Privacy Policy

This policy explains, in plain English, what information livebythebeach.com collects, how it is used, and the choices you have. The site is run by Garett Huber, a real estate sales associate with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Beach Properties of Florida.

Information you give us

When you send a message through the contact form (or join, ask for a home value, or sign in at an open house), we collect:

• Your name and email address
• Your phone number, if you choose to give it, and which kinds of text messages you agreed to (see "Text messages" below)
• What you are looking for (an investment property, a second home, or not sure yet)
• Your price range, if you choose one
• Your message

If you join

Joining is free. We keep your email address and, if you give them, your name, phone number, when you hope to buy and what you are looking for. If you join with Google, Google shares only your name and email address with us. When you join, the homes you looked at on this device are added to your account, so Garett Huber can send you homes like them. If you came from one of our Google ads, the ad's click code is kept with your account to measure how well our ads work.

Garett Huber values your privacy. What you view on this site is used only to help you find the right home, and it's never sold or shared with other companies for their own marketing.

To know when to ask you to join, your browser keeps a short list of the homes you have opened on this site, for 30 days. It stays on your device and is not sent to us unless you join. We also count, per day, how often the sign-up window was shown, closed or used to join, with nothing about who. Clearing your browser's data for this site resets it.

Text messages

Giving a phone number is optional, and so is agreeing to texts. Under the phone field is one box, unticked until you tick it: “Yes, text me about homes and my search from Garett Huber / Live By The Beach, and I agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.” Ticking it means you agree to both kinds of text:

• Marketing texts: New listings matching your search and occasional market updates from Garett Huber / Live By The Beach. Frequency varies (about 2-8 msgs/month).
• Service texts: Replies to your questions, tour and appointment confirmations and reminders from Garett Huber / Live By The Beach. Frequency depends on your activity.

If you leave it unticked, your form still goes through and Garett Huber will call or email you, not text. When you tick it, we keep a record of the exact words you agreed to, when, on which page, and the IP address it came from, so we can show your consent. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to any text to stop them, or HELP for help, or email info@livebythebeach.com. The texting program is run by Vizsla Tech LLC dba Live By The Beach; its full terms are in our Terms of Use.

Your mobile number and your text consent are never shared with or sold to third parties or affiliates for marketing purposes. No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Text messaging opt-in data and consent are excluded from every kind of sharing described in this policy and will not be shared with any third parties. Our text message provider (Twilio) handles your number only to deliver the messages you asked for.

Information collected automatically

• With each contact form message, the page you sent it from and your browser type, which help us understand how you found us.
• The first page you visited on this site and what sent you here, like a search engine or another site. It's kept in a cookie in your browser and added to your record if you sign up or send a message, which helps us understand how you found us.
• Standard technical information, such as your IP address and the pages you visit, which our hosting provider records in its server logs to run and protect the site.
• How visitors click and scroll on our pages, through Microsoft Clarity recordings that hide anything typed into forms. Clarity uses cookies; you can read Microsoft's privacy policy.
• When you sign up or send us a message, a check of the name, phone number, email address and IP address you gave, through Trestle, a contact-verification service, to confirm the details are real and keep out spam and fake sign-ups. You can read Trestle's privacy policy.
• The city, state and country of the IP address you sign up or send a message from, estimated from our hosting provider's location data or MaxMind's GeoLite data, never a street address. This product includes GeoLite Data created by MaxMind, available from https://www.maxmind.com.
• Information from cookies and analytics tools, described below under "Cookies, analytics and advertising."

How we use your information

• To reply to you and help with your home search, purchase or sale
• To send you property information you ask for
• To keep a record of our conversations so we can serve you well
• To understand how the site is used and to improve it
• To measure how well our advertising works
• To meet our legal and professional obligations

Where your information is kept

Contact form messages are saved in our own secure database, hosted by Supabase. When a message arrives, an email alert is sent to Garett Huber through SendGrid, an email delivery service. Text messages are sent through Twilio, a text message service. The website itself is hosted by Vercel. These companies handle information only to provide their services to us.

When you use the property map, the map and satellite images come from Google Maps Platform (Google's Map Tiles), requested by our own server for you. When Google's images aren't available, they come from OpenFreeMap (OpenStreetMap data), Esri (ArcGIS) or the U.S. Geological Survey, and flood zones from FEMA; your browser loads those directly, so those services receive your internet address, as with any website. To keep map costs in check, our server counts the Google images each visitor loads in a day, using a scrambled form of the internet address (never the address itself), and clears those counts after a day.

Cookies, analytics and advertising

Cookies are small files your browser saves. This site uses Google Analytics to see how visitors use the site, and Google Ads to measure and improve our ads. Google uses cookies to collect information about your visits, such as the pages you view, how long you stay, and the device and browser you use.

We also use Microsoft Clarity to see how visitors click and scroll on our pages. Its recordings hide anything typed into forms, and it uses cookies.

We also use Google Signals and Google Analytics advertising features. These include demographics and interests reports, which give us a general picture of our visitors (such as age range and interests, never who you are), and remarketing through Google Ads, which lets us show our ads to people who have visited the site before. If you are signed in to Google and allow ad personalization, Google may connect your visits across your devices.

When you sign up, send a form or ask for a home value, our site gives Google a scrambled (hashed) copy of your email address and phone number, so Google Ads can tell us whether you came from one of our ads. If you later become a client, we send Google the same scrambled copy so it can count that the ad worked. Google uses it only to measure our ads; it never gets your actual email or phone number from us this way.

You can control cookies and opt out:

• Through your browser settings, which let you block or delete cookies
• On Google's Ads Settings page at adssettings.google.com, where you can turn off personalized ads
• With the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

We do not sell your information

We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information, and we do not share it with other companies for their own marketing. This includes your mobile number and text consent, which are never shared with or sold to anyone for marketing.

When we may share information

• With the service providers listed above, Microsoft (Clarity visit recordings) and Trestle (contact verification), only so they can run the site for us (never your text messaging opt-in or consent, except to Twilio to deliver your texts)
• With others involved in your real estate transaction, such as a lender or title company, when you ask us to or agree to it
• When the law requires it, or to protect our rights or the safety of others

How long we keep it

We keep your information as long as we need it to work with you and to keep the business records real estate professionals are required to keep. After that, we delete it.

How we protect it

Your information is stored in a private database that the public cannot access, and is sent over encrypted connections. No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect what you share with us.

Your choices

You can ask to see the information we have about you, correct it, or have it removed. To do so, email info@livebythebeach.com. We will respond promptly. You can also ask us at any time to stop contacting you, and reply STOP to any text to stop texts.

Children

This site is meant for adults and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect information from children.

Florida law

We follow the privacy and data security laws that apply in Florida and the United States, including giving notice if a security breach ever affects your personal information when the law requires it.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the site changes. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last updated.

Contact

Questions about your privacy? Contact Garett Huber at info@livebythebeach.com.