Privacy Policy

This page explains what Topsail Guide collects, why, and what you can do about it. It is written to be read, not to be survived. If anything here is unclear, email topsailguide@gmail.com and ask.

Topsail Guide is run by Eric Lander from Hampstead, North Carolina. It is an independent local site, not a company with a data team. The short version: we do not sell your information, we do not build profiles on you, and we do not email you unless you email us first.

What we collect when you just read

Reading an article requires no account and no form. Our own code sets no cookies and stores nothing about you.

Two things still happen automatically, because they happen on almost every site:

• Our host and security layer see your request. The site runs on WP Engine, with Cloudflare in front of it. Both log standard request data, including your IP address, browser, and the page you asked for. They use it to serve the page and to block attacks. We do not mine those logs.
• Google sees the page load, through the advertising and measurement tools described below.

Advertising

Topsail Guide carries ads from Google AdSense. Ads pay for the hosting, the software, and the time. Our AdSense publisher ID is ca-pub-9127241577680343.

Google and its partners may set cookies or read existing ones to choose which ads to show you and to count whether an ad was seen or clicked. Depending on your settings and where you live, those ads may be personalized based on your activity across other sites.

You control this directly, and not through us:

• Turn personalized advertising on or off at Google My Ad Center.
• Opt out of third-party vendor cookies at aboutads.info.
• Read what Google does with the data at Google’s partner sites policy.

We use fixed, hand-placed ad slots. Auto Ads, pop-ups, interstitials, and anchor ads are off, and they stay off. Ads never determine what we cover or how we cover it.

Measurement

We use Google Tag Manager (container GTM-TDGZ2J3F) and Google Site Kit, which connects the site to Google Analytics and Google Search Console. This tells us which stories people read, which towns they come from at a regional level, and which pages are broken. It is aggregate reporting. We use it to decide what to write next, not to identify you.

What we collect when you contact us

Three forms on this site collect information, and only when you choose to fill one in.

Corrections

The corrections form asks for your name, your email, the story in question, and what we got wrong. It is emailed to us so we can check the claim and reply. Your name is not published. If a correction results in a change, we note the change, not who reported it.

Claiming or adding a business listing

Claiming a directory listing asks for your name, email, phone number, and your relationship to the business. That request is stored in the site so we can work through the queue, and it is emailed to us. We use it to verify you actually represent the business, and to reach you about the listing. Nothing else.

If you create an account to manage a listing, the site stores the account details you enter, the same way any WordPress site does.

Email

If you email a tip, an event, or a question, we keep the email. That is how we follow up on local stories.

What we do not do

• We do not sell or rent your personal information. We never have.
• We do not run a newsletter, so we do not have a mailing list to add you to.
• Comments are turned off sitewide, so there is no comment data.
• We do not share what you send us with the businesses you are asking about, unless you asked us to put you in touch.

Your rights

If you are in the European Union or the United Kingdom, the GDPR gives you the right to see the personal data we hold about you, correct it, or have it deleted. If you are a California resident, the CCPA and CPRA give you comparable rights, including the right to know and the right to delete, plus the right to opt out of the sale of personal information. We do not sell personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of.

You do not need a legal basis to ask. Email topsailguide@gmail.com, tell us what you want, and we will do it. Requests are handled within 30 days.

The rights above apply to what we hold. For the data Google holds through advertising and analytics, use the Google links above. That is the only place those controls actually live.

How long we keep things

Correction reports and listing claim requests are kept while we act on them and for a reasonable period afterward, so we have a record of why a page changed. Email is kept until it is no longer useful. Ask us to delete any of it and we will.

Children

Topsail Guide is written for a general audience and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect information from them. If you believe a child has sent us something, email us and we will remove it.

Changes to this policy

When this policy changes in a way that matters, we update this page and change the date below. We do not quietly rewrite it.

Contact

Questions about anything on this page go to topsailguide@gmail.com. How we handle accuracy and corrections is spelled out separately in our editorial standards.

Last updated July 16, 2026.