Privacy and data lifecycle

What we collect from visitors

Browsing this directory requires no account and sets no cookie. We do not run analytics or advertising scripts, we do not build visitor profiles, and there is no tracking pixel on any public page. Our infrastructure provider keeps ordinary edge request logs for security and rate limiting, and this site is subject to its normal protections.

Two external requests are made when a page loads: the stylesheet for this site, and the font stylesheet from Google Fonts. That second request means Google receives your IP address and user agent as part of the request for the fonts. A profile page that carries a firm-supplied photograph loads that image from the address the firm gave us, so whoever serves the image receives the same ordinary request information. Nothing about you, your search, or your case is sent with any of these requests, and no cookie is set by this site.

What we publish about a business

A public listing can show only these fields: business name; street address, city, state, and ZIP; public phone number; public website; the business categories and the merged-record count from the imported listing; the imported third-party rating, review count, claimed flag, and business status with their observation date; and, when the firm has supplied and GovTrack has approved it, a firm-written message, short description, year established, a firm-supplied photograph with its alt text, practice areas, languages and support modes, in-person offices, remote consultation and service area, accessibility accommodations, consultation and fee statements, billing modes, published ranges, hours, appointment or scheduling link, an ordered roster of attorneys with the name, title, bio, languages, focus, and court representation the firm supplied, and the firm's public phone, website, intake URL, public email, preferred contact method, and stated response time.

What we never publish

Provider and referral email addresses that were not designated public, administrative contact details, claim drafts and rejected or superseded submissions, claim link tokens, row-level source records, and anything about a consumer or a case. Bar numbers and bar admission claims stay pending until they are matched to a public authority, and they are not published in this release at all.

Claiming a listing

When a firm claims a listing, the details it enters are private until GovTrack approves them: a draft never changes a public page. The link that starts a claim is a long-lived, expiring link that can be opened on more than one device — every device that opens it resumes the same saved draft — and only a hash of it is stored, so its plaintext never appears in our records, in a log, or in a referrer. Claim sessions expire on their own, and revoking or reissuing a link immediately refuses every session that was derived from the old one.

Retention and your requests

We keep the public listing facts while the listing is published, the approval history of what a firm submitted, and the audit record of changes so a claim cannot be disputed without evidence. Expired claim links and sessions are kept only as revocation evidence, not as active credentials.

A business can ask to see the facts we hold about it, ask for a correction, or ask to be removed from the directory entirely. The corrections and removals page is the fastest route.

Contact

Write to directory@govtrack.io for anything this page does not cover.