a coupon scrolls into view or is revealed, and when a listing appears in a set of search results. We do this so we can show the business that owns the listing how its own page is performing.

We record the same kind of counts on creator profiles in the Creator Marketplace: when a profile is viewed, when it appears in a set of marketplace results, when someone starts a message to that creator, taps their listed email or phone, opens one of their social links, or plays one of their portfolio videos. We do this so we can show the creator how their own profile is performing. These are counts of interactions, not of people, and we do not record the content of any message from them — a message you send is covered separately under "Messages you send".

These records contain no information about you. Each one holds only: which listing or which creator profile, which kind of interaction, when it happened, and a short-lived random token used to avoid counting a single visit twice.

In particular, and by design:

• We do not store your IP address on these records.
• We do not store your browser user-agent. We read it to decide whether a visit is an automated crawler rather than a person, and then discard it — only the yes-or-no outcome affects whether the visit is counted at all.
• We do not store your account identifier, even when you are signed in. These records are never linked to your account.
• The de-duplication token is a random value combined with a server-side secret that changes every day. It is not derived from your IP address, your device, or anything about you, it cannot be worked backwards to identify anyone, and once the daily secret rotates it can no longer be linked to anything at all — including to earlier records made with the same token.

The result is closer to a tally than to a log: it can tell a business that its page was viewed four hundred times, and it cannot tell anyone — including us — who those people were.

We do not record what you type into the search box.

Abuse prevention. When you submit a form — an inquiry, a business submission, an event — we separately record the IP address the request came from, so we can limit how many submissions one source makes in a day. That record contains an IP address and a timestamp and nothing else: it is not linked to your name, your message, or your account.

Technical information. Standard server and security logs, and — where you consent to a legal document — the browser user-agent recorded alongside that consent and, for text-message and legal-document consents, your IP address (in the newsletter's sign-up and consent record, only a scrambled form of it, as described above), so the record is meaningful evidence of what was agreed and when.

Directory Listings Compiled From Public Sources

A substantial portion of our directory — 11,238 business listings as of this version — was compiled from publicly available sources rather than submitted by the businesses themselves. Those businesses did not sign up for LivingRGV and have not agreed to anything.

Listings of this kind contain only business contact information: name, address, phone number, category, hours, and similar operational details. They are not personal profiles, and we do not add personal information about business owners to them.

If you are the owner of a listed business, you may claim your listing to control its content, or ask us to correct or remove it by emailing privacy@livingrgv.com. We handle these requests by hand and will confirm when it is done.

How We Use Information

• To operate and display the directory, events, and editorial content.
• To deliver your message to the business you selected.
• To contact you about your quote request, and to share it with a limited number of local businesses in that trade serving your area, so they can contact you about it. A message you send from a listing's own page goes only to that business.
• To answer questions you send through the chat on our website, and to send the promotional text messages and calls described under Text messages to a number whose consent is recorded through the chat.
• To send the RGV Weekly Deals text messages (weekend events and local deals; 1 msg/week, plus a confirmation text) to people who signed up for them, and to send the LivingRGV newsletter to people who signed up for it.
• To keep a record of consent — what you agreed to, when, and from where — so that we can show that a person asked for the text messages or emails we send, and to honour STOP and unsubscribe requests.
• To create and secure your account and authenticate sign-in.
• To contact business members about their account and listing, and — only with their separate opt-in — to send the text messages described under Text messages.
• To process subscriptions and grant paid features through Stripe.
• To send transactional email — sign-in links, claim status, message notifications, billing notices.
• To moderate submitted listings, events, and images.
• To limit automated abuse of our forms.
• To show a business how its own listing is performing, and a creator how their own profile is performing.
• To understand aggregate site usage and improve the product.

We do not sell personal information for money.

