Who we are

Orlando Signal is a local newsletter and website covering news, events, and life in the Orlando, Florida metro area. When this policy says “we” or “us,” that’s us. When it says “you,” that’s anyone who visits orlandosignal.com, subscribes to our newsletter or texts, buys a paid subscription, or contacts us.

Everything we make is created for Central Florida readers. Our content, our advertising, and the way we find new subscribers are all aimed at people in the Orlando area. We don’t market to anyone outside Florida, and that local focus shapes how we handle data, as you’ll see below.

Questions about anything in this policy: hello @ orlandosignal.com.

What we collect, and why

When you subscribe to the newsletter

We collect your email address (required) and, if you choose to share them, your name, phone number, ZIP code or city, and any interests you tell us about. We use this to send you the Orlando Signal newsletter, answer your messages, and make the newsletter more relevant to you. Subscriptions are managed through Beehiiv, our email platform, which stores your subscriber profile and reports stats like open rates and click rates so we know what readers find useful. Those email stats come from a small tracking pixel in each email; if you’d rather not have that, you can turn off image loading in your email app.

When you sign up for texts

If you opt in to our SMS service, we collect your mobile number (required), your replies and commands (like STOP or HELP), delivery confirmations, message timestamps, and your frequency preferences, plus your email and time zone if you share them. We use this to send you about one text a week with Orlando events and updates, and to honor your preferences. Texting is handled through our messaging provider, Klaviyo. We will never sell, rent, or share your phone number or opt-in data with anyone for their marketing.

When you buy a paid subscription or make a purchase

We collect your name, email, and billing details at checkout. Payments are processed by Stripe. Your card number goes to Stripe, not to us, and we never store it. We keep purchase records (who bought what, when) for accounting and taxes.

When you use our job board

Our job board lives at jobs.orlandosignal.com and is powered by Kardow, a third-party platform. The subdomain carries our name, but it’s a separate service running on Kardow’s systems under Kardow’s own privacy policy. When a business posts a job (free or paid/featured) or a member of the public applies for one, the information involved (employer and contact details, job listings, and applicant information such as name, email, and anything in an application or résumé) is collected and stored by Kardow, not by us. Paid featured listings are charged through Stripe on our account, so for those upgrades we are the merchant and keep a purchase record. Because the job board runs on Kardow’s platform, the Florida consent rules and Global Privacy Control handling described elsewhere in this policy do not apply there, and Kardow may use its own cookies and analytics. We also run our own cookieless Fathom analytics on the job board to count traffic; because our consent banner isn’t present on Kardow’s platform, Fathom loads there for all visitors (it remains cookieless and does not store IP addresses or identify individuals). See Kardow’s privacy policy at kardow.com/privacy, and the “Our job board, dinner club, and experiences” section below.

When you join our dinner club

Our dinner club lives at dinnerclub.orlandosignal.com and is powered by DNNR (operated by River Platform Company), a third-party platform. As with the job board, the subdomain is ours but the service runs on DNNR’s systems under DNNR’s own privacy policy. When you buy a ticket or fill out the preference quiz that DNNR uses to match you to a table, the information involved (your name and contact details, your quiz responses, and your ticket purchase) is collected and stored by DNNR. Ticket payments are processed by DNNR through DNNR’s own Stripe account; DNNR then remits our share to us. Because the dinner club runs on DNNR’s platform, our Florida consent rules and GPC handling do not apply there, and DNNR uses its own cookies and tracking and, per its policy, may share or “sell” certain data (such as your email, with us as the event host) as defined under various privacy laws. See DNNR’s privacy policy at getriver.io/privacy-policy, and the “Our job board, dinner club, and experiences” section below.

When you book an experience or tour

We promote local experiences on our site, such as the Mills 50 Foodie Tour, but the tours are run by a partner, Wandering Palm Adventures, and booked through FareHarbor. The description page is on our site, but when you click to book you’re taken to FareHarbor to choose tickets and pay. Your name, contact details, and payment information are collected by FareHarbor and the partner under FareHarbor’s privacy policy, not by us. We don’t process or receive your card details; the partner receives the booking payment and sends us our share separately. See FareHarbor’s privacy policy at fareharbor.com/privacy, and the “Our job board, dinner club, and experiences” section below.

