Privacy policy

1. Who this policy covers & our role

This Privacy policy explains how Quote Falcon ("Quote Falcon", "we", "us", "our") handles personal data collected through quotefalcon.com, every business's quote request page hosted on it, the quote pages clients receive, and forms embedded on businesses' own websites (together, the "Service").

Two kinds of people interact with the Service, and our role is different for each:

If you are a Client and have a question about how your information is used, please contact the business you sent your request to first. They control that data and are responsible for their own privacy practices toward you. We're happy to assist or forward a request; see Section 12.

2. Information we collect

a. Account Holders (businesses). When you sign up, we collect:

• Your email address (and, if you sign in with Google, your name and a stable Google account identifier), via "Continue with Google" or a one-time sign-in link we email you. We never see or store a password, because we don't use them. For emailed sign-in links we store a hashed, single-use token together with the email address it was sent to, and delete them about a week after the link expires (so an expired link can still offer you a fresh one), and we may send the address to a third-party email-verification provider when you sign up.
• Sign-in email changes: if you change the email you sign in with, we keep a record of the old and new address, when the change was asked for, confirmed, applied or undone, and the IP address each step came from, plus hashed single-use tokens for its confirmation and undo links. We use it to keep your account secure (the old address can undo a change for 14 days and is held back from new accounts during that time) and to help restore an account if a change was not made by you. This record is retained even after you delete your account.
• Business profile details you enter: business name, trade, contact email and phone, address, time zone, currency, tax settings, deposit settings, quote form questions, terms and policies, and branding (logo, cover photo, colors, page style and font).
• If you connect Stripe: your Stripe connected account ID and account onboarding and status information. We do not receive or store your bank account or card details; Stripe handles them directly.
• Your login session activity and the IP address associated with it, including a one-time lookup of that IP during first-time setup to suggest a currency, time zone and tax rate (see Section 4).
• A keyed hash (never the address itself) of the IP addresses your account is used from, so that a Client signature made from one of them can be flagged on the job's Proof of agreement. An address not seen for a year is forgotten.
• Any correspondence you send us for support.
• Questions you type into the "Ask a question" help chat, and which help answer was shown, so we can see what people ask and improve the help content. No IP address is stored with them; a question asked while signed in is linked to your account. (Questions typed into the same chat on our public pages are logged the same way, with no account and no IP address.) The chat only ever shows one of our own pre-written help answers, picked by a matching model that runs on our own servers; questions are not sent to any outside AI service.

b. Clients (people who send a quote request). When someone sends a quote request to an Account Holder, or receives a quote from one, we collect on that Account Holder's behalf:

• Name, email address and phone number.
• An address, if the Account Holder's form asks for one.
• Answers to the Account Holder's quote form questions, the preferred date and time of day, and any notes.
• Photos attached to the request (up to 10). Photos are resized in the Client's browser, and embedded metadata (such as the location a photo was taken and camera details) is removed before a photo is stored. They are deleted automatically 365 days after the job is closed. If the request is filed as spam, its photos are kept in a separate spam store and deleted 30 days after it went to Spam, unless the Account Holder marks it Not spam.
• The quote the Account Holder sends (line items, tax and totals), each version of it, and, when the Client accepts it or approves a price change, a record of that as an electronic signature: the name they typed, when, the IP address and browser it came from, how they reached the quote (for example, the link in an email we sent to their address), a fingerprint of exactly what they agreed to, and the terms shown at that moment. A Client's request to change or cancel a job, with the note they write, is kept the same way.
• Photos the Account Holder adds to a job as a record of the work, which the Client can see on their quote page.
• A history of each job (status changes, quote changes, the optional extras the Client chose, acceptances and signatures, date changes, photos added, and emails and payments about it), kept for as long as the job exists, so the Account Holder and Client have a record of what was agreed.
• The job date the Account Holder sets, and the payments recorded on the job (amounts, method, and for card payments the Stripe payment ID and status, including refunds and disputes).
• The IP address the request was submitted from, the country that IP address appears to be in, and, unless the Account Holder has turned VPN or proxy detection off, an automated signal about whether that IP looks like a VPN or proxy (see Section 4).
• Whether the submission was filed as spam, and why (a spam IP address, a spam country or a spam word).
• If the quote form offers address search: the text typed into the address search box and the place selected. We log each search (the text typed or place selected, the number of results, and the IP address it came from) to monitor usage and prevent abuse.
• Visit statistics for the Account Holder, whether or not a request is sent: that a quote page was opened, the site that linked to it (its name only), approximate area (city, region and country, from the local MaxMind GeoLite2 database on our own servers; no outside party is contacted), the kind of device (for example "iPhone"), roughly how long the page was open, and how far the visitor got in the form. Your IP address is not stored with these statistics, nothing you type is recorded, and they can't be used to identify you or link your visits on different days. They're kept for 90 days, and the Account Holder can delete them sooner.