We do share limited information for advertising. When you visit this site, a Meta (Facebook) advertising pixel loads and reports your visit to Meta so that we can measure and target our own advertising. Under Texas law this is targeted advertising, and depending on how the term is read it may also count as a "sale" of personal information — the definition covers sharing for consideration other than money. You can turn it off; see Your advertising choice below.

Sharing Your Information

With the business you contact. When you send a message to a business, your name, email address, and message are delivered to that business. This is the purpose of the form, it is disclosed on the form itself before you send, and it is what you consent to at that moment. Once delivered, the business's own handling of your information is governed by its practices, not ours.

If a business has not claimed its listing on LivingRGV, there is no one to deliver to — the message is held and nobody is notified until someone claims it. The form tells you so before you send.

When you request a quote, we may share your name, phone number, email address, ZIP code and request with a limited number of local businesses in that trade serving your area. Those businesses may include, but are not limited to, Featured members. They receive it to contact you about your request.

With the business whose listing you interact with. A business that has claimed its listing can see counts describing how its own page performed — how many times it was viewed, how many people tapped call or website or directions, how many saw a coupon. These are totals, not records of people. They cannot be expanded into a list of who did anything, because who was never recorded. A business cannot learn from us that any particular person viewed its page.

With service providers (subprocessors). We rely on the following, each of which processes data on our behalf:

| Provider | Purpose | Data involved | |---|---|---| | Vercel | Application hosting | Request and server logs | | Supabase | Database, authentication, file storage | Account, listing, message, consent, and interaction-count data; phone numbers and email addresses of people who signed up for texts or the newsletter, and their consent records | | Stripe | Subscription payments, and LRGV Hub texting and calling usage charged by LivingRGV | Billing identifiers and payment data you enter with Stripe | | Resend | Transactional email delivery, and sending the LivingRGV newsletter | Email address, message contents; for the newsletter, whether a message was delivered, bounced, or was marked as unwanted, and your unsubscribe choice, which is kept in step between our list and Resend's | | Cloudflare (Turnstile) | Bot and spam protection on our forms | Your IP address and a challenge token | | Google (Analytics 4) | Aggregate site analytics | Usage and device data, IP-derived location | | Google (YouTube) | Video embedded on some pages | Your IP address and browser user-agent, sent when the video area loads — whether or not you press play | | Meta (Facebook) | Advertising measurement and targeting | Pages visited, IP address, user-agent, Meta advertising cookies, the ad you arrived from, and — if you subscribe — the purchase amount and a hashed form of your email address | | Google (Sign-In) | Optional authentication | Email address, basic profile | | Sanity | Editorial content management | Published editorial content only | | HighLevel (LeadConnector) | The LRGV Hub, a CRM provided to Featured members | The member's name, email address, mobile number, and business details, and whatever the member stores in or sends through the Hub — their own contacts, messages, and call records | | HighLevel (LeadConnector) | Sending and receiving the RGV Weekly Deals text messages on our behalf (our SMS provider and contact system) | Your mobile phone number, the text messages we send you, and your replies (such as Y, STOP, START and HELP) | | Anthropic | AI reading of event flyers and public event pages, to suggest event details for a person to review | An event flyer image you upload, only if you choose Fill in from flyer; event flyers our staff add; publicly posted event information | | HighLevel (LeadConnector) | The chat widget on our public website | The name, phone number, and chat messages you submit through the widget; your text-message consent if you give it; and your IP address and browser user-agent, sent when the widget loads |

No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Text-messaging opt-in data and consent will not be shared with any third parties. Service providers that help us deliver the service — such as a provider that delivers text messages on our behalf, or one that hosts our records — process a mobile number or an opt-in record only to perform that service for us. That is not sharing for anyone's marketing or promotional purposes.

Our own interaction counts — for listings and for creator profiles alike — are not sent to Google, or to anyone else. They are recorded in our own database — Supabase, listed above as our database provider — and used only to produce the totals we show the business that owns the listing. They are not sent to Google Analytics, not sold, not shared with advertisers or data brokers, and not used to build a profile of you.

