Complete policy
Last updated:
1. Scope
This policy applies to The Estate Guide (the “Site”). It covers information handled through the Site’s pages, forms, search, Saved feature, checklists, email-update form, and Ask The Estate Guide feature. A linked third-party website or service has its own privacy practices.
2. Information kept in your browser
The Site uses browser storage for preferences and interactive state. This can include theme, Guided or Expert view, language, saved-topic records, and checklist progress. Saved-topic records contain the topic’s key, title, link, type, and short summary. These items remain within that browser profile unless you remove them, clear site data, use a private-browsing session, or your browser removes them.
A first-party language cookie may remember the interface language. The Site does not use this local information to create a server-side reader profile, and local information does not automatically sync to another browser or device.
3. Information you choose to submit
Contact. If you use the contact form, we receive the message and any reply address you choose to provide. We store them so the operators can investigate, respond, maintain a correction record, or handle a privacy or takedown request.
Email updates. If you request updates, we store the email address you submit so we can provide that service and administer the list. You may request removal through Contact.
Do not submit information that the feature does not need. In particular, do not send Social Security numbers, account numbers, passwords, private keys, health records, tax returns, signed legal instruments, or information you are not authorized to disclose.
4. Ask The Estate Guide
Questions sent through Ask The Estate Guide are processed to generate an answer and are subject to a per-connection rate limit. A question may be sent, with selected context from The Estate Guide, to a configured AI service provider. The Site does not need your name to answer. Ordinary infrastructure logs may record a request to the endpoint, and an external provider may handle the request under its own terms and privacy practices.
Do not use Ask The Estate Guide for confidential, privileged, personally identifying, medical, financial-account, tax-return, or document-specific information. A question does not create an attorney-client or other professional relationship. See Ask The Estate Guide for its content boundaries.
5. Technical and security information
Web hosting and security systems may receive standard request information such as IP address, user agent, requested page, referrer, timestamp, status code, and diagnostic details. We use this information for security, abuse prevention, rate limiting, error diagnosis, reliability, and capacity planning. We do not use standard logs to claim we know the identity of a reader. Some news pictures load directly from the publisher’s own image server, which, like any web request, receives your IP address; the Site sends no referrer and stores no copy.
6. Cookies and Google AdSense
First-party cookies or browser storage support language and the preferences described above. If advertising is enabled, third-party vendors, including Google, may use cookies to serve ads based on a reader’s prior visits to this Site or other websites. Google’s use of advertising cookies enables Google and its partners to serve ads based on visits to this Site and/or other sites on the internet.
Readers may opt out of personalized advertising through Google Ads Settings. Information about how Google uses data from sites and apps that use its services is available in Google’s partner-sites policy, and additional advertising-cookie information appears in Google’s advertising policies. Where law requires consent, advertising storage or personalization is subject to the choices presented by the applicable consent mechanism.
Advertising, if present, does not influence editorial selection. Sponsored or affiliate placement must be labeled at the point of use.
7. Service providers and disclosure
Hosting, infrastructure, security, email-delivery, analytics, advertising, and AI providers may process limited information to perform services for the Site. We may also preserve or disclose information when reasonably necessary to comply with law, protect rights and safety, investigate abuse, or respond to valid legal process. We do not sell contact messages or subscriber addresses.
8. Retention and security
We retain submitted information only as long as reasonably needed for the purpose collected, operational records, dispute resolution, security, or legal obligations. Retention can vary by category. No transmission or storage system is guaranteed secure, so the safest practice is not to submit sensitive information the Site does not need.
9. Your choices
You can clear first-party cookies and local storage in your browser, decline an optional email field, avoid interactive AI features, use advertising controls, and request access to or deletion of information you knowingly submitted. To help locate a contact message or subscription, provide the same reply address used originally, but do not send identity documents through the ordinary form.
10. Children
The Site is a general educational reference and is not directed to children. We do not knowingly request personal information from children. A parent or guardian who believes a child submitted information may contact us to request review and deletion.
11. Changes and contact
We may update this policy as features, providers, or legal requirements change. The date above identifies the current posted version. Questions and requests can be sent through Contact.