Website Privacy Policy (archived version 3)
Archived version, not current. The current version is at /notices/website/policy.
Version: 3 (archived) · Effective: October 20, 2026 · Permanent page: /notices/website/policy/v3
This policy covers our websites only: unitedtechs.com (including the store, member accounts and Ask), hamradio.unitedtechs.com, and unitedtechs.net (the UnitedTechs Community). It explains what D Bell Holdings, L.L.C., doing business as UnitedTechs, a Louisiana limited liability company ("we," "us"), collects and why.
Our software is not covered here. Each UnitedTechs program has its own Software Privacy Notice and License Agreement. They ship inside that program's installer and are also posted on our Software documents page. What a program does on your computer, or sends to us when it runs, is described there. If a program's license agreement sent you here for "full details," see the IDMinder Software Privacy Notice.
1. Who can use our sites
Our sites are for visitors in the United States and its territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands). Requests from other locations, as reported by our host Cloudflare, are not served.
2. Browsing our sites
- Server logs (Cloudflare). Our host, Cloudflare, processes standard request data such as your IP address, browser type and the page requested, to deliver and protect the sites.
- Our own visit counts. Our servers count page views and Buy-button clicks per page and per day. These are totals. We don't build profiles of individual visitors, and no cookie is used for them. Our own test visits are tagged and left out of the counts.
- Cloudflare Web Analytics. Cloudflare adds a small script (static.cloudflareinsights.com/beacon.min.js) to our pages. It reports page-load performance and visit totals to us. Cloudflare says this tool does not use cookies or fingerprinting.
- Cookies. We use no advertising cookies and no third-party tracking cookies. We set only what the sites need to work: a sign-in cookie for members, and whatever Cloudflare Turnstile needs for its spam check (section 4).
- Do Not Track. Our sites don't respond to Do Not Track signals, because we don't track you across other websites and don't allow third parties to.
3. Free tools, the digest, and Ask
- Free tools (calculators, exam practice, band and reference tools, the recall check and similar) run in your browser. Where a tool saves progress or settings, it saves them only in your own browser's storage, never on our servers, and you can clear them anytime. Some tools fetch public data from the sources they name (for example NOAA or openFDA). We don't send those sources anything about you beyond what any web request carries.
- Digest. Our digests are public pages. Reading them collects nothing beyond section 2.
- Ask a question. On our Ask pages you can submit a question and, if you want, an email address. Questions go into a private queue. Answers are researched and drafted by our AI agents, reviewed by our AI moderator, and cite official sources before they're published. If you leave an email, we use it once to tell you the answer is published, with an unsubscribe link. It is never shown on the site. If you unsubscribe, we keep only a one-way hash so we don't email you again.
4. Spam protection (Cloudflare Turnstile)
Our sign-in, sign-up, posting, Ask and contact forms use Cloudflare Turnstile to check that a real person is submitting. Cloudflare may process your IP address and browser signals for that check under its own privacy policy.
5. Contacting us
Please contact us through our contact form (or the inquiry form on our Advertise page). We receive your name, email address, topic, any serial number you add, and your message, and use them only to answer you. If you call us, we use what you tell us only to help you.
6. Store purchases and payments
- Stripe Managed Payments. Our checkout uses Stripe Managed Payments. For those purchases, Stripe is the merchant of record: Stripe is the seller on the payment transaction. Stripe processes your payment, calculates and collects sales tax, screens for fraud, handles payment disputes and may contact you about the transaction, all under its own privacy policy (stripe.com/privacy). We never receive your full card number.
- Order record. Stripe shares the order details with us. We keep your name, email address, order details, serial number (for software), amount paid and tax, to deliver your purchase, support it, handle refunds and disputes, and keep business and tax records.
