Privacy Policy

Last updated: April 2026

1. Introduction

Welcome to Find a Church Near Me ("we," "us," or "our"), accessible at https://findachurchnearme.com. Find a Church Near Me is a church directory that helps visitors find churches across the United States. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you visit our website. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. By accessing or using the Site, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by this Privacy Policy.

2. Information We Collect

Information You Voluntarily Provide

We may collect information that you voluntarily submit to us, including but not limited to:

Contact Information: If you contact us via email, we collect your email address, name, and the content of your message.
Church Claim Requests: If you are a church representative requesting to claim or update a listing, we collect your name, email address, church affiliation, and any supporting documentation you provide.

Information Collected Automatically

When you visit the Site, certain information is collected automatically, including:

IP Address: Your Internet Protocol address, which may indicate your approximate geographic location.
Browser and Device Information: Browser type and version, operating system, device type (desktop, mobile, tablet), screen resolution, and language preferences.
Usage Data: Pages visited, time and date of visits, time spent on pages, click-through data, referring/exit pages, and navigation paths.
Cookies and Similar Technologies: Small data files placed on your device to facilitate analytics and advertising functionality. See Section 4 (Cookie Policy) for details.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for the following purposes:

Operate and Maintain the Church Directory: To display church listings, search results, and related content.
Verify Church Listings: To process claim requests and verify the identity of church representatives seeking to update their listings.
Analytics and Improvement: To understand how visitors use the Site, identify popular content, diagnose technical issues, and improve site performance and user experience.
Advertising: To display relevant advertisements through Google AdSense and support the free operation of the Site.
Communication: To respond to inquiries, send requested information, and provide customer support.
Fraud Prevention and Security: To detect, prevent, and respond to fraud, unauthorized access, and other malicious activity through Cloudflare security services and server-side logging.
Legal Compliance: To comply with applicable laws, regulations, legal processes, or enforceable governmental requests.

4. Cookie Policy

We use cookies and similar tracking technologies to collect and store information. A cookie is a small text file placed on your device by a web server. Below is a comprehensive list of the cookies used on this Site:

Category	Cookie Name	Provider	Purpose	Duration
Essential	cookie_consent	Find a Church Near Me	Stores your cookie consent preference (accepted/rejected). Uses localStorage.	Persistent
Essential	__cf_bm	Cloudflare	Bot management and DDoS protection. Required for site security.	30 minutes
Analytics	_ga	Google Analytics	Distinguishes unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier.	2 years
Analytics	_gid	Google Analytics	Stores and updates a unique value for each page visited.	24 hours
Analytics	_gat	Google Analytics	Throttles request rate to limit data collection on high-traffic sites.	1 minute
Advertising	IDE	Google (DoubleClick)	Used by Google DoubleClick to register and report user actions after viewing or clicking an ad, measuring ad effectiveness.	13 months
Advertising	__gads	Google AdSense	Measures ad interactions and prevents the same ads from being shown repeatedly.	13 months
Advertising	DART	Google (DoubleClick)	Serves targeted advertisements based on browsing activity across websites using Google advertising services.	13 months

Managing Cookies

You can manage your cookie preferences in the following ways:

Consent Banner: When you first visit the Site, a cookie consent banner allows you to accept or reject non-essential cookies. You can change your preference at any time by clicking "Cookie Settings" in the footer.
Google Ad Settings: Manage your ad personalization preferences at Google Ads Settings.
NAI Opt-Out: Opt out of interest-based advertising from Network Advertising Initiative members at optout.networkadvertising.org.
DAA Opt-Out: Opt out of targeted advertising from Digital Advertising Alliance participants at aboutads.info/choices.
Browser Settings: Most web browsers allow you to control cookies through their settings. You may delete existing cookies and configure your browser to refuse new cookies. Note that disabling cookies may affect site functionality.

5. Interest-Based Advertising

We use Google AdSense to display advertisements on the Site. Google AdSense uses the DART cookie to serve ads based on your visits to this website and other websites on the Internet. The DART cookie enables Google and its partners to serve ads to you based on your browsing patterns across the web.

When you have not provided consent for personalized advertising (via our cookie consent banner), we set the data-npa="1" attribute on all ad units, instructing Google to serve only non-personalized advertisements. Non-personalized ads are targeted using contextual information (such as the content of the page) rather than your browsing history.

You may opt out of the use of the DART cookie for interest-based advertising by visiting the Google Ads Settings page. For more information about how Google uses data when you use our Site, visit Google's Partner Sites Policy.

6. Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party services that may collect information about you:

Google Analytics (GA4): Web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic. IP addresses are anonymized. Google Privacy Policy. You can opt out using the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.
Google AdSense: Advertising platform that displays relevant ads. Google Advertising Policies.
Google Maps: Embedded maps for church locations. Subject to Google's Privacy Policy.
Google Fonts: Web font delivery service. Google may collect your IP address and browser information when loading fonts. Google Fonts Privacy FAQ.
Cloudflare: Content delivery network, DNS, and security provider. Cloudflare processes traffic data to provide DDoS protection, performance optimization, and security services. Cloudflare Privacy Policy.

