Privacy Policy

1. WHO WE ARE AND WHAT THIS POLICY COVERS

Skillose (“Skillose,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) is operated by D&A Build Consultant LLC, a New York limited liability company formed in 2014 and authorized to transact business in North Carolina since 2016, with principal operations at 202 E Arlington Blvd, Suite E, Greenville, NC 27858. This Privacy Policy explains our information practices for skillose.com, its public informational resources, private founding-vendor registration and account functions, and support and reporting channels.

Phase One scope. For the October 26, 2026 founding-vendor release, eligible adults may register, confirm email, sign in, reset credentials, prepare private business profiles and media, earn nonredeemable Skillose Credits and share Vendor referrals, access free resources and the scripted guide, and use account/privacy and reporting controls. Customer accounts, public marketplace listings, publicly searchable Vendor profiles, appointments, messaging, verification badges, paid services, live checkout, Gift and Support, payouts, sponsored advertising, customer reviews and generative AI are not available. This Policy will be reviewed before materially different services or data uses activate. This Policy describes Skillose's handling of personal information. A Vendor or visitor who follows an independent business link is subject to that business's own practices when interacting outside Skillose.

2. INFORMATION WE COLLECT

Account and contact information. During registration we may collect the individual’s name, email address, telephone number, password (stored as a non-readable hash in the described system), vendor classification, business relationship, account type, registration and verification status, security and password-recovery events, and policy-acceptance records.

Vendor and business information. A founding Vendor may provide a legal business name, trade or assumed name, authority to represent the business, its genuine office location, North Carolina operating or active service area, business description, category, and supporting information needed for eligibility or suspected fraud review. An assumed name does not replace the underlying proprietor or legal entity. Broad professional, identity, license or charity verification and corresponding badges are not publicly offered in Phase One.

Private profile and media. Vendors can privately prepare business names, taglines, descriptions, logos, profile photographs, selected gallery materials, draft offers, links and service-area information. These drafts and uploads are not made accessible through public marketplace search or public Vendor listings during Phase One. Private access is restricted to authorized account holders, staff and service providers according to operational need.

Requests and communications. We collect information submitted through Contact & Support, Privacy Request, Report a Problem and copyright or security reporting functions, including contact details, attachments, content identifiers, complaint descriptions, status changes, investigation and appeal records. Public customer messages and appointments are not part of Phase One.

Technical and consent records. The Platform and service providers may process IP addresses, device/browser details, timestamps, session and rate-limit events, web requests, account-status events, cookies, audit logs, and acceptance data. For each Vendor registration, the recorded acceptance information includes Terms and Privacy Policy versions, SHA-256 hashes of published policy bodies, date and time, positive selection method, Account Holder, represented business, business relationship, registration path, IP address and user agent.

Location information. We collect the true business location and, where supplied, North Carolina operations or active product/service coverage information to evaluate eligibility. Private profile records may contain a general location, coordinates or service radius, but public profile maps and Near Me discovery are not active during Phase One. We do not activate device-location searches for ordinary public customers in this release.

Skillose Credits and referrals. To operate the Phase One promotional program we may process vendor and referred-account identifiers, referral codes or links, recorded registration attribution and timestamps, email confirmation and eligibility status, Credit balance and award ledger, adjustments, fraud indicators, duplicate/self-referral findings and related correspondence. Customer-account referrals cannot earn rewards while customer registration is unavailable. We do not associate Credits with any active dollar exchange value, paid charge or withdrawal.

Payments. Stripe and Stripe Connect have been used for private test and sandbox configuration; they do not process live customer subscriptions, Gift and Support transfers, or payouts for the public Phase One release. Restricted sandbox identifiers may exist in development systems. Any future payment data collection will require updated disclosure and controls.

3. HOW WE COLLECT INFORMATION

We collect information directly from the individual registering or updating an account, uploading private materials, sharing a referral link, requesting assistance or reporting a concern; automatically through authentication, operational cookies, web servers and security tools; and, when a referral leads to a registration, through the link or code used and the new account’s verified activity. We may receive legitimate copyright or safety reports about registered Vendors. We do not independently verify every claim made in private profiles.