Card details are never collected or stored by Quote Falcon. If the Account Holder takes card payments, a Client's card details are entered on a payment page provided by Stripe and go straight to Stripe. See Section 7 for Stripe's role. If the Account Holder doesn't take card payments through the Service, how a Client pays them is arranged directly between them, outside the Service.

c. Automatically, from anyone using the Service. Standard web server request logs (IP address, browser and device information, requested page, timestamps), and the strictly-necessary cookies described in Section 6.

3. How we use information

• To create and authenticate accounts, and operate each Account Holder's quote page, quote pages and dashboard.
• To send transactional emails, never marketing campaigns:
  • To Account Holders: one-time sign-in links, a welcome email, a few reminders to finish setting up a quote page they started (each with a one-click link to stop them), and, when notifications are on, emails about their jobs: each new quote request; a quote accepted, signed or declined; a Client asking for a change or to cancel; a Client's answer to a price change, or a price change still unanswered after a few days; a sent quote that hasn't been opened; an email to a Client that bounced; and card payments, including one that couldn't be taken.
  • To Clients, on the Account Holder's behalf: a "we got your request" email when they send a quote request; a "your quote is ready" email with a private link to their quote page when the Account Holder sends a quote; follow-ups on an unanswered quote; a request to sign a quote the Account Holder marked accepted, and a copy of what the Client signed; emails about price changes, a new job date or a cancellation; a confirmation when the job is scheduled; a reminder before the job, reminders about an unpaid card payment link, and a thank-you email afterwards (if the Account Holder has them on); and a receipt for each card payment. A quote page link is unique to the job, can't be guessed, and shows the quote but not the Client's answers to the quote form. Every email to a Client has an unsubscribe link; if the Client uses it, we keep their email address on that Account Holder's list so optional emails such as reminders and thank-you emails aren't sent to it again. Emails about something the Client did themselves, such as a payment receipt, are still sent. Automatic emails to Clients are limited per Account Holder, and per recipient address across all Account Holders, per day; we also use each Account Holder's bounce and spam-complaint rates to pause its client emails. To enforce that we keep a record of each email sent to a Client (the address, the kind of email, the job it was about and when) for 90 days, or, for an email about a job, for as long as that job exists, because it's part of the job's history. Our email provider tells us when an email bounces or is marked as spam; we record that against the email, stop sending to an address that bounced for 30 days, and treat a spam complaint like an unsubscribe. These emails are sent from our own address; if the Account Holder has set a contact email, it's used as the reply-to address so a Client's reply goes to the business. An Account Holder's sign-in email is never shared with Clients.
• To screen incoming quote requests for spam, bots and abuse, using the checks described in Section 4, submission limits per visitor, and hCaptcha (Section 5). Account Holders can turn VPN or proxy detection and hCaptcha off for their own quote page.
• To check that a Client's email address can receive mail before certain emails are sent to it (see Section 7).
• To suggest a likely currency, time zone and tax rate during an Account Holder's first-time setup, based on the country they pick and their approximate location (see Section 4). These are never applied automatically, only pre-selected for them to confirm or change.
• To process optional card payments (deposits and balances) for Account Holders who connect Stripe, via Stripe Connect, including taking our 1% platform fee.
• To see which questions people ask in the help chat, so we can improve the help content.
• To provide customer support and respond to inquiries.
• To maintain the security, integrity and reliability of the Service, including detecting and preventing fraud or misuse.
• To comply with legal obligations.

We do not sell personal data, and we do not use Client or Account Holder data for advertising or behavioral profiling. We run no third-party analytics or advertising trackers on the Service.

4. Spam & fraud prevention, and setup suggestions

To keep quote pages free of spam and abusive requests, each quote request is automatically checked for whether its originating IP address looks like a VPN or proxy. This check is on by default; an Account Holder can turn it off for their own quote page, in which case no VPN or proxy lookup of any kind is made for submissions to that page. We first send that IP address (and nothing else: no name, email or request details) to a third-party VPN or proxy-detection service, IPHub (iphub.info), which returns a verdict. If IPHub is unavailable or out of quota, we fall back to a local, offline database (MaxMind GeoLite2) that runs entirely on our own servers and shares nothing with any outside party. We keep a short-lived cache of recent verdicts per IP address to avoid repeat lookups, and a log of each check (the IP address, the verdict, and the network details returned) so we can review spam-screening accuracy and usage.

