Privacy Policy

1. Who we are and what this policy covers

Hot Noodle Media, LLC is a performance marketing company. We operate affiliate and consumer inquiry websites, buy advertising, and are compensated by advertisers when a referral or inquiry we deliver meets their criteria.

This policy covers hotnoodlemedia.com and the properties we own and operate, including:

No additional properties are currently in operation.

Individual properties may operate under a trade name or DBA of Hot Noodle Media, LLC. Each one links back to this policy or to a property-specific policy that follows the same commitments.

This policy does not cover third parties. When you are connected to an advertiser, provider, lender, insurer, school, contractor or other company, that company handles your information under its own privacy policy. We do not control what they do with it, and you should read their policy before doing business with them.

For the purposes of applicable US state privacy laws, Hot Noodle Media, LLC is the business or controller of the personal information described here. For the purposes of the UK and EU GDPR, where it applies, we are the data controller.

2. Information we collect

Information you give us

• Contact details. Name, email address, postal address, phone number.
• Inquiry details. The information a form asks for so a partner can respond to you. Depending on the category this can include property details, vehicle details, coverage or service needs, approximate budget, timing, and general financial or eligibility ranges.
• Consent records. The exact disclosure text shown to you, the partners named at that moment, the page URL, and the date, time and IP address of your submission. We keep this so both you and we can verify what was agreed.
• Correspondence. What you send us by form, email, phone or text.

Please do not send us Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, financial account numbers, or health information through our contact form. If a specific product requires that kind of information, it is collected by the provider, not by us.

Information collected automatically

• IP address, approximate location derived from it, and country.
• Browser type, operating system, device type, language and screen characteristics.
• Pages viewed, time on page, referring URL, exit links and similar usage data.
• Campaign and attribution parameters that tell us which ad or publisher sent you, and identifiers used to measure whether an ad worked.
• Cookies, pixels, tags, local storage and similar technologies. See our Cookie Policy for the categories and your controls.

Information from other sources

• Publishers and traffic partners. When another site refers you to us, it may pass along the information you gave it, along with proof of the consent you provided there.
• Verification and quality vendors. Services that validate an email address or phone number, check that a submission came from a real browser session, detect duplicate or automated submissions, and flag fraud.
• Advertisers. Feedback on whether an inquiry we delivered was accepted, contacted, duplicated, or rejected, so we can improve quality and handle billing.

We do not knowingly collect precise geolocation, biometric data, or information about your health, religion, union membership, sex life, sexual orientation, immigration status, or racial or ethnic origin. We do not ask for it and we do not want it. If a form we operate ever needs data that a state law treats as sensitive, we will say so at the point of collection and ask for your separate permission.

3. Why we use your information

Where the UK or EU GDPR applies, our legal bases are: performance of a contract or steps taken at your request; your consent, which you can withdraw at any time; our legitimate interests in operating, securing and improving our business, balanced against your rights; and compliance with legal obligations.

4. How we share information, and our commitment not to sell it

The one exception: inquiry and quote forms you choose to submit

Some of our properties exist so that a consumer who wants to be contacted can be contacted. On those forms, before you submit, we tell you which partner or partners will receive your information and what they will use it for. If you complete the form and give consent, we transmit your information to those partners so they can respond to you. They then use it under their own privacy policies.

This only happens because you asked for it. It does not happen from browsing our sites, from reading an article, from our contact form, or from any passive activity. If you do not submit an inquiry form and consent, no transfer of this kind occurs.

Some state privacy laws define "sale" and "sharing" very broadly, and a consumer-directed transfer like this one may fall inside those definitions even though no money changes hands for your data as such. Rather than argue the point, we disclose it plainly here and at the point of collection, and we give you the right to opt out at Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. Opting out does not undo a transfer you already authorized, but it stops future ones and stops our own marketing use.

Service providers

We use vendors to run the business: hosting and content delivery, form and database infrastructure, email and messaging delivery, customer support tooling, CRM, analytics, call tracking, consent capture, identity and phone verification, fraud and bot detection, and professional advisers. They receive only what they need, they act on our instructions under contract, and they are prohibited from using your information for their own purposes.

Advertising partners

We work with advertising platforms and measurement providers to run and evaluate our own marketing. Depending on your cookie choices, these partners may set cookies or receive identifiers that let them measure conversions and, where you have allowed advertising cookies, show you our ads. You control this through our cookie banner, the Cookie Policy, and browser-level signals such as Global Privacy Control.

Legal, safety and corporate transactions

We may disclose information when required by law, subpoena, court order or lawful government request; to investigate suspected fraud, abuse or a threat to safety; to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; and to a buyer or successor in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing or sale of assets, in which case we will require the recipient to honor the commitments in this policy or give you notice and a choice.

Aggregated and de-identified data

We may create and use aggregated or de-identified data that cannot reasonably be used to identify you. We maintain it in de-identified form and do not attempt to re-identify it, except to test that de-identification worked.