When you just visit the site

Like nearly every website, we automatically receive basic technical details: your IP address, browser and device type, the pages you visit, how long you stay, and the site that referred you. We use two analytics tools to understand this: Fathom Analytics for privacy-first pageview and traffic stats, and Microsoft Clarity for usability insights (Clarity can record anonymous session replays of mouse movement, scrolling, and clicks). Fathom is cookie-less and designed not to store IP addresses or identify individual visitors. On our main site, both tools follow the same Florida rule as our advertising tools: they load automatically for Florida visitors, and anywhere else only if you opt in to statistics through the consent banner. (We also run our own cookie-less Fathom analytics on the job board subdomain, where it loads for all visitors because our consent banner isn’t present on that third-party platform.) Cloudflare also processes IP and browser data to protect the site from attacks and abuse, and may show you a CAPTCHA if traffic looks automated. (This describes our main site; the job board and dinner club subdomains run on third-party platforms with their own tracking, as explained above.)

Advertising measurement: the Florida rule

This is the part of our data practices most worth understanding, so here it is, once, in plain terms.

We advertise on Facebook and Instagram to reach new Orlando readers. To know whether those ads work, we use the Meta Pixel and Meta Conversions API, which send certain visitor data (IP address, browser identifiers, cookie data, and page events) to Meta Platforms, Inc. Meta uses that data for ad measurement and, under its own privacy policy, for its own advertising purposes.

Because our entire audience is in Central Florida, we’ve set these tools up geographically, using the WPConsent consent platform together with Google Tag Manager:

• If you’re visiting from Florida: the ad-measurement tools run automatically, unless your browser sends a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal, in which case they don’t (see below). You can also opt out any time by emailing us or by using a GPC-enabled browser.
• If you’re visiting from anywhere else: whether another state or another country, the ad-measurement tools are blocked by default. They will not load or send anything to Meta unless you affirmatively opt in through the consent banner shown when you arrive. If you ignore the banner or decline, nothing is sent.
• Global Privacy Control, everywhere: if your browser sends a GPC signal, we treat it as an opt-out from advertising tracking no matter where you are, including Florida. We honor GPC even where no law requires us to.

Our analytics tools (Fathom Analytics and Microsoft Clarity) are separate from advertising measurement: they help us understand site traffic and usability and are not used to advertise to you across other websites, and they follow the same Florida rule as the advertising tools (see “When you just visit the site” above). For a complete list of the cookies each service sets and how long they last, see our Cookie Policy at https://orlandosignal.com/cookie-policy.

Other tools we rely on

Here’s the full list of services that touch visitor or subscriber data, and what each one does for us. Each has its own privacy policy at the link shown.

• Beehiiv: newsletter delivery and email analytics (beehiiv.com/privacy)
• Klaviyo: SMS delivery (klaviyo.com/legal/privacy)
• Stripe: payment processing (stripe.com/privacy)
• Kardow: powers our job board at jobs.orlandosignal.com (kardow.com/privacy)
• DNNR (River Platform Company): powers our dinner club at dinnerclub.orlandosignal.com (getriver.io/privacy-policy)
• WordPress: website platform (automattic.com/privacy)
• Google Tag Manager: tag management for the tools above (policies.google.com/privacy)
• Fathom Analytics: privacy-first, cookieless traffic analytics (usefathom.com/privacy)
• Microsoft Clarity: session-replay usability analytics (privacy.microsoft.com)
• Meta: ad measurement, per the Florida rule above (facebook.com/policy)
• Cloudflare: security and performance (cloudflare.com/privacypolicy)
• WPConsent: the consent platform that enforces the Florida rule and GPC handling described above

Who we share information with

We don’t sell, trade, or rent your personal information. Full stop. Information leaves our hands only in these situations:

• Service providers: the companies listed above, to do the jobs described (deliver email, process payments, host the site).
• Meta, for ad measurement: only for Florida visitors without a GPC signal, or visitors elsewhere who affirmatively opted in. See “Advertising measurement” above.
• Legal requirements: if we receive a valid court order, subpoena, or similar legal demand, or if disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, safety, or property. We share the minimum necessary.
• With your express consent: anything else requires us to ask you first.

