Privacy & cookies
Plain language, and only what actually applies to this site. We keep the collection small on purpose.
This notice covers information we collect through this website — sternfast.com — from people who visit it or send us an inquiry. It does not cover data we handle for a client under a signed services agreement; that’s addressed separately (see “Client and student data” below).
We run a deliberately small website: no accounts, no logins, no shopping cart, no advertising, no third-party tracking pixels. There are exactly two ways we collect anything — a contact form and Google Analytics — and both are described in full here.
What we collect
When you send an inquiry
Our contact form asks for your name, a work email, a dropdown for what you need, and an optional free-text message. That’s all it collects, and every field except the message is what you’d expect to give anyone you’re asking for help. We use it for one thing: to read your message and reply.
When you browse the site
We use Google Analytics 4 to understand how the site is used — which pages people read, how far they scroll, which outbound links they click, an approximate location derived from your IP address (Google truncates the IP, so we never receive or store your full one), and your device, browser, and operating system. This is aggregate traffic measurement. It is not used for advertising, and we do not build profiles of individuals.
Cookies
Google Analytics sets two first-party cookies in your browser:
| Cookie | Purpose | Lifetime |
|---|---|---|
_ga | Tells one browser apart from another using a random, pseudonymous ID. Not tied to your name. | Up to 2 years by design; most browsers now cap first-party cookies at about 13 months. |
_ga_L40SYVLKQS | Holds session state (whether a visit is ongoing, and a session count) for our specific Analytics property. | Same as above. |
Those are the only cookies this site sets. There are no advertising cookies, no remarketing tags, and no cross-site trackers — if you’ve seen those listed in other companies’ policies, they simply don’t exist here.
Turning analytics off. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, or install Google’s Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, which stops Google Analytics on every site you visit. Either one keeps your visit out of our analytics.
For the record, we do not currently respond to browser “Do Not Track” signals, because there is no shared standard for how a site should honor them — the opt-outs above are the reliable way to keep analytics off.
Who processes your information
We keep the list short because it is short:
- Google Firebase / Firestore hosts this website and stores inquiry submissions. Data is held in the United States.
- Google Analytics processes the site-usage data described above. Google’s handling is covered by how Google uses information from sites that use its services.
We do not sell your information, we do not share it for anyone else’s advertising, and we don’t hand it to third parties beyond the two processors above that make the site work.
Client and student data
This is worth being clear about, because our clients are often schools. This privacy notice is about our website. When we do actual work for a client — a migration, hosting, repair — any data we touch on their systems, including student records covered by FERPA, is governed by the services agreement and data-processing terms we sign with that client, not by this page. We describe ourselves as FERPA-aware in how we do that work; we are not claiming this marketing website is a FERPA-regulated system, because it isn’t — it collects no student records.
Your choices
- Delete your inquiry. Ask us and we’ll delete the inquiry you sent, along with the name and email attached to it.
- See or correct what you sent. Ask and we’ll tell you what we hold from your inquiry and fix anything that’s wrong.
- Opt out of analytics using the methods in the Cookies section above.
To make any of these requests, use our contact form or call (615) 396-7139. We reply within one business day.
A note on our emails
If you write to us, we reply from a real address, to you, about your inquiry. We don’t run a newsletter or a marketing list, so there’s nothing to unsubscribe from — we only email people back.
Children
This is a business-to-business site. It isn’t directed to children, and we don’t knowingly collect information from anyone under 13.
Changes to this notice
If we change how the site handles information, we’ll update this page and move the effective date at the top. Since our collection is minimal and we don’t plan to add advertising or tracking, we don’t expect changes to be frequent.
Contact
Questions about privacy? Send us a note or call (615) 396-7139. Sternfast is a Vbounds LLC company, based in Nashville, Tennessee.