Privacy policy

Short version: you can read every page without an account. We use Google Analytics to count visits, with no advertising or ad tracking, and we only receive personal information if you write to us.

Who we are

TrueFranchiseCost (truefranchisecost.com) is an independent research site about franchise costs. In this policy, “we” means the people who run it. You can reach us at contact@truefranchisecost.com.

What we don’t collect

• We don’t use advertising or social media trackers, and analytics is never used for advertising.
• Fonts are served from our own domain, so reading a page doesn’t send your IP address to a font provider.
• There are no accounts, logins or newsletter sign-ups.
• The calculators run entirely in your browser. The numbers you enter are never sent to us.

What we do receive

Server logs. Our hosting and content delivery provider automatically records technical data when a page is requested, such as IP address, browser type, the page requested and the time. It is used to deliver the site, protect it against abuse and fix errors, and is kept only as long as the provider’s standard log retention.

Messages you send. If you use the contact or request form, we receive what you type, such as your name, email address and message. Form submissions are passed to our inbox by Web3Forms, a form-processing service. If you email us directly, we receive your message and email address through our email provider.

Analytics

We use Google Analytics 4, run by Google, to see which pages people read, how they arrived and roughly where they are, so we know which franchises and guides to work on next. It records things like the pages you view, your browser and device type, and your approximate location. Google does not share your full IP address with us, and we don’t combine this data with anything that identifies you.

Outside the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, Analytics sets first-party cookies named _ga and _ga_<ID>, which last up to two years, to recognize a returning browser. For visitors in those regions, analytics cookies are turned off by default and Google receives only cookieless measurement. Advertising features are off everywhere.

You can block Analytics with the Google Analytics opt-out add-on, an ad or tracker blocker, or your browser’s cookie settings. Google explains how it uses data from sites that use its services at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

How we use it

Only to reply to you, to act on your message (for example, to check a correction or add a requested franchise), and to keep the site secure. We don’t sell personal information, share it for advertising, or use it to build profiles.

Who else processes it

The service providers named above (hosting, form processing, analytics and email) handle data on our behalf to provide those services. We may also disclose information if the law requires it. Nobody else receives it.

How long we keep it

We keep messages for as long as we need them to deal with what you asked, and correction reports for as long as they’re useful as a record of changes to the site. You can ask us to delete yours at any time.

Your rights

You can ask what personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it, by writing to contact@truefranchisecost.com. Depending on where you live, laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act or the EU and UK GDPR may give you further rights. We will honor them. We don’t sell or share personal information as those laws define it.

Children

The site is written for adults researching a business purchase. It isn’t directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect information from them.

Links to other sites

We link to state regulators, the Federal Trade Commission and franchisors’ own sites. Their privacy practices are their own.

Changes to this policy

If we ever add advertising, this policy will be updated before it goes live, to describe what it collects and your choices. The date at the top shows when the policy last changed.