Legal
Privacy Policy
This policy explains what personal information YachtMD collects when you use yachtmd.com, why we collect it, who we disclose it to, and the rights you have over it. It applies to this website, to the service requests submitted through it, and to the marine businesses who apply to our partner network.
The short version: we match boat owners with marine service businesses, and those partners pay us for the match. Under California law that is a “sale” of personal information, so we say so plainly and give you a one-click way to stop it. We do not sell to advertisers, data brokers, or anyone outside the partner network.
1. Personal information we collect
We collect only what you type into the assessment form. We do not buy personal information, and we do not collect it from data brokers or public records.
| Category | What that means here | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Identifiers | Your name, email address and telephone number. | You, via the form |
| Geographic information | The marina, town or postal code where the vessel is located, and a berth or dock number if you give one. This describes the vessel's location, not yours, and is not precise geolocation. | You, via the form |
| Commercial information | Details of the vessel and the service you are requesting: class, length, make, model, year, reported symptoms, urgency, your preferred contact method, any notes you add, and the estimate range the site generates from those answers. | You, via the form |
| Internet or network activity | None collected by us. This site runs no analytics, advertising or third-party tracking. Our web host may keep standard server logs. | — |
We do not collect sensitive personal information as the CCPA defines it — no government identifiers, financial account numbers, precise geolocation, racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs, union membership, genetic or biometric data, health information, or the contents of your mail, email or texts.
2. How we use it
- To respond to your service request and answer your questions.
- To prepare a preliminary assessment and estimate range.
- To schedule a technician and attend your vessel.
- To contact you about that request, by the method you chose.
- To keep records of work requested and performed.
- To meet legal, tax and insurance obligations, and to establish or defend legal claims.
We do not use your information for profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects, and we do not use automated decision-making in place of a human reviewing your request. The estimate range the site shows you is a calculation from the answers you gave, not a decision about you.
3. How we disclose it
We disclose personal information only in these circumstances:
- Service providers and contractors. Companies that process information on our behalf and under written contract — for example our web host, the system that receives and stores service requests, and the providers that send our email and text messages. They may use it only to perform services for us, and are prohibited from retaining, using or disclosing it for any other purpose.
- Marine service businesses in our network. This is the main one. When you submit an assessment we pass your name, contact details, vessel details, symptoms, urgency and location to one or more of them so they can quote and carry out the work. They are independent businesses — boatyards, service departments and technicians — and they are deliberately not “service providers” in the sense the CCPA uses that phrase: they are not processing your data on our behalf under our instruction. They use it for their own commercial purposes, and they pay us for the referral. That makes this disclosure a sale under the CCPA. See section 4.
- Legal and safety. Where we are required to by law, subpoena or court order, or where disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of you, us or others.
- Business transfer. If the business is sold or merged, information may transfer to the acquirer as part of that transaction, subject to this policy.
4. Sale and sharing of personal information
We sell personal information, in the specific sense the CCPA means. We disclose your service request to marine service businesses, and they pay us a fee for it. No money changes hands between you and us, but because the partner is an independent business receiving your details for its own use, the law counts that as a sale and requires us to tell you.
| Category sold | Sold to | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Identifiers | Marine service businesses | So they can contact you about the work you asked for |
| Geographic information | Marine service businesses | So they can reach the vessel |
| Commercial information | Marine service businesses | So they can scope and quote the job |
We do not “share” personal information as the CCPA uses that word — we do not disclose it for cross-context behavioural advertising. We run no advertising pixels and no ad-network tags. We also do not sell to data brokers, list brokers, or anyone outside the partner network.
We do not knowingly sell the personal information of anyone under 16. The site is not directed to children and we do not knowingly collect from them.
How to stop it
- Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information — the form takes a few seconds and needs no account.
- Global Privacy Control. If your browser or extension sends a GPC signal we treat it as a valid opt-out request automatically, on every visit, without you doing anything else. The assessment form tells you on screen when it has detected one.
- Email privacy@yachtmd.com with “Do not sell” in the subject.
Opting out does not stop you using the site. It does mean we may be unable to match you with a partner, since matching is the thing you would be opting out of. We will not otherwise treat you differently, charge you a different price, or give you a lower standard of service.
5. How long we keep it
We keep service request records for as long as needed to provide the service and then for as long as required for tax, warranty, insurance and legal purposes. Where you asked us not to proceed, or we did not attend the vessel, we delete the request within 24 months unless a longer period is legally required. We do not keep personal information for longer than is reasonably necessary for the purpose it was collected for.
Once a request has gone to a partner, that partner holds its own copy under its own retention obligations. Our agreement limits them to what their tax and warranty duties require. If you ask us to delete, we delete our copy and instruct every partner who received it to do the same.
A draft of your unfinished assessment is stored in your own browser, not on our servers. See Browser storage.
6. Your privacy rights
California residents
Under the CCPA, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act, you have the right to:
- Know what personal information we have collected about you, the categories, the sources, the purposes, and the categories of third parties we disclosed it to.
- Access a copy of the specific pieces of personal information we hold about you, in a portable format.
- Delete the personal information we hold about you, subject to the exceptions the law allows.
- Correct inaccurate personal information we hold about you.
- Opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information — we do sell it to service businesses, and you can stop that at any time via this form, a Global Privacy Control signal, or email.
- Limit the use and disclosure of sensitive personal information. We do not collect any, so there is nothing to limit.
