Privacy Policy

Last updated: July 9, 2026

Look Local is a directory of locally owned businesses. This page explains what information we collect when you use the site, what we do with it, and what we deliberately don't do.

What we collect

• Business submissions. When you add a business, we store what you type: the business name, address, category, description, contact details, and any social links or video links you include. Submissions are reviewed by a moderator before they appear publicly.
• Reviews. A star rating, your review text, an optional name (you can stay anonymous), and an optional photo or video link. Reviews are also moderated before publication. Anything you submit in a review may be shown publicly on the business's listing.
• Photos. Photos you attach to reviews are uploaded to our storage (Google Firebase) and image host (Cloudinary) and, once approved, are publicly visible.
• Technical error reports. If something breaks in your browser, the app may send us a short error report (the error message, the page URL, and your browser's user-agent string) so we can fix it. These reports contain no account or identity information.

Your location

If you allow it, the map uses your device's location to center the map near you. Your coordinates stay in your browser — they are used to position the map and are not stored or sent to our servers. You can decline the permission and use the site normally by searching instead.

Cookies and analytics

We do not currently run analytics or advertising trackers, and we do not set marketing cookies. Google Firebase (our hosting and database provider) may set technical cookies necessary to serve the site. If we add analytics in the future, we will update this policy and ask for consent where the law requires it.

Services we rely on

The site is built on third-party infrastructure that processes requests on our behalf. When you use certain features, your browser talks to these services directly:

• Google Firebase — hosting, database, and photo storage.
• Cloudinary — image hosting and resizing.
• OpenStreetMap / Nominatim and Photon (Komoot) — turning the addresses you type into map coordinates, and search suggestions.
• CARTO — the map tiles you see.
• TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Wikipedia — only when a listing embeds a video or when we auto-fill a description; loading an embedded video is subject to that platform's own privacy policy.

How long we keep things

Approved listings, reviews, and photos stay published until removed. Rejected submissions may be retained for moderation records. Error reports are kept only as long as needed to fix the underlying problem.

Removing your content

Want a review, photo, name, or business listing corrected or removed? Email us at press@golooklocal.com and we'll take care of it.

Children

The site is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.

Changes

If this policy changes, we'll update this page and the date at the top.