Privacy
Effective November 1, 2026; updated November 4, 2026 (Meta sign-up measurement, Vercel Web Analytics). Backroad Almanac is a business name of Flocuity LLC.
What we collect
- Your email address, to send your alerts, the Sunday email and account emails.
- Where to watch: your ZIP code, and for a few alerts (roof snow, the empty-house watch, hail, a private well and the boat watch) a street address or map pin you choose to give us. We store the map point rounded to about 100 meters. We store the street address only in encrypted form, and use it only to show it back to you on your account pages.
- About your place, if you tell us: answers like the roof type or whether the house is on a well, and the dates you'll be away, for the empty-house watch.
- A second inbox (Everything plan): the email address of someone you choose to add. We send them a short note saying you added them, with a way to unsubscribe.
- When you sign in to your account: the IP address that asked for a sign-in link, and the name of the browser you signed in with.
- Your plan and pack choices, the dates you bought and renew, and that you agreed to the Terms.
- Payment: Stripe handles your card. We never see or store your card number.
- When you sign up or buy: your IP address and your browser's name, the page you used, and, if you came from an ad, the ad's tracking tags and Meta's ad-click code. Before you sign up or buy, the ad details sit only in your browser's local storage (for up to 30 days and 7 days).
- Emails you send us at support@backroadalmanac.com.
Why
To send the alerts and emails you asked for, to run billing and renewals, to answer you, to stop abuse of our forms, and to learn which of our ads work.
The free Sunday email
When you sign up for the free Sunday email with your email address and ZIP code, you're on our list straight away; there is no confirmation step. We send you one short welcome note, then The Weekly Almanac on Sundays and the free alerts. Every email has a way to unsubscribe, and you can also reply "stop" to any of our emails. If you sign up again later, we update your details and put you back on the list.
Meta ad measurement
When you buy, or join the free Sunday email for the first time, we tell Meta that it happened, through its Conversions API, so we can see which ads work. We send your email address in a one-way scrambled form (hashed), a scrambled code for our own record of you, the ad-click code if you came from an ad, the Meta cookie code described below, your IP address, your browser's name and, for a purchase, the plan and the amount. Meta uses this to match the purchase or sign-up to the ad.
Our public pages (the home page, pricing, questions, the pack pages and the pages for buying) also load the Meta Pixel, Meta's measuring code. It tells Meta when one of those pages is viewed, when a checkout starts, when someone joins the free Sunday email and when a purchase is made, with your IP address and browser details, and it sets a Meta cookie (_fbp) in your browser. It doesn't send your email address. Your account, sign-in and unsubscribe pages don't load it. You can limit how Meta uses this in your Facebook or Instagram ad settings, and many browsers' tracking protection blocks it. We never send Meta your ZIP code or street address.
Who helps us run Backroad Almanac
- Stripe: payments, receipts, and the secure payment and card forms that appear inside our buy pages and your account page. Your card details go straight to Stripe; we never see the number.
- Supabase: our database.
- Vercel: hosts this website. Its firewall sees your IP address, to limit repeated sign-ups. Its Web Analytics counts page visits, which pages and where visitors came from, without cookies and without identifying you.
- Resend: sends our emails.
- Google Workspace: our support mailbox, when you write to us.
- Sentry: tells us when our software has an error.
- Meta: ad measurement, as described above.
- US Census Bureau and the National Weather Service: if you give us a street address, we send it (or its map point) to these free government services to find your weather zone. They don't receive your name or email address.
- US Geological Survey: the map on the setup page shows aerial photos from the USGS National Map, loaded straight from USGS by your browser. Like any website, USGS sees your IP address and which part of the map you're looking at. It doesn't receive your name, email address or street address from us.
- Anthropic: its AI reads public web pages (like state agency notices) to build alerts. It never receives your personal information.
We don't sell or rent your personal information, and we don't share it with anyone else except where the law requires.
Cookies
When you sign in to your account, we set one cookie that keeps that phone or computer signed in for 30 days. It holds a random code, not your email address, works only on backroadalmanac.com, and isn't used for tracking or ads. Signing out removes it. When you open the payment form (to buy a plan or change your card), Stripe's software loads on that page and sets its own cookies, which Stripe uses to keep payments secure and prevent fraud; Stripe's privacy policy covers them. Our public pages also load the Meta Pixel, which sets Meta's cookie (_fbp); see "Meta ad measurement" above. Other pages set no cookies. We use your browser's local storage only for the ad details described above.
How long we keep it
- Paid plans: while your plan is active. We delete your information within 90 days after your plan ends, and a street address within 30 days, except billing records, which we keep as long as tax law requires.
- The free list: until you unsubscribe. After that we keep only your email address and the date, so we don't email you again.
- Sign-in links and signed-in sessions: deleted 30 days after they expire or you sign out, with the IP address and browser name stored with them.
Your choices
- Every email has a way to unsubscribe, or reply "stop".
- You can cancel your plan online at any time.
- To see, correct or delete your information, email support@backroadalmanac.com.
Children
Backroad Almanac is for adults. We don't knowingly collect information from children under 13.
Changes
If we change this policy, we'll post the new version here with its date, and email paid members about any change that matters to them.
Contact
support@backroadalmanac.com · 68 Harrison Ave Ste 605 #839657, Boston, MA 02111