4. HOW WE USE PERSONAL INFORMATION

We use personal information for the following purposes, to the extent applicable to the particular interaction:

• Create, authenticate, maintain and administer eligible founding-vendor accounts; confirm email addresses, restore account access and capture recorded agreement to versioned Terms.
• Store, process, safeguard and permit account-holder editing of private Vendor profiles and media; assess eligibility and suspected policy violations without publishing those drafts to the public.
• Issue 10 one-time welcome Credits to eligible verified-email founding-vendor accounts, attribute and assess qualifying Vendor referrals for 15 Credits, prevent duplications and fraud, retain a Credit ledger, investigate errors and process reversals or requests for reconsideration.
• Respond to support, privacy, copyright and safety inquiries; maintain queue status, correspondence and lawful investigation records.
• Send transactional messages for registration, email confirmation, security, password reset and account status; manage necessary delivery and service operations.
• Protect account and system integrity, investigate unauthorized access or misuse, enforce policies, preserve records when legally required and comply with lawful process.
• Maintain records needed for reasonable business administration, accepted policy versions, privacy/security compliance and dispute preservation.
• Maintain and troubleshoot the website and restricted services, improve reliability and create aggregated or de-identified operational measurements where appropriate.

Nothing in the founding-vendor registration or Credit program constitutes consent to future recurring billing, fundraising transfers or promotional email. Optional commercial messaging, if activated, will be subject to separate disclosures and legal requirements.

5. PUBLIC INFORMATION AND PRIVATE ACCOUNT BOUNDARIES

Profile drafts remain private. Phase One Vendor biographies, general locations, photos, logos and other draft profile content are available to the associated authorized account holder and personnel or processors who need access to operate or protect the service. They are not published as searchable public listings. Future public display will require a separate feature-launch decision and accurate advance disclosure of visible fields and possible search indexing.

Restricted information. Skillose does not intend to expose private email, phone, physical street address, account credentials, government identifiers, documents, referral ledger, copyright complaints, account status and security records on public marketplace pages. Vendors must not place third-party personal information or sensitive documents into unsuitable ordinary fields.

No verification badges. Email confirmation is used internally for account activation and Credit eligibility; no public professional license, identity, insurance, charity, background or government endorsement badge is active in this phase. Email verification does not establish the account holder’s legal identity or professional qualifications.

Future customer information. Customer viewing histories, saved businesses, direct messages, bookings, review activity and live payment information are not collected through public customer accounts during the founding-vendor release. We will update this Policy before activating those functions.

6. SHARING AND SERVICE PROVIDERS

We may disclose limited personal information to service providers working under appropriate agreements for hosting, communications, storage, security, and other authorized functions. The service-provider inventory supplied for the founding release includes:

• Render: application hosting, managed PostgreSQL database functions, service operations, system logs, and backups.
• Cloudflare Email Sending and Email Routing: account verification, password recovery, safety/support communications and transactional delivery metadata.
• Cloudflare R2: private Vendor photo/logo and other permitted media storage and restricted delivery.
• Stripe and Stripe Connect: testing and configuration for future payment functionality in non-live sandbox mode only; production payment use is not part of the founding release.
• GitHub: private software development and source-code management; it is not designated as a repository for ordinary production user records in the supplied system description.
• Pictory (if the optional video link remains enabled): hosting an informational video to which visitors may be directed after selecting “Learn More.” Accessing that third-party video may involve information being collected directly by Pictory under its own notice. We will identify any embedded or linked content providers actually enabled on the published site.

We may disclose information to authorized personnel, professional advisers with appropriate protections, service providers performing permitted operations, law enforcement where lawfully required or permitted, and successors in lawful business transactions subject to applicable obligations. Vendor referral functionality may display a referring business or referral code to the recipient where disclosed in the user interface; it does not authorize disclosure of unrelated account records. We do not sell personal data or use it for third-party behavioral advertising in the described Phase One model. Third-party service providers may change as the Platform develops. We will update this Policy when a materially different category of provider or sharing is introduced. The founding-vendor service is not designed to sell personal information or disclose it to outside advertising networks for behaviorally targeted advertising. If those practices change, we will supply any notices, choices, or consents required by applicable law.

7. COOKIES, DEVICE INFORMATION AND ANALYTICS

Skillose may use cookies or similar local browser functions necessary to authenticate sessions, maintain secure sign-ins, prevent request forgery, preserve preferences, and protect the website. Essential cookies are used to operate the service and may not be separately disableable without disrupting functionality. Users may control or clear many cookies through browser settings, though this may affect account access. The supplied launch description does not identify production advertising pixels or third-party behavioral advertising analytics. This is not a representation that hosting, browser, email delivery, or security systems create no technical records. Before introducing optional analytics, cross-site advertising, or other nonessential trackers, Skillose will evaluate any applicable notice, opt-out, or consent obligations and update this Policy and its controls as necessary. No particular “Do Not Track” or universal opt-out response is represented as operational unless the final system has been configured to honor it where required.

8. EMAIL AND COMMUNICATION PREFERENCES

We may send essential registration, confirmation, security and support emails. If promotional Vendor referral messages are later sent through Skillose or users are rewarded for sending commercial email, applicable CAN-SPAM rules, including sender identification, accurate content, postal address and opt-out obligations where required, must be followed. Optional marketing choices are separate from the mandatory Terms acknowledgment. Unsubscribing from marketing does not necessarily end essential account or security notices.