7. Community member accounts (unitedtechs.net, managed on unitedtechs.com)
| Data | Why | How long we keep it |
|---|---|---|
| Email address (encrypted) and a one-way hash of it | Sign-in links and codes, receipts, renewal reminders, security and moderation notices (transactional only); one free account per email; ban enforcement | While the account exists; deleted within 30 days of a deletion request. The hash is kept longer only if tied to a ban or an under-15 block. |
| Date-of-birth check | Accounts are for ages 15 and up. We check your date of birth at sign-up and keep only the result, not the date itself. For members under 18 we keep only the month they turn 18, so paid checkout can require a parent or guardian. | Result: while the account exists. If sign-up is blocked as under 15, a hash of the email and a device identifier are kept up to 3 years so the block can't be bypassed. |
| Two-factor data: authenticator secret (encrypted), backup codes (hashed), email one-time codes | Protecting your account (posting requires two-factor sign-in) | Secret and backup codes: until you reset two-factor or delete the account. Email codes expire after 10 minutes and are deleted within 30 days. |
| Stripe records: customer and subscription IDs, charges, refunds, renewal dates, billing country and ZIP for tax | Billing yearly memberships, refunds, disputes, tax | 7 years, then deleted. |
| Moderation records: post reviews, strikes, suspensions, bans, appeals, reports, refund requests, account-recovery events | Enforcing the community rules and handling appeals | Strikes count for 90 days; records are kept 2 years; ban records as long as the ban lasts. |
| Hashed IP and device identifiers | Rate limits and sign-up abuse prevention | 30 days, unless tied to a ban or an under-15 block. |
| Thread follows and notification settings | Emailing you when a moderator approves a reply in a thread you started or follow | While the account exists; ends when you unfollow or unsubscribe. |
| Display name and approved posts | Shown publicly on unitedtechs.net | Until removed by you, by moderation, or on account deletion. Posts of lapsed members stay up. Declined posts stay in the private queue and are deleted after about 30 days. |
Every post is screened by our AI moderator before it appears. Display names are public, so don't use your email or real name unless you want to.
8. Email we send
We send transactional email only: sign-in codes, receipts, order delivery, membership renewal reminders (30 days, 7 days and 1 day before renewal), moderation notices, and reply and answer notifications. We send these through Resend. We don't send marketing email. If we ever offer a newsletter, we'll update this policy first, and you'd get it only if you sign up.
9. Sponsor ads
Some pages may show sponsor ads. Ads are matched to the section they appear in, with at most one or two per page. They are images or text hosted on our own site. We use no third-party ad networks, ad scripts, ad cookies or trackers. When you click an ad, the click passes through a short link on our own site and is counted on our server as a total, without cookies, before sending you to the sponsor. The sponsor's site has its own privacy policy.
10. Who we share with
We don't sell or rent your personal information. We share it only with the service providers that run these sites, or when the law requires:
| Provider | What it does |
|---|---|
| Cloudflare | Hosting, server logs, location filtering, Turnstile spam checks, Web Analytics |
| Stripe | Merchant of record for checkout (Managed Payments): payments, sales tax, fraud checks, disputes, membership subscriptions and billing portal |
| Resend | Transactional email |
Our AI agents (moderation, Ask answers, support) process submitted posts, questions and messages for us. If the business is sold or merged, information may transfer to the new owner, who must honor this policy.
11. Children
Our sites aren't directed to children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their information. Community accounts require age 15 or older. Store purchases and paid memberships for anyone under 18 must be made by a parent or guardian. If you think a child under 13 sent us information, tell us through the contact form and we'll delete it.
12. Security
We use reasonable safeguards, including encryption of member email addresses and two-factor sign-in. We'll notify you as the law requires if your information is involved in a breach.
13. Your choices
You can ask to see, correct or delete your information through our contact form. To delete a community account, reply to any community email or use the contact form. We keep purchase and tax records as long as the law requires, even after other information is deleted.
14. Changes
We'll post any new version here with a new date. If a change is material, we'll also email affected customers and members.
15. Contact
D Bell Holdings, L.L.C., doing business as UnitedTechs, 33 Brady Ln, Lecompte, LA 71346. Phone: 318-528-0066. Use our contact form.