Privacy Policy

We collect two kinds of information:

• Information you give us. Each of our seven forms collects only what it needs:
  • Renewal reminder — your email address and your card or license expiry date.
  • Readiness check — your email address, your quiz score, the course type you chose, and your state if you pick one.
  • License checker — your email address, your state, the type of boat, and your age if you enter it.
  • Cost calculator — your email address, the course level and add-ons you picked, and the estimated total.
  • Insurance quote — your name, email address, state, boat type and boat year.
  • Contact — your name, email address and message.
  • List your school — your name, email address and message, and your school’s name, website and state.
  With any form, we also record the page you sent it from and a one-way hash of your IP address, which we use to limit repeat submissions.
• Information collected automatically. Like most websites, our web server keeps standard access logs — the pages you request, the referring page, your browser type and your IP address — for up to 90 days. We use them to protect the site from abuse and to count visits; we use no analytics service and no analytics cookies. Our firewall logs the IP addresses of connections it blocks for up to four weeks. Elsewhere, our application stores only a one-way hash of IP addresses, not the addresses themselves.

• To operate, maintain, and improve the directory and the courses we list.
• To respond to messages you send us through the contact form.
• To send the renewal reminders and readiness-check results you ask for — only to an address its owner has confirmed from the link we email, never more than once a month to any address, and every email has a one-click unsubscribe link.
• To count visits and understand which pages are useful, from our server logs.
• To detect, prevent, and fix errors, abuse, and security issues.

We do not use your information for automated decisions that produce legal effects about you.

• Sentry — monitors errors and page performance so we can fix problems. Its script runs on every page and reports the page’s load time and, if something breaks, technical details of the error. It does not record your screen or your session. Sentry receives your IP address with each report and derives an approximate location from it; it is set not to store the address itself.
• Cloudflare Turnstile — checks that a form submission comes from a person rather than an automated program. It loads only when one of our forms is on or near your screen, and Cloudflare may then process technical information about your browser and device, including your IP address, to make that check. Governed by Cloudflare’s privacy policy.
• Brevo — sends the emails we send: renewal reminders, readiness-check results, and notifications to our own inbox about messages you send us. It receives your email address and the content of those emails, adds a small invisible image to each email that tells it when the email is opened, and may record when a link in it is clicked. Governed by Brevo’s privacy policy.
• Affiliate partners — when you click an outbound link to a course provider, to Amazon from a gear recommendation, or to a merchant through the Awin affiliate network, that company may set its own cookies and collect data under its own policy. Nothing is sent to them unless you click. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
• Vultr and Neon — Vultr hosts our web server and Neon hosts our database; together they store the site and the limited data above on our behalf.

No. The public site sets no cookies of its own, and loads no analytics or advertising scripts that would set them. (Staff who sign in to our admin area get a login cookie.) A site you reach through one of our outbound links may set its own cookies under its own policy, as described above.

Our site does not respond to Do Not Track (DNT) browser signals: there is no agreed standard for what a site should do when it receives one, so every visit is handled the same way.

No. We do not sell or share your personal information for money or other valuable consideration, as those terms are defined under the CCPA. Our revenue comes from affiliate commissions, advertising, and paid school listings — not from selling your data.

If you are in the EEA or UK, you have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict, or port your personal data, to object to processing, and to withdraw consent at any time; you may also lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

If you are a California resident, you have the right to know what we collect, to request deletion or correction, to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of personal information (note that we do not sell or share it), and not to be discriminated against for exercising these rights.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us through our contact form. We will respond within the time required by applicable law.

• Web server access logs, which include IP addresses, and our application logs, which include only hashed IP addresses, are kept for 90 days and then deleted automatically.
• Our record of form submissions we refused as likely spam holds only a hashed IP address and is deleted after 90 days.
• Firewall logs of blocked connections, which include IP addresses, are kept for up to four weeks.
• Form submissions, and the record of whether an email address was confirmed or unsubscribed, are kept until you ask us to delete them.

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your data, but no method of transmission or storage is completely secure.

No. BoatingClasses.com is intended for adults and is not directed to children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has provided us data, contact us and we will delete it.

We may update this policy as the site evolves or the law changes. When we do, we will revise the “Last updated” date above. Material changes will be reflected here, so please check back periodically.

For any privacy question or request, use our contact form. It’s the fastest way to reach the team that handles privacy requests.