5. Calls, texts and email, and how consent works

If you consent on an inquiry form, you may receive calls, prerecorded messages, artificial-voice messages, autodialed calls or text messages from us or from the partners identified on that form, at the number you gave, including a wireless number. Message and data rates may apply. Message frequency varies.

• Consent is never a condition of purchase. You can always contact a provider directly instead.
• Calls may be recorded or monitored for quality and compliance where the law allows, and you will be told when that is the case.
• You can stop it at any time. Reply STOP to any text. Say "put me on your do-not-call list" on any call. Click unsubscribe in any marketing email. Or email privacy@hotnoodlemedia.com and we will process the request and add you to our internal suppression list.
• We keep records. We maintain internal do-not-call and suppression lists, honor opt-outs promptly, and retain consent and revocation records as required by law.

Withdrawing consent with us stops our contact. If a partner already received your inquiry, you may also need to tell that partner directly, and we will give you its contact information if you ask.

6. Your privacy rights

We extend the core rights below to every consumer who asks, regardless of where you live. You will not be denied service, charged a different price, or given a lower quality of service for exercising them.

• Know and access. What we have collected about you, where it came from, why we collected it, and who we disclosed it to.
• Delete. Ask us to delete personal information we hold about you.
• Correct. Ask us to fix information that is inaccurate.
• Portability. Get a copy in a portable, machine-readable format.
• Opt out of sale, sharing and targeted advertising. Including the consumer-directed transfers described in section 4.
• Limit use of sensitive information. We do not seek sensitive personal information, and we do not use it to infer characteristics about you.
• Withdraw consent and stop marketing contact at any time.
• Appeal. If we deny a request, you may appeal by replying to our decision. We will respond in writing with our reasoning.

How to make a request. Use the privacy request form, email privacy@hotnoodlemedia.com. We will confirm receipt within 10 business days and respond within 45 days, extendable once by another 45 days if the request is complex, in which case we will tell you why.

Verification. To protect you, we will ask for enough information to confirm you are who you say you are, usually by matching two data points already in our records or by verifying control of the email address or phone number used. We use anything you provide for verification only for that purpose.

Authorized agents. An agent may submit a request on your behalf with written permission signed by you, and we may still contact you directly to confirm.

Opt-out preference signals. We recognize and honor the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal. When we detect it, we treat it as a valid opt-out of sale, sharing and targeted advertising for that browser. Because a browser signal is not tied to your identity, submit a request through the form if you want the opt-out applied to your account and records as well.

If you are in the EEA, UK or Switzerland. You also have the right to object to or restrict processing, and to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority. Where we transfer data to the United States, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses.

7. Cookies, tracking and analytics

We use strictly necessary cookies to operate the site and, only with your permission, functional, analytics and advertising cookies. You are asked on your first visit and can change your mind at any time using the Cookie Preferences link in the footer of every page.

Full detail, including categories, purposes, retention and browser-level controls, is in the Cookie Policy.

Do Not Track. Browsers send a "Do Not Track" signal that has no agreed standard meaning, so we do not respond to it. We do honor Global Privacy Control, which does have a defined meaning.

8. How long we keep information

We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purpose it was collected for, plus any period required by law.

• Inquiry and consent records: at least five years, because consent and disclosure records must be produced on demand in the event of a dispute or regulatory inquiry.
• Contact form correspondence: up to 24 months after the matter is closed.
• Suppression and do-not-contact lists: indefinitely, because we have to keep them to keep honoring your opt-out.
• Server and security logs: typically up to 12 months.
• Analytics data: typically up to 26 months, usually in aggregated form.

When a retention period ends we delete the information or de-identify it so it can no longer reasonably be linked to you.

9. Security

We use encryption in transit, access controls, least-privilege permissions, vendor due diligence, and logging and monitoring appropriate to the sensitivity of the data we hold. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. If you believe you have found a vulnerability, please report it to security@hotnoodlemedia.com. We will not pursue legal action against good-faith security research that respects user privacy and does not degrade our services.

10. Children

Our sites are intended for adults. They are not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If we learn that we have collected information from a child under 18, we will delete it. A parent or guardian who believes a child has given us information should contact privacy@hotnoodlemedia.com.

11. Third-party links and advertisements

Our sites contain links and advertisements that take you to companies we do not control. We are not responsible for their content, their practices, or their privacy policies. Once you leave our site, this policy no longer applies. Read the policy of any site you provide information to.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as our business, our properties, or the law changes. The effective and last-updated dates at the top of this page always reflect the current version. If we make a material change to how we use or share personal information, we will provide more prominent notice, such as a banner on the site or an email where we have your address and it is appropriate. Continuing to use our sites after a change takes effect means you accept the updated policy.

13. How to contact us about privacy

Privacy requests and questions: privacy@hotnoodlemedia.com or the privacy request form.

Mail: Hot Noodle Media, LLC, 20 Foundry Street, 2nd Floor, Concord, NH 03301, US.

If you have raised a concern with us and are not satisfied with the outcome, you may contact your state attorney general or, in the EEA or UK, your local data protection supervisory authority.