This paragraph is about those counts specifically, and is not a statement about the site as a whole. The advertising pixel described above does send data to Meta.

For legal reasons. We may disclose information where required by law, to enforce our Terms, or to protect the rights and safety of users or the public.

In a business transfer. If LivingRGV is acquired or merged, information may transfer as part of that transaction.

Cookies and Analytics

We use cookies that are necessary for the site to function — principally to keep you signed in — and Google Analytics 4 cookies for aggregate measurement. Cloudflare Turnstile, which protects our forms from automated abuse, may also set a cookie on pages that have a form. You can block cookies in your browser; signing in will not work without the necessary ones.

We use a Meta (Facebook) advertising pixel. It sets Meta cookies (_fbp) and reports to Meta:

• the page you are on and when you visited;
• your IP address and browser user-agent;
• if you arrived from one of our Meta ads, the identifier of that ad;
• if you subscribe, that a purchase happened and the amount.

When you subscribe we also send Meta a scrambled (hashed) form of your email address, so Meta can match the purchase to an account. We do not send your email address in readable form, and the hash cannot be reversed back into it by us.

Most pages also load our chat widget, from HighLevel's servers. HighLevel receives your IP address and browser user-agent when it loads. The widget does not set cookies; it keeps a session identifier and your conversation history in your browser's local storage, so a chat continues as you move between pages. Clearing site data for this site removes them.

Pages with a video also load YouTube. The video is embedded through youtube-nocookie.com, which does not set advertising cookies unless you press play. Google still receives your IP address and browser user-agent when the video area loads, whether or not you play it. To measure whether the video is watched at all, we also load a YouTube script from youtube.com.

Data Retention

Most data is retained indefinitely. Account, listing, message, event-submission, and billing records are not removed on a schedule; they stay until someone acts on them.

Interaction counts are deleted automatically after 400 days. This is the one automated deletion we operate. Records of listing views, creator profile views, action-button taps, coupon visibility, video plays, and search impressions are removed once they are 400 days old, whether or not anyone has looked at them. We chose 400 days because it is long enough to compare a month against the same month a year earlier, and because it matches the default retention period of Google Analytics, so the two systems do not disagree about how far back the data goes.

Two categories are kept deliberately rather than by default: consent records, because a consent record that could be deleted would not be evidence of anything, and billing records, which we are required to keep for tax and accounting.

Why we keep consent records, and for how long. When you sign up for our text messages or our newsletter we keep the record described under Information We Collect — your phone number or email address, the exact wording you agreed to and its version, the time, the page, and the IP address information described there — together with your later opt-out (a STOP reply, an unsubscribe, or a request to us). We keep it so that we can show, if we are ever asked or challenged, that you asked for the messages and when you stopped them, and so that an opt-out is remembered and you are not messaged again by mistake. We keep these text-message and newsletter consent and opt-out records for five years after the last message we sent you or the date you opted out, whichever is later.

If you ask us to delete your account, we act on it by hand — see Your Choices.

Your Choices

• Access and correction. Sign in to view and edit your account, listings, and events.

• Claim or correct a listing. Use the claim flow on the listing page, or email us.

• Deletion. Email us to delete your account and we will do it by hand — there is no self-service delete button today. Deleting an account cancels any active subscription immediately and forfeits the remainder of the paid period (see the Terms). Some records do not belong solely to you and survive, with your account link and identifying details removed: listings you claimed revert to unclaimed and stay in the directory, events you submitted stay published, consent records are kept with the account link severed, and claim history is kept only as an anonymous record that a claim was made and decided on a date, with name, email, phone, and IP address erased. Billing records are kept as required for tax and accounting. Interaction counts are unaffected, because they were never linked to your account and contain nothing that identifies you — there is no row in them that is yours to delete.

