Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

We only collect what you actively submit through one of the Site's forms. We don't currently use account logins, so there's no password or profile data to collect. Here's what each form asks for today:

Newsletter signup

• Email address.

Rate Your Race form

• Race, hotel, and business details you enter (race name, date, distance, cost, travel and hotel information).
• Your ratings and written review text.
• This form does not currently ask for your name or email, submitted reviews are effectively anonymous to us today. That may change as our forms evolve, and this policy will be updated to match if it does.

Community Submissions form

• Your name (first name is explicitly fine) and email address, if you choose to provide them.
• Details about the race, business, or resource you're submitting (name, city, state, website, social handle, description).

Contact form

• Your name and email address.
• The topic and message you write to us, plus run club details if that's what you're submitting.

We do not knowingly collect payment card numbers, government ID numbers, or precise location data through any current form.

2. How We Use It

• To publish and moderate the content you submit (reviews, stories, listings), per our Terms of Use and Community Guidelines.
• To respond to your message if you contact us.
• To send you our newsletter, if you signed up for it, and only that, we don't sell your email or use it for anything else.
• To calculate displayed rating averages from approved reviews.

3. Third-Party Services

When you submit a form on this Site, your submission is sent directly to a Google Sheet that we own and control, through a Google Apps Script Web App we built and maintain ourselves. We do not use a third-party form-handling vendor. That data passes over Google's infrastructure to reach our own Sheet, governed by Google's privacy policy for that piece of the transfer, but we are the ones who receive, store, and review every submission, not a separate company.

4. Cookies & Embedded Content

The Site uses Google Analytics 4 to understand how many people visit, which pages they read, and where they came from. It records page views, traffic source, newsletter signups, form submissions, and clicks on outbound partner and shop links. It does not record what you type into a form, and your IP address is anonymized before it reaches Google. Google Analytics sets its own cookies; that is governed by Google's privacy policy. You can opt out entirely with Google's own browser opt-out add-on.

The Site runs no Meta Pixel and no advertising tracking pixel of any kind. If that changes, we'll update this section to name the specific tool and what it tracks before it goes live, not after.

Some pages (This Week's Scoop, the homepage's weekly feature, and Comeback Stories) embed YouTube videos. YouTube may set its own cookies when you play an embedded video; that's governed by Google's privacy policy, not ours.

5. How We Share Information

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only: with the service providers named above who help us run the Site (Google, for the Sheet and Apps Script Web App that store and process form submissions), when content you submitted for publication is published (a name you provided for a Comeback Story, for example, per the license in our Terms), or if required by law.

6. Your Choices

• Unsubscribe from the newsletter any time using the link in each email.
• Ask us to remove a submission or correct information you provided, contact us and we'll do our best to accommodate the request, consistent with our Terms and any content already published.

7. Children's Privacy

The Race Scoop is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from children under 13. If you believe a child has submitted information to us, contact us and we'll remove it.

8. Security

We take reasonable steps to protect the information submitted to us, but no method of transmission or storage is 100% secure, and we can't guarantee absolute security.

9. Changes To This Policy

We'll update this page as our forms and data practices change. Material changes will be reflected in the "Last updated" date at the top of this page.

10. Contact

Questions about this Privacy Policy, or want us to remove your information? Reach us through the Contact page.