7. Data Sharing

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties. We may share information in the following limited circumstances:

Service Providers: We share data with trusted third-party service providers (such as Google and Cloudflare) who assist us in operating the Site, conducting business, or servicing you, subject to their own privacy policies as described in Section 6.
Legal Requirements: We may disclose your information if required to do so by law or in response to valid legal process, including subpoenas, court orders, or government requests.
Business Transfers: In the event of a merger, acquisition, reorganization, bankruptcy, or sale of all or a portion of our assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you via a prominent notice on our Site of any change in ownership or uses of your personal information.
Protection of Rights: We may disclose information to protect the safety, rights, or property of Find a Church Near Me, our users, or the public as required or permitted by law.

8. Data Security

We implement commercially reasonable security measures to protect your information, including:

HTTPS Encryption: All data transmitted between your browser and our servers is encrypted using TLS/SSL (HTTPS).
Cloudflare DDoS Protection: Our site is protected by Cloudflare's enterprise-grade security, which filters malicious traffic and mitigates distributed denial-of-service attacks.
Access Controls: Administrative access to our servers and databases is restricted and protected by strong authentication.
Regular Updates: We keep our server software and security configurations up to date.

In the event of a data breach that affects your personal data, we will notify affected individuals and relevant supervisory authorities within 72 hours of becoming aware of the breach, in compliance with GDPR requirements, where applicable.

While we strive to protect your information, no method of electronic transmission or storage is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security of your data.

9. Data Retention

We retain your information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes described in this Privacy Policy:

Contact Submissions: Email correspondence and church claim requests are retained for up to 3 years from the date of the last communication.
Analytics Data: Google Analytics data is retained for 26 months, after which it is automatically deleted by Google.
Server Logs: Web server access and error logs are retained for 90 days and then automatically purged.
Cookie Consent Preferences: Your consent choice is stored in your browser's localStorage and persists until you clear your browser data or change your preference via "Cookie Settings."

10. Your Rights Under GDPR (European Residents)

If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA) or the United Kingdom, you have the following rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):

Right of Access: You have the right to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Right to Rectification: You have the right to request correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
Right to Erasure: You have the right to request deletion of your personal data, subject to certain legal exceptions.
Right to Restriction: You have the right to request restriction of processing of your personal data under certain circumstances.
Right to Data Portability: You have the right to receive your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
Right to Object: You have the right to object to processing of your personal data for direct marketing or where processing is based on legitimate interests.
Right to Withdraw Consent: Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw consent at any time by clicking "Cookie Settings" in the footer without affecting the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
Right to Lodge a Complaint: You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, such as the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) in the UK or your local data protection authority.

Legal Bases for Processing

We process your personal data on the following legal bases:

Consent: For analytics cookies and personalized advertising (Article 6(1)(a) GDPR).
Legitimate Interests: For operating and improving the Site, fraud prevention, and security (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).
Legal Obligation: For compliance with applicable laws and responding to legal requests (Article 6(1)(c) GDPR).

International Data Transfers

Your data may be transferred to and processed in the United States, where our servers are located. We rely on Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) approved by the European Commission to safeguard data transferred outside the EEA/UK. Our third-party service providers (Google, Cloudflare) maintain their own data transfer mechanisms in compliance with applicable data protection regulations.

Automated Decision-Making

We do not engage in automated decision-making or profiling that produces legal effects or similarly significant effects on you.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at [email protected]. We will respond to your request within 30 days.

11. Your Rights Under CCPA (California Residents)

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) provides you with the following rights:

Right to Know: You have the right to request disclosure of the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, the categories of sources from which the information was collected, the business purpose for collecting the information, and the categories of third parties with whom we share the information.
Right to Delete: You have the right to request deletion of your personal information that we have collected, subject to certain exceptions.
Right to Opt-Out of Sale: You have the right to opt out of the sale of your personal information. We do not sell personal information.
Right to Non-Discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising your CCPA rights. You will not receive different pricing, quality of service, or other adverse treatment.

To exercise your CCPA rights, please contact us at [email protected]. We will verify your identity before processing your request and will respond within 45 days of receiving your verifiable request. If we need additional time, we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing (up to an additional 45 days).

12. Children's Privacy

Find a Church Near Me is not directed to children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are a parent or guardian and believe that your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us at [email protected], and we will take steps to delete such information from our records. This policy is in compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

13. Contact Us

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact us:

Email: [email protected]
Website: https://findachurchnearme.com/contact/

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements, or other factors. When we make material changes, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically. Your continued use of the Site after any changes constitutes acceptance of the updated Privacy Policy.