Privacy Policy

Effective date: November 5, 2026

Found a Trade ("Found a Trade," "we," "us") is an online venue that introduces homeowners who post projects to independent contractors who want the work. Found a Trade is operated by Hebrews-12:12-13, Monroe, Washington, USA. This policy explains what we collect, why, who we share it with, and the choices you have. It applies to the Found a Trade website and app.

1. Information we collect

Information you give us

• Account details: your name (display name), email address, password (stored by our authentication provider in hashed form; we never see it), and optional city, state and ZIP code.
• Contractor profile (if you activate one): business name, description/bio, trades and services, service area and radius, city/state/ZIP, phone number and website (if you add them), languages spoken, logo and portfolio photos, portfolio project descriptions, and what you tell us about your license/registration and insurance status, plus the date you accepted our attestation.
• Projects: title, category, description, city, state, ZIP, budget, timeline, photos you upload, and any "differentiator" (a distinct description, scope or permit number) you add during our duplicate-project check.
• Pitches and messages: the short pitch a contractor sends, and in-app chat messages between homeowners and contractors.
• Reports: if you report a project, contractor or message, we keep the report, the reason and any details you write.
• Payments: contractors save a card and homeowners may pay a $2.99 introduction fee plus applicable tax. Card details are entered on Stripe's checkout page and held by Stripe. We do not receive or store full card numbers. We store payment records such as a Stripe customer ID, a short card label (for example the brand and last four digits), payment status, hold/charge/refund status and timestamps, and a contractor's monthly spending cap.

Information created when you use Found a Trade

• Activity records: saved projects, notifications, introduction status (interested, confirmed, declined), message timestamps and similar records needed to run the service.
• Photo fingerprints: when you upload project photos, your browser computes a short "image hash" (a 16-character code summarizing the overall light/dark pattern of a tiny, shrunk version of the picture). We use it only to spot when the same project photos are posted again. It is not facial recognition, does not measure any person's face, hand, eye or voice, and is not a biometric identifier.
• Approximate location: when you type a ZIP code or city, we look up its approximate center point (latitude/longitude) from public U.S. Census data to support distance search. We do not use your device's GPS.
• Translation records: cached translations of text (see section 3) and per-user counts of translation requests and characters, used for rate limiting.
• Language preference: saved on your profile and in your browser's local storage (key ot_lang).
• Technical data: our hosting, database and authentication providers automatically process technical information such as IP address, browser type and request logs to deliver and secure the service. Your browser also stores a login session token in local storage so you stay signed in.

We do not use advertising cookies, analytics trackers, or social media pixels.

2. How we use your information

• To create and run your account and show your projects and profile to other users.
• To deliver pitches, confirmations, chat messages and notifications.
• To filter phone numbers, emails, links and social handles out of pitches (and out of contractor messages until the homeowner has replied).
• To process introduction fees, card holds, charges and refunds, and enforce spending caps.
• To translate user content automatically (section 3).
• To detect duplicate projects, spam, fraud and abuse, review reports, and keep the platform safe.
• To send service emails, such as account confirmation and password reset. We do not send marketing email today. If we ever do, it will identify us, include our mailing address and an easy unsubscribe link, as required by the CAN-SPAM Act.
• To comply with law and enforce our Terms of Service.

3. Automatic translation (Microsoft Azure Translator)

Found a Trade is available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, French and Arabic. When you are logged in, user-written content shown to you, including chat messages, pitches, project posts, profiles/bios and notifications, is automatically translated into your chosen language.

To do this, that text is sent to Microsoft's Azure Translator API for processing. Microsoft processes it as our service provider to return the translation. Translations are stored in our database (keyed by a one-way fingerprint of the original text) so the same text does not have to be sent again. Please do not put information in messages that you would not want processed this way. Machine translations can be wrong; see our Terms.

