Privacy Policy

1. What we collect

When you submit an application we collect what you type into the form: your name, email address, organization name, a description of the problem, how you handle it today, who would use the tool, whether you can make decisions within forty-eight hours, and your consent to a public case study. That is the only personal information the site asks for.

When you visit we record, without your name: the page you opened, how long you stayed, how far you scrolled, which buttons you clicked, the site that referred you, your device type, browser and screen size, your browser language, and the approximate country, city and timezone that your network reports. If you arrived through a personalised link we sent you (for example ?s=your-name), that link tells us it was you.

Your browser stores a random identifier in local storage so repeat visits can be recognised as the same browser. It contains nothing about you and is never combined with data from other websites.

We do not use cookies, advertising pixels, fingerprinting, or third-party analytics. We do not store your IP address.

2. How we use it

Application details are used to evaluate your application, contact you about it, and — if you are selected — to scope, build and deliver the project. Visit data is used to understand whether the site is working and where visitors come from.

We do not sell personal information. We do not share your details with third parties except the service providers in section 4, and where the law requires it.

If you are selected and the project goes ahead, the case study, your organization's logo and a testimonial will be published as agreed in the Terms. Nothing is published before that agreement.

3. Email addresses

We use your email address to reply to your application, to communicate about a selected project, and to send you occasional updates from BuildForFree — for example new case studies, changes to the program, or services we offer. Receiving those updates is part of the deal when you apply to a free program; every one of them includes an unsubscribe link, and opting out never affects your application.

When you submit the form we check that the domain of the address exists and can receive mail, correct a small set of well-known typos (for example gmial.com → gmail.com), and decline addresses from disposable-inbox services, because we need to be able to reach you. These checks are automated and involve a DNS lookup of the domain only, never of you.

We do not sell, rent or share your email address with anyone else for their marketing.

4. Where it is stored and who processes it

The website runs on Cloudflare, which serves the pages, runs the form handler and provides the approximate-location data described above. Cloudflare may process your IP address to deliver the site and protect it from abuse; we do not receive or store it.

Applications and visit summaries are delivered to us as messages on Telegram, where they are stored in a private chat that only we can access. The site itself keeps no database.

Fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which receives your IP address as part of serving the font files. Google's font privacy notes describe what it does with that.

These providers are located in or transfer data to the United States. By using the site you understand that your information may be processed there.

5. How long we keep it

Applications that are not selected are kept for up to twelve months so we can reconsider them for a later month, then deleted. Details of selected projects are kept for as long as the project and its case study are active, and for a reasonable period afterwards for our records. Visit data is kept for up to twelve months.

6. Your choices and rights

You can ask us at any time to show you the personal information we hold about you, correct it, or delete it. Email hello@getbuildforfree.com from the address you applied with and we will act on it within thirty days. Deleting your application ends your participation in that month's selection.

Depending on where you live (for example the EU, UK or California) you may have additional rights, including to object to processing, to portability, and to complain to a supervisory authority. We will honour those rights where they apply.

To opt out of visit tracking, open any page with ?notrack=1 at the end of the address. Your browser will be excluded from then on. ?notrack=0 switches it back on.

7. Children

The site is intended for organizations and adults acting on their behalf. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 16. If you believe a minor has submitted the form, email us and we will delete it.

8. Security

All traffic to the site is encrypted (HTTPS). Form submissions are checked for automated abuse before they reach us. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach affecting your information we will tell you without undue delay.

9. Changes

If we change how we handle information we will update this page and the date at the top. Material changes affecting applicants we already have will be sent to the email address on file.

10. Contact

BuildForFree · hello@getbuildforfree.com