The IP address a request was submitted from is stored with that request and shown to the Account Holder who received it, so they can mark it as spam. When they do, later requests to that Account Holder from the same IP address (or, for IPv6, the same /64 network) are filed as spam for them automatically and no notification email is sent about them. Each Account Holder's list of spam IP addresses applies only to their own quote page, can be edited by them at any time, and is deleted along with their account.

We also look up the country each submission's IP address appears to be in, using the same local database; no outside party is contacted for it. That country is stored with the request and shown to the Account Holder. An Account Holder can list countries, and words or phrases, that they treat as spam: a submission from a listed country, or containing a listed word in any field the Client typed, is filed as spam for that Account Holder in the same way. Where an Account Holder takes card payments through Stripe, extra bank verification (3-D Secure) may be required for a payment that looks risky. These lists apply only to that Account Holder's own quote page.

Separately, during an Account Holder's first-time setup only, we look up their own IP address against the same local database once to determine their approximate region, so we can pre-select a likely tax rate, and fill in a likely country, currency and time zone where the country they picked doesn't already settle them (for example, which time zone in a large country), for them to confirm or change. This lookup never leaves our own servers.

5. hCaptcha

hCaptcha is used on our email sign-up form, and on quote pages as an extra layer of spam protection when a submission needs it. On a quote page the Account Holder can turn it off or change when it appears. Where it is shown, hCaptcha (operated by Intuition Machines, Inc.) processes limited technical and interaction data from the visitor's browser to verify they're human, under its own privacy policy, available at hcaptcha.com/privacy. We do not control what hCaptcha does with that data beyond what its policy describes.

6. Cookies

We set only strictly-necessary cookies of our own: a session cookie that keeps an Account Holder logged in to their dashboard and signs them out after 30 days of inactivity (or 90 days after they signed in) (it isn't tied to an IP address, so moving between networks doesn't sign anyone out), and, when you sign in with an emailed link, a short-lived cookie that confirms the sign-in is finished in the same browser that opened the link. When a sign-in page needs to show a one-off notice (for example, that a Google sign-in was cancelled or a link has expired) to someone who isn't signed in, a short-lived cookie (about 5 minutes) carries that message to the next page. None of these is used for tracking, advertising or analytics. A signed-in Account Holder's browser also gets a cookie that marks it as theirs, so their own visits to their quote page aren't counted in their visit statistics; it's never set for Clients or other visitors.

Two third-party services that run on some pages may set their own strictly-functional cookies or use browser storage, under their own policies: hCaptcha, where a captcha is shown, and Stripe, on its payment pages. We do not run any third-party analytics, advertising or social-media tracking scripts on the Service.

7. Sharing & third parties

We do not sell or rent personal data to anyone. We share data only as follows:

• With the relevant Account Holder. A Client's request, quote and job information is visible to the specific business they sent it to, in that business's own dashboard, never to other businesses on the platform.
• Service providers we rely on to run the Service: Google (optional sign-in), Stripe (card payment processing, for Account Holders who connect it; Stripe receives the payment details the Client enters on Stripe's payment page and, to label each payment, the Account Holder's business name, the job number and the Client's email), hCaptcha/Intuition Machines (spam screening on email sign-up, and on quote pages unless the Account Holder turns it off), IPHub (VPN or proxy screening of the IP address a request is submitted from; only the IP address is sent), MaxMind (the offline database used for the fallback screening, country lookups and setup suggestions; it is downloaded as a static dataset and queried locally, and no IP address is ever sent to MaxMind), Mapbox (address autocomplete on quote forms that offer address search: the text typed into the search box, and the place selected, is sent from our server to Mapbox to return suggestions, with a rough location (about 10 km, worked out on our server from the visitor's IP address) so nearby addresses are listed first; the visitor's own IP address is not forwarded), DeBounce (email verification: an Account Holder's email address when they sign up with an emailed link, and a Client's email address before certain emails are sent to it; only the email address is sent), Cloudflare (network delivery and protection: traffic to the Service passes through Cloudflare's network), Backblaze (B2 cloud storage of our database backups and uploaded photos), and Resend (our email provider, to deliver the transactional emails described in Section 3) and Anthropic (if an Account Holder describes their business during setup, or asks AI to change their quote form during setup or in Settings, Anthropic's Claude AI model receives what they typed (including any answer to its follow-up question), their business country and their form's questions, tagged with an anonymous code - never their name, email address or any Client's request or details; it isn't used to train Anthropic's models. If Claude declines to build a form from a description, we keep that description with the account's email address and the IP address it came from, so we can review misuse of the Service). Each processes only what's needed to perform its function for us.
• Legal & safety reasons. If required by law, subpoena or legal process, or where we believe in good faith it's necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of Quote Falcon, our users or the public.
• Business transfers. If Quote Falcon is involved in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, data may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to this policy (or a policy at least as protective).