4. How we share information

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

We share information only as follows:

• With other users, as the service requires. Published projects (without your street address or contact details), contractor profiles and portfolios are visible to others. Pitches are visible to the homeowner; chat messages are visible to both participants. Contractor contact details are shared only in chat after the homeowner sends the first message.
• With service providers that run Found a Trade for us:
• Supabase – authentication, database, file and photo storage, and server functions.
• Microsoft (Azure Translator) – automatic translation of user content.
• Stripe – card payments, holds, charges and refunds. Stripe receives your email address and card details and acts under its own privacy policy for some purposes, such as fraud prevention.
• Netlify – website hosting.
• jsDelivr – a content delivery network that serves the Supabase code library to your browser; it receives your IP address and browser details when the page loads.
• For legal reasons: to comply with law, a court order or valid legal process, or to protect the rights, safety and property of users, the public or Found a Trade.
• In a business transfer: if Found a Trade is sold or reorganized, your information may be transferred, subject to this policy.

5. How long we keep information

• Account, profile, projects, pitches, messages and photos: while your account is active. When you delete your account in the app (Dashboard → Your data & account → Delete my account), this information and your photos are deleted right away; if you ask us by email instead, we delete or de-identify it within 30 days. The exceptions are noted below.
• Payment records: up to 7 years, for tax, accounting and dispute purposes. Stripe keeps its own records under its policy.
• Reports and safety records: up to 2 years after the report is closed, or longer if needed for an ongoing safety or legal matter.
• Translation cache: cached translations are kept to avoid re-translation; we aim to remove them within 12 months. Translation usage counters are deleted with your account.
• Backups and logs: may remain for up to 90 days in provider backups and logs before being overwritten.

When you delete your account, your messages are deleted too. The other person keeps only the messages they wrote, shown as a conversation with "Deleted user". Payment records are kept without your name, email or account ID, and reports you filed are kept without your identity.

6. Security

We use reasonable safeguards, including encrypted connections (HTTPS), database access rules that limit each user to their own data, hashed passwords, and keeping card numbers with Stripe rather than on our systems. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee the security of information you send.

7. Your rights and choices

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

• Know / access the personal information we have about you and get a copy;
• Correct inaccurate information;
• Delete your information;
• Opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information (we do not sell or share it, so there is nothing to opt out of today) and of marketing emails;
• Object to or restrict certain processing, and data portability (for users in the EU/UK);
• Not be discriminated against for using these rights.

You can edit much of your profile and project information in your account. You can also do two things yourself in the app, under Dashboard → Your data & account: Download my data gives you a JSON file of your account, profile, projects, photos (as temporary links), pitches, introductions, message threads, notifications, saved items and payment records (never card numbers), and Delete my account permanently deletes your account after you confirm your password. For anything else, email us at opentradesupport@gmail.com from the email on your account. We may need to verify your identity. We will respond within 30 days (45 days where a law such as California's allows, and we will tell you if we need more time). You may use an authorized agent where the law allows. If we deny a request, you can reply to appeal, and we will explain our decision.

California residents: The California Consumer Privacy Act (as amended by the CPRA) gives the rights listed above to California residents when it applies to a business. In the last 12 months we have collected the categories described in section 1 (identifiers, customer records, commercial information, internet activity, approximate geolocation and user content such as photos and messages) for the purposes in section 2, and disclosed them only to the service providers in section 4. We do not sell or share personal information and do not use sensitive personal information to infer characteristics about you.

8. Users in the EU, UK and other countries

Found a Trade is run from the United States and is designed for U.S. users. If you use it from elsewhere, your information will be processed in the United States and other countries where our providers operate, which may have different data protection laws. Where EU/UK law applies, we rely on these legal bases: contract (to provide the service you signed up for, including translation and payments), legitimate interests (security, fraud and abuse prevention, duplicate detection, improving the service), legal obligation (tax and accounting records) and consent where we ask for it. Our providers transfer data under safeguards such as the EU Standard Contractual Clauses or the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework where they participate. You may also complain to your local data protection authority.

9. Children

Found a Trade is only for adults 18 and older, because it involves contracting for work and payments. It is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13 (or under 18). If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we will delete it.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. We will post the new version here with a new effective date, and if the changes are significant we will give notice in the app or by email before they take effect.

11. Contact

Found a Trade, operated by Hebrews-12:12-13
Monroe, Washington, USA
Email: opentradesupport@gmail.com