• Email. Transactional email about your listing cannot be turned off while that listing is active. The LivingRGV newsletter is separate, is opt-in only, and carries a one-click unsubscribe in every issue. See Email we send you below for what each kind covers.

• Text messages. Each kind of text message is a separate, optional opt-in. Reply STOP to opt out, or HELP for help. See Text messages below. You can also email support@livingrgv.com to stop texts or the newsletter. We honor a STOP or an unsubscribe immediately, and in any event within 10 business days. A STOP ends all marketing texts from LIVINGRGV LLC to that number, not only RGV Weekly Deals. We keep a record that you opted out so that you are not messaged again.

• People who signed up without an account. If you signed up for texts or the newsletter without an account and want your phone number or email address removed, email privacy@livingrgv.com. We keep the record of your consent and your opt-out as described under Data Retention.

• Advertising. Use the "Do not use my data for advertising" link in the footer of any page. See Your advertising choice immediately below for exactly what that does and does not do.

• Analytics. For Google Analytics, use Google's opt-out browser add-on or block analytics cookies. Our own interaction counts have no individual opt-out, because there is no individual record to opt out of — nothing in them identifies you, so there is nothing we could look up on request and nothing we could remove that would be yours.

To make any of these requests, email privacy@livingrgv.com.

Your advertising choice

The advertising pixel is on by default. It loads on your first visit, before you have made any choice, and we do not show a cookie or consent banner. By the time you can decline it, it has already happened once.

You can turn it off. Use the "Do not use my data for advertising" link in the footer of any page. After that, the pixel will not load on pages you visit.

Three limits, stated plainly rather than buried:

• It is not retroactive. Anything already sent to Meta before you opted out has been sent. We cannot recall it, and turning the pixel off does not delete it.
• It applies to this browser only. The setting is stored in your browser, not against your account. On another device, in another browser, or in a private window, you will need to set it again.
• Clearing site data resets it. Because the setting lives in your browser's storage, clearing cookies and site data for this site removes the opt-out along with everything else, and the pixel will load again on your next visit.

Blocking third-party scripts — through your browser's settings or an extension — also prevents the pixel loading, is not affected by clearing site data, and does not depend on us.

Email we send you

Transactional email. If you claim a listing, submit a business, or contact us, we send email related to that action — confirmations, claim decisions, and messages from our team about your listing. These are not marketing and you cannot unsubscribe from them while you have an active listing with us.

The LivingRGV newsletter. We send a community newsletter to people who sign up for it. Signing up is a separate, explicit opt-in — we never add you to it because you claimed a listing, submitted a business, or contacted us. It covers local events, grants and deadlines, free workshops, community resources, and new businesses and offers in the Rio Grande Valley.

We send it every other Thursday.

When you subscribe we store your email address, the city you select if you provide one, the date you subscribed, the wording of the consent you were shown and its version, the page you signed up on, your browser's user-agent, and a scrambled (hashed) form of your IP address, kept as evidence of the sign-up. The newsletter sign-up and its consent record do not store your IP address in readable form (the separate abuse-prevention record described under Abuse prevention holds the request's IP address, as for every form). Newsletters are delivered by Resend, which receives your email address and the message (see Sharing Your Information). We do not sell, rent, or share this list.

Unsubscribing. Every newsletter email contains your own personal unsubscribe link, and your email program may also show an "Unsubscribe" button next to the sender's name; either one unsubscribes you with a single confirmation. You can also unsubscribe at any time by emailing privacy@livingrgv.com or support@livingrgv.com. When you unsubscribe we stop sending to you and keep a record that you opted out, so that you are not re-added.

Who sends it. Every newsletter email shows our postal address: LIVINGRGV LLC, 3505 Cozumel Lane, Weslaco, TX 78596.

Text messages

We send text messages only to people who opt in. For business members, giving us a mobile number is not by itself consent to receive text messages. The chat on our website works differently; see Through the chat on our website below.