8. Data retention & deletion

We retain account, job and client data for as long as an account remains active, so that Account Holders have a continuous history and their Clients' details are available for future jobs. Account Holders can delete individual jobs, clients and other records directly from their dashboard at any time, and can export their jobs and clients to Excel before removing anything. Requests in Spam are deleted automatically 30 days after they went there, together with any client record that existed only because of them (one tied to a card payment is kept until the Account Holder deletes it). Quote request photos are deleted 365 days after the job is closed.

Operational logs (VPN or proxy checks, address searches, email-address checks, the approximate-location lookup used to suggest setup values, daily email-limit events, help-chat questions and payment events, which can include IP addresses, email addresses and, for address search, the text typed) are each limited to a fixed number of recent entries, with older entries removed automatically. Entries linked to an Account Holder's account are also deleted along with that account, except help-chat questions, which are kept without the account link. Short-lived caches of recent VPN or proxy verdicts and address suggestions are held in memory only and are not retained.

Account Holders can delete their account, and everything in it, themselves at any time from Settings > Account (Delete my account), or by contacting us using the details in Section 15. Deletion is permanent. Copies in our database backups may persist for up to about 8 days before they are overwritten (backup copies of uploaded photos are normally removed about a week after the photos themselves; when an unusually large number of photos is deleted at once, such as a big account being deleted, we check that deletion by hand before the backup copies are removed, which can take longer), and we may retain limited information where required for legitimate business purposes such as fraud prevention, dispute resolution, tax or other legal obligations. Records of card payments also remain in the Account Holder's own Stripe account, which we don't control. If we ever stop operating the Service, all account and client data will be deleted.

9. Data security

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect the data in our care, including: no password storage at all (you sign in with Google or a one-time emailed link), hardened session cookies, unguessable links for quote pages and calendar feeds, photos stripped of location data, and access controls limiting what platform administration can view. No method of storage or transmission is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If we learn of a security breach involving personal data we hold that creates a real risk of significant harm, we will notify affected Account Holders, and report it to the authorities, as applicable law requires. Where Client data is affected, we will tell the Account Holder, who is responsible for any notice owed to their own Clients.

10. International data transfers

Our servers are located in Canada. Some of the service providers listed in Section 7 store or process data outside Canada, mainly in the United States: for example, our database and photo backups are stored in the United States, and traffic to the Service passes through Cloudflare's global network. Data held in another country is subject to that country's laws and may be accessible to its courts, law enforcement and national-security authorities. By using the Service, you understand that your information may be processed in, and transferred to, jurisdictions with data protection laws that may differ from those of your own country.

11. Children's privacy

The Service is intended for business use and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 16. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will take steps to delete it.

12. Your rights & choices

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, export or delete your personal data, and to object to or restrict certain processing. Account Holders can exercise most of these rights directly from their dashboard (editing or deleting clients, jobs and settings, exporting their jobs and clients to Excel, or deleting their account). For anything else, or if you're a Client wanting to exercise these rights, contact us at the address in Section 15 and we will respond, or route your request to the relevant Account Holder where they are the controller of your data, within a reasonable time and as required by applicable law. We may need to confirm your identity before acting on a request. If you're not satisfied with our response, you can complain to a data protection authority, such as the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or, in the European Union, the authority where you live.

13. Do Not Track

Because we don't run tracking or advertising technologies on the Service, there is nothing to disable, and we do not currently respond differently to browser "Do Not Track" signals.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy policy from time to time. We'll update the "Last updated" date above, and where changes are material, we'll provide additional notice (such as an in-dashboard message or email). Continued use of the Service after a change takes effect constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

15. Contact us

Questions about this Privacy policy or how your data is handled, or a request about your data? Reach us at hello@quotefalcon.com. We offer support by email only. Quote Falcon is operated from Grimsby, Ontario, Canada.