- Not be discriminated against for exercising any of these rights. We will not deny you service, charge you a different price, or give you a lower quality of service because you exercised a privacy right.
Shine the Light. California Civil Code §1798.83 lets California residents ask about personal information disclosed to third parties for those parties' own direct marketing. Our partner agreements prohibit partners from using your details for their own marketing — the licence covers your job only. Request a disclosure at privacy@yachtmd.com.
Residents of other US states
If you live in a state with a comprehensive consumer privacy law — including Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, Oregon, Montana, Delaware, Iowa, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Minnesota, Maryland, Tennessee, Indiana, Kentucky or Rhode Island — you have broadly equivalent rights to access, correct, delete and obtain a portable copy of your personal information, and to opt out of targeted advertising, sale and certain profiling. We do not conduct targeted advertising or profiling. We do sell to service businesses as described in section 4, and the same opt-out covers you wherever you live. Where your state provides a right to appeal a refused request, you may appeal by replying to our decision; we will respond in writing within the period your state's law requires.
7. How to exercise your rights
Email privacy@yachtmd.com with the request you would like to make. We operate exclusively online and have a direct relationship with the people whose information we collect, so email is our designated request method.
Verification. Before we act, we need to be reasonably sure you are who you say you are. We will ask you to confirm details already in the request — typically the email address or telephone number you submitted, and the vessel and location the request concerned. We will not ask you to create an account, and we will not use anything you provide for verification for any other purpose.
Timing. We confirm receipt within 10 business days and respond substantively within 45 calendar days. If we need more time we will tell you why, and may extend by a further 45 days. There is no charge unless a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, in which case we will explain before proceeding.
Authorised agents. You may use an authorised agent. We will ask for written permission signed by you, and we may still ask you to verify your own identity directly, as the law permits.
8. Your privacy choices
- Do not sell or share. Use the opt-out form, or send a Global Privacy Control signal from your browser — we honour it automatically on every visit.
- Stop text messages. Reply STOP to any message from us. Reply HELP for help.
- Stop emails. Use the unsubscribe link in any email, or email us.
- Stop calls. Tell the technician or coordinator, or email us, and we will record the request.
- Delete your request. Email privacy@yachtmd.com and we will delete it, subject to the exceptions in section 6.
- Clear the local draft. Use “Start again” on the assessment, or clear site data for yachtmd.com in your browser.
9. Text messages and email
By ticking the consent box on the assessment form you agree that YachtMD and the marine service business we match you with may contact you about your request by telephone, text message and email at the details you gave. We record the exact wording you agreed to, along with the time and the page, and pass that record to the partner. Partners are contractually required to honour opt-outs, and to comply with the TCPA and their state's telemarketing law when they call you — they are the caller, not us. Consent is not a condition of any purchase. Message frequency varies with your request. Message and data rates may apply, depending on your carrier and plan. Reply STOP to any text to stop receiving them, or HELP for help. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.
We send messages about your service request. We do not sell or rent your telephone number or email address, and we do not send third-party marketing. Every marketing email we send carries a working unsubscribe link and our postal contact details, and we honour unsubscribe requests promptly.
10. Browser storage, cookies and tracking
This site sets no cookies. It runs no analytics, no advertising pixels, no session replay and no third-party tracking of any kind. Fonts are served from this domain rather than a font network, so loading the page makes no requests to anyone else.
That remains true as long as it says so here. If we ever add analytics or advertising technology, this section and the effective date change before it goes live.
The site does use your browser's localStorage to save a draft of an
unfinished assessment, so you do not lose your answers if you navigate away. That draft
stays on your own device, is never transmitted to us on its own, and is deleted
automatically when you submit the assessment or select “Start again”. You can
remove it at any time by clearing site data for yachtmd.com in your browser.
11. Children
This site is intended for adults arranging work on a vessel. It is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has given us personal information, email privacy@yachtmd.com and we will delete it.
12. Security
The site is served over HTTPS. We limit access to service requests to the people who need them to do the work, and we require our service providers to protect information they process for us. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. Please do not send us financial account details, government identifiers or health information — we do not need them and do not want to hold them.
13. Changes to this policy
We review this policy at least once a year and update it whenever our practices change. The effective date at the top always reflects the current version. Material changes will be flagged on this page before they take effect.
14. If you apply to the service network
This section is for marine businesses applying to take referrals from us, not for boat owners. When you apply we collect your business name and type, your contact name, work email and mobile, years trading, the categories and harbours you cover, your capacity, your business licence number, your liability insurer and policy number, and any certifications you list.
We use it to verify that you are licensed and insured, to decide whether to admit you, to route jobs that match your coverage, and to bill you. We disclose it to the verification, payment and messaging providers who act on our behalf under contract. We do not sell partner information, and we do not disclose it to other partners.
Business contact information is generally outside the CCPA's consumer protections, but we will honour access, correction and deletion requests from partners on the same terms as anyone else. Deleting your partner record ends your participation in the network. Write to privacy@yachtmd.com.
Partners receive owner information under a licence limited to the job in question. They may not resell it, transfer it, add owners to marketing lists, or keep it beyond what their tax and warranty obligations require. Breaching that ends the partnership.
15. Contact us
Privacy questions and rights requests:
privacy@yachtmd.com
Service requests and everything else:
dispatch@yachtmd.com
If you need this policy in an alternative format because of a disability, email us and we will provide one.