9. INFORMATION SECURITY

We use administrative, technical, and physical protections proportionate to the nature of the information and the risks involved. Safeguards reflected in the described system architecture include password hashing, expiring verification and reset links, rate limiting, restricted access to account records and private media, secure transport settings, session protection, and access checks for media. The particular safeguards available to each user depend on the production service and may change as security measures are improved. No method of internet transmission or storage can be guaranteed completely secure. Certain additional safeguards, such as account-holder multifactor authentication and new-device alerts, are not currently offered as public features. We will not represent unimplemented measures as presently available. Users should protect their credentials and contact us promptly about suspected unauthorized account activity.

10. RETENTION, DELETION AND BACKUPS

Our internal Phase One schedule currently sets these general periods, subject to legal holds, applicable statutory requirements, active disputes and legitimate security needs: active account/profile records while the account is open; accepted Terms and Privacy Policy versions and hashes for the account life plus six years; copyright, privacy, safety and material support cases for five years after closure; ordinary authentication and security events for 12 months; used or expired verification and password-reset tokens for 90 days; and incomplete/unverified registrations for 90 days unless needed for abuse prevention. Credit and referral records are maintained for account administration, fraud review and related lawful documentation while reasonably necessary; a finalized category-specific retention period should be confirmed before launch. After a verified account deletion request, eligible active private profile content and media are scheduled for removal from active systems within 30 days, subject to lawful exceptions. Some data may be retained for legal acceptance, security, fraud prevention, disputes, litigation holds or provider backups. Backup data follows the configured provider cycle; where a backup is restored, deletion restrictions must be reapplied before ordinary use. These periods describe intended operational practices and may vary if applicable law requires a different treatment.

11. PRIVACY REQUESTS AND CHOICES

Privacy and account requests can be sent to privacy@skillose.com, through the Contact & Support Privacy Request topic or through available Account & Privacy controls. You may ask to access or correct information, deactivate an account, delete eligible data or learn how your personal information is used. Please include information reasonably necessary to locate the account, but do not email identity images, passwords or unnecessary sensitive records. We may verify a requester’s identity and authorization through the existing account email and limited additional evidence if necessary. Our internal target is to acknowledge requests within five business days and, where reasonably possible, resolve routine verified requests within 30 calendar days; a shorter or different legal deadline controls if applicable. We may explain an applicable exception, extension or refusal when permitted or required. Do not send government identity documents through ordinary email unless a secure method is arranged. Eligible Vendors may edit certain private profile fields and inspect some account controls. Depending on legally applicable requirements, people may possess additional rights to obtain records, request correction, delete, appeal a decision or opt out of specified processing. Rights are evaluated based on statutory coverage rather than a blanket promise that every U.S. privacy regime applies.

12. CHILDREN AND AGE RESTRICTIONS

Skillose is designed for adults and does not knowingly permit users under 18 to register for founding-vendor accounts. It is not directed to children under 13. If we learn that a minor has created an account contrary to our eligibility rules, we will take steps appropriate to the circumstances and applicable law, including restricting the account and assessing deletion of personal information. A visitor who believes a minor has provided information may report the concern through our Contact or Privacy Request function.

13. UNITED STATES OPERATIONS AND ADDITIONAL LAW

The initial program is intended for businesses operating from North Carolina or actively offering products or services in North Carolina. D&A Build Consultant LLC is organized under New York law and was authorized to transact business in North Carolina in 2016. Information may be handled by service providers in the United States or elsewhere as lawfully permitted and protected. We will comply with applicable privacy, security, secure-disposal and breach-notification obligations, including applicable North Carolina and New York provisions. If Skillose expands registration, audience, tracking, or services into other jurisdictions, we will evaluate whether any additional privacy disclosures, rights mechanisms, contractual protections, or geographic restrictions are necessary before expansion. Nothing in this Policy limits legally mandated notices, statutory rights, or relief.

14. POLICY CHANGES AND CONTACT INFORMATION

We may revise this Policy to reflect new laws, service providers, practices, or capabilities. Material changes will be communicated in a manner reasonably appropriate to the nature of the change and required by law. The operative version will be made available through Skillose's Legal and Safety Center or another clearly identified public location. Where a new processing activity requires consent, we will obtain it before relying on that consent. To request privacy assistance, email privacy@skillose.com or use the Privacy Request and Contact & Support functions at skillose.com. For general account support use support@skillose.com; for copyright matters email copyright@skillose.com. Our mailing address and privacy contact are listed below. Privacy contact email: privacy@skillose.com Company mailing address: 202 E Arlington Blvd, Suite E, Greenville, NC 27858