1. Who We Are
Appalachian Tech Solutions LLC (“ATS,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) is a technology company headquartered in Virginia. We operate the following products under a shared platform:
- ContractorHub — a job-matching platform connecting contractors and agencies
- GovCon Daily — a government contracting intelligence newsletter
- ATS Research & Intelligence — custom market research and competitive intelligence services
- ATS Website Design — custom website design and development services operated under a monthly retainer
This Privacy Policy applies to all ATS products and services. Where a product has specific data practices, those are called out in the relevant section below.
2. Information We Collect
Information you provide directly:
- Name and email address (when you create an account or subscribe to a newsletter)
- Company or organization name
- Phone number, bio, location, and trade or industry specialties (optional profile fields)
- Job listing content including titles, descriptions, and attached files (ContractorHub)
- Job alert preferences including category, state, and county (ContractorHub)
- Research briefs, questions, and background materials you submit (Research & Intelligence)
- Website content you provide for design projects including text, images, and branding materials (Website Design)
- Payment information (handled directly by Stripe — we never store card numbers)
Information collected automatically:
- Basic usage data such as pages visited and actions taken on the Platform
- IP address and browser type for security and rate-limiting purposes
Information from third parties:
- If you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address, and profile picture from Google
- For Research & Intelligence engagements, we may collect publicly available information about markets, companies, or individuals from open sources (government databases, court records, news archives, SEC filings, etc.) as part of delivering your research deliverable
3. How We Use Your Information
- To create and manage your account across ATS products
- To display your profile to relevant parties (e.g., your name and trades shown to job Posters)
- To send transactional emails — job interest notifications, job alert notifications, email verification, password resets, listing expiry warnings, and invoice delivery
- To deliver newsletter content to GovCon Daily subscribers
- To produce research deliverables based on your brief (Research & Intelligence)
- To process payments for paid plans and services
- To enforce our Terms of Service and protect against fraud or abuse
- To improve our products based on aggregate, anonymized usage patterns
We do not sell your personal information to third parties. We do not send marketing emails without your consent.
4. How We Share Your Information
We share information only in these limited circumstances:
- With other users— When a Contractor expresses interest in a job, the Poster receives the Contractor's name and email. Contractor profiles (name, trades, county) are visible to verified Poster accounts.
- With service providers — We use Supabase (database and file storage), Resend (transactional email), Stripe (payments), Upstash (rate limiting), and Vercel (hosting and deployment). These providers process data only as needed to deliver their services.
- Within research deliverables— Research & Intelligence reports are delivered only to the client who commissioned them. Reports may reference publicly available information about third parties as part of the research scope.
- For legal reasons — If required by law, court order, or to protect the rights and safety of our users or the public.
5. Shared Authentication
ATS products share a common login system. A single account (email and password or Google sign-in) provides access to all ATS products you are subscribed to. Your account credentials and core profile information are stored once and shared across products. Product-specific data (job listings, research briefs, and other product data) is stored separately and is not cross-accessible between products.
6. Research & Intelligence — Data Handling
When you engage ATS Research & Intelligence services:
- Client materials — Any background documents, briefs, or proprietary information you share with us are used solely to fulfill your engagement and are not shared with other clients.
- Publicly sourced data — Research reports may incorporate information gathered from publicly available sources. We do not represent that such third-party information is free from error or that its collection violates any applicable terms of service of those sources.
- AI-assisted research — We use AI tools to assist with research synthesis and drafting. Raw client materials are not used to train third-party AI models. Final deliverables are reviewed by a human analyst before delivery.
- Retention — Research deliverables and associated client materials are retained for up to 12 months following project completion, after which they are securely deleted unless you request otherwise.
- Confidentiality— We treat all client-submitted information as confidential. We do not discuss, reference, or disclose the subject matter of one client's engagement to any other party.
7. Data Retention
We retain your account information for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account, we will delete your personal information within 30 days, except where we are required to retain it for legal or financial record-keeping purposes.
Password reset tokens expire within 1 hour. Research deliverables are retained for 12 months as described in Section 6.
8. Your Choices
- You can update or correct your profile information at any time from your dashboard
- You can toggle your “Available for Work” status to control visibility to Posters (ContractorHub)
- You can unsubscribe from GovCon Daily using the link in any newsletter email
- You can request deletion of your account and associated data by contacting us at the email below
9. Security
We use industry-standard security practices including encrypted connections (HTTPS), hashed passwords, and access controls. No system is completely secure — we encourage you to use a strong, unique password for your account.
10. Children's Privacy
Our products are not intended for anyone under 18 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us and we will delete it.
11. Governing Law
This Privacy Policy is governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, consistent with our Terms of Service.
12. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will update the effective date above. Significant changes will be communicated to registered users by email.