Business members give us their mobile number when they join (see Information We Collect). We send texts to it only if you separately opt in, and there are two separate opt-ins:

• Alerts — a text when a customer messages your business through LivingRGV.
• Deals and tips — marketing text messages from LivingRGV.

Each is optional, is separate from the other and from everything else you agree to, and is not required to sign up or to keep your listing.

When you opt in, we record the mobile number you opted in with, the exact wording you were shown, the time, your IP address, and which form you opted in on — so the record describes what you actually agreed to.

Message frequency varies. Alert texts depend on how often customers message your business; deals-and-tips texts vary. Message and data rates may apply.

Reply STOP to any text message from us to opt out, or reply HELP for help — you can also email support@livingrgv.com. Opting out does not affect your account or your listing.

RGV Weekly Deals (our weekly text program). Anyone can sign up, with or without an account. RGV Weekly Deals is a text message with weekend events and local deals, sent weekly on Thursday. 1 msg/week, plus a confirmation text. The messages come from LIVINGRGV LLC, from our texting number.

The sign-up form has a box that is unticked when the form opens, with the mobile number field above it. The statement beside the box reads: "Text me RGV Weekly Deals: weekend events and local deals, 1 msg/week, plus a confirmation text. By submitting, you authorize LIVINGRGV LLC to text/call the number above for promotional messages, possibly using automated means. Msg/data rates apply, msg frequency varies. Consent is not a condition of purchase. See terms and privacy policy. Text HELP for help and STOP to unsubscribe." Its "terms" and "privacy policy" links lead to our Terms and this Privacy Policy. After you sign up we send you one text to confirm, and we send the weekly messages only after you reply Y.

• Message and data rates. Message and data rates may apply, charged by your mobile carrier.
• Frequency. 1 msg/week (on Thursday), plus a confirmation text. Message frequency can vary because your Y, HELP, STOP and START texts each get an automatic reply.
• To opt out, reply STOP at any time. You will get an automatic confirmation text from the mobile network, and you will receive no more messages. Reply START or UNSTOP to rejoin.
• For help, reply HELP, or email support@livingrgv.com.
• Consent is not a condition of purchase. You do not need to sign up for texts to use the directory, claim or list a business, or buy anything from us.
• Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.
• United States mobile numbers only.
• We record the mobile number, the exact wording above and its version, the date and time, the page you signed up on, your IP address, and your browser's user-agent, and your replies and our sends, as described under Information We Collect and Data Retention.
• We do not use this consent for anything else. Your consent to RGV Weekly Deals is used only for RGV Weekly Deals texts. A STOP to our texting number ends all marketing texts from LIVINGRGV LLC to that number.
• No mobile information is shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes; see Sharing Your Information.

Through the chat on our website. The chat form asks for your name, phone number, and message. Below it is a checkbox, unticked when the form opens, beside this statement: "By submitting, you authorize LIVINGRGV LLC to text/call the number above for promotional messages, possibly using automated means. Msg/data rates apply, msg frequency varies. Consent is not a condition of purchase. See terms and privacy policy. Text HELP for help and STOP to unsubscribe." The checkbox is optional: you can send us a question without ticking it, and consent is never a condition of any purchase. Message frequency varies. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out, or HELP for help. The statement's "terms" and "privacy policy" links lead to the terms and privacy policy of LeadConnector, the provider that runs the widget; how LivingRGV handles your information is governed by this policy. The record of any consent given through the chat — the number, the wording shown, and when — is kept by HighLevel, which runs the widget for us, rather than in our own database.

Texas Residents

Children

The service is not directed to children and we do not knowingly collect information from children.

Changes to This Policy

We publish a new version rather than editing a published one, and every prior version stays available at its own permanent URL. For material changes we notify registered users by email and display an in-app notice.

Contact

privacy@livingrgv.com

By mail:
LIVINGRGV LLC
3505 Cozumel Lane
Weslaco, TX 78596