Privacy Policy

Overview and scope

This policy explains what information American Cattle Union LLC, a Tennessee limited liability company ("American Cattle Union," "ACU," "we," "us"), collects when you use americancattleunion.com and our mobile apps for iOS and Android (together, the "Services"), how we use and share it, how long we keep it, and the choices and rights you have. ACU is a venue that connects cattle buyers and sellers; it is not a party to the sales themselves.

Information you give us

• Account: your name, email address, and a securely hashed password (never stored in plain text).
• Profile (optional): farm or ranch name, state and county, ZIP, phone, website, breeds of interest, operation type and description, years in business, bio, and profile or operation photos.
• Verification documents: files you upload to confirm you are a real producer (for example a USDA Farm ID, state brand registration, premises ID, breed-association membership, or vet certificates). These are sensitive, are never shared with other users, and are stored privately.
• Listings and content: marketplace listings, animals and genetics, photos, EPDs, health records, attached documents, land and hauler posts, community posts, and reviews.
• Messages and offers: messages you send other members, offers you make or receive, and connection requests.
• Saved items: your saved searches and saved listings.
• Support communications: anything you send us when you contact support.

Information from your use of the Services

• Log and technical data: IP address, request metadata, and error diagnostics used to keep the Services running, secure, and rate-limited — not for tracking.
• Approximate location: the state and county you enter. We do not collect precise GPS or device location.
• Mobile app data: if you use our mobile app and allow notifications, we store a push notification token for your device so we can deliver alerts (new messages, offers, saved-search matches). The token is removed when you sign out, and you can disable notifications any time in your device settings. If you choose to add photos to a listing, the app accesses your camera or photo library only for the photos you pick; we receive the photos, not your library.

Payments

Subscriptions and the sale-close fee are processed by Stripe. American Cattle Union never sees or stores your full card or bank account numbers; Stripe's privacy policy governs the handling of your payment data. We retain limited transaction records (amounts, dates, tier, listing references) for billing, receipts, and tax and accounting purposes.

What we do not collect or do

• No advertising or marketing trackers, and no third-party ad cookies
• No selling or renting of personal information
• No biometric, facial-recognition, or precise-location data
• No behavioral profiles for advertisers, and no cross-site tracking

How we use your information

We use your information to operate the marketplace (accounts, profiles, listings, search, offers, messaging, connections); to verify producers through the documents you submit; to process payments and fees via Stripe; to send transactional email and the notifications you opt into; to detect and prevent fraud and abuse, enforce our Terms, authenticate sessions, and rate-limit requests; to improve the product using limited first-party measurements (no third-party analytics service receives your data); and to comply with law.

What other users can see

Your name (shown to signed-in members), farm or ranch name, state, breeds of interest, bio, listings, and reviews are visible to other registered users, along with any Verified badges you have earned. Your email address, physical address, phone number, financial information, and uploaded verification documents are never visible to other users. Private listing documents are shown to a buyer only if you mark them public or have an accepted connection with that buyer.

Messages

Private messages between connected users are stored securely and are not visible to other users. American Cattle Union may review messages flagged through the report system to investigate potential safety or fraud issues. Messages are retained for account safety and dispute purposes.

Service providers we share data with

We share data with vendors only as needed to run the Services:

Some pages also load content directly from other services in your browser: our market map loads map tiles and place lookups from OpenStreetMap services (including the state or county you search), the map library from a public CDN, boundary shapes from GitHub, and some homepage images from Unsplash. Those services receive the standard data any web request carries — your IP address and browser information — but never your account data.

We may also disclose information to comply with law, respond to valid legal process, enforce our Terms, or protect the rights, property, or safety of ACU, our users, or the public. If ACU is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, information may transfer as part of that transaction, and we will notify you as required. We never sell or rent your personal information, and we never share it with advertisers.

Cookies

We use a small number of first-party cookies and no third-party tracking or advertising cookies: an authentication cookie that keeps you signed in (a signed token, HttpOnly), a CSRF-protection cookie, and a first-party cookie that remembers which homepage variant you saw. During specific security flows we also set short-lived cookies that expire within minutes: a two-factor sign-in cookie while you enter your code, two cookies used only during two-factor setup, and a password-reset session cookie. Essential cookies are required for the Services to work. We do not use Google Analytics, ad pixels, or similar third-party trackers.

Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control

We do not track users across third-party websites, do not use third-party behavioral advertising, and do not sell or share personal information, so there is nothing for a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal to opt out of. We treat all users the way those signals ask sites to treat the people who send them.

Data retention

Your account and profile data are kept while your account is active; if you close your account, your profile and listings are removed from public view. Transaction records are retained for 7 years as required by US tax law. Verification documents are retained while relevant to your verified status. Messages are retained for account safety and dispute purposes. Server logs and security records (such as IP-based audit entries) are kept only as long as needed for security and troubleshooting. For any category not listed here, we keep data no longer than needed for the purpose we collected it. Residual copies may persist in encrypted backups for a limited window after deletion.

How we protect your information

Passwords are stored only as secure hashes. Uploaded verification and listing documents are stored privately — outside any public bucket — and served only through an authenticated, authorized endpoint, never a public URL. Traffic is served over HTTPS behind edge protection, with CSRF protection, session revocation, and rate limiting. No method is 100% secure; we work hard to protect your data but cannot guarantee absolute security.

Your rights and choices

You can edit most profile data in your account settings and control optional email and SMS alerts. Two things you can do yourself, without asking us:

• Export your data: download a copy of your account data any time from your account settings.
• Delete your account: close and delete your account yourself from account settings; this removes your profile and listings from public view.

Depending on where you live, you may also have rights to access, correct, delete, or export your personal information, and to object to or restrict certain processing — contact us (below) and we will honor them. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights. California residents (CCPA/CPRA): you have rights to know, delete, and correct, and to opt out of the "sale" or "sharing" of personal information — ACU does not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined, and does not use it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

EEA and UK residents (GDPR / UK GDPR): American Cattle Union is the controller of your personal information. We process it to perform our contract with you (operating your account and the marketplace), for our legitimate interests (security, fraud prevention, and improving the Services), to comply with legal obligations, and with your consent where we ask for it — which you may withdraw at any time. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority. Your information is processed in the United States, as described below.

Children's privacy

The Services are intended for adults in the cattle industry and are not directed to anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has created an account, contact us and we will remove it.

Where your data lives

ACU is operated from, and stores data in, the United States. If you access the Services from outside the US, you understand your information is processed in the United States.

Changes to this policy

If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you by email or by a notice on the platform before the changes take effect, and we will update the date at the top of this page.

Contact us

Privacy questions and requests: [email protected], or by mail: American Cattle Union LLC, 1707 Whitt Dr, Spring Hill, TN 37174.