Our job board, dinner club, and experiences (separate services)

Some of the things we offer run on other companies’ platforms, even when they sit on our web address or carry our name. We think it’s important you understand the difference, because the data you enter there is handled by those companies, not by us, and our consent setup doesn’t reach them.

• Job board (jobs.orlandosignal.com), powered by Kardow. Businesses can post free jobs or pay to feature a listing, and the public can apply to jobs for free. Everything entered there (employer info, job posts, and applicant details including names, emails, and résumés) is collected and stored by Kardow under its privacy policy. Kardow may use its own cookies and analytics, which are not governed by our Florida consent rules or our GPC handling. Payments for featured listings run through Stripe on our account, so for those upgrades we’re the merchant and keep a billing record. To exercise privacy rights over job-board data, see kardow.com/privacy.
• Dinner club (dinnerclub.orlandosignal.com), powered by DNNR. The public can buy a ticket to a dinner and fill out a short preference quiz that DNNR uses to match guests to tables. Your name, contact details, quiz answers, and ticket purchase are collected and stored by DNNR under its privacy policy. DNNR processes ticket payments through its own Stripe account and remits our share to us, so for dinner tickets DNNR is the merchant of record. DNNR uses its own cookies and tracking (including product analytics and support tools), not governed by our Florida rules or GPC, and its policy states it may share or “sell” certain data (for example, sharing your email with us as the event host) as those terms are defined under various privacy laws. To exercise privacy rights over dinner-club data, see getriver.io/privacy-policy.
• Experiences and tours (booked through FareHarbor). We describe and promote local experiences on our own site (such as our Mills 50 Foodie Tour), but the tours are operated by a partner, Wandering Palm Adventures, and booking and payment happen on FareHarbor. When you click to book, you leave our site for FareHarbor, where your name, contact details, and payment information are collected and handled by FareHarbor and the partner under FareHarbor’s privacy policy. We don’t process or receive your payment card details. To exercise privacy rights over booking data, see fareharbor.com/privacy.

In short: when you use the job board, dinner club, or experiences, you’re interacting with Kardow, DNNR, FareHarbor, or our tour partner as well as with us. Their privacy policies govern what happens to the data you enter there. If you have a question we can help with, email us and we’ll point you in the right direction.

How long we keep your information

• Newsletter subscribers: while you’re subscribed. If you unsubscribe, Beehiiv marks your profile inactive (so we never accidentally re-add you) but doesn’t delete it automatically. Email us and we’ll permanently delete it.
• SMS subscribers: while you’re opted in.
• Website analytics: Fathom stores only aggregated, non-identifying stats (its visitor-matching hashes are deleted daily). Clarity session recordings are kept for about 30 days and aggregated stats for about 13 months (Microsoft’s standard retention).
• Saved preferences: up to 3 years of inactivity.
• Purchase records: 7 years, for accounting and tax rules.

Your rights and choices

Regardless of where you live, you can always:

• Unsubscribe from the newsletter: one click on the link at the bottom of any email, or use the preference center to adjust what you receive.
• Stop texts: reply STOP to any message. Reply HELP for assistance.
• See what we have on you: email us and we’ll share what’s in our records.
• Correct anything wrong: same; just email.
• Have it deleted: email us and we’ll remove your information from our systems and ask our providers to do the same.
• Opt out of ad measurement: use a browser with Global Privacy Control enabled (we honor it everywhere, including Florida), decline the consent banner if you’re outside Florida, or email us.

Send any of these requests to hello @ orlandosignal.com. We respond to verifiable requests within 45 days, and we’ll never treat you differently for exercising your rights.

If you’re in California

We’re a small, Florida-focused publication, and we don’t believe we meet the California Consumer Privacy Act’s thresholds for mandatory compliance (we don’t have $26,625,000 in annual revenue, we don’t handle the personal information of 100,000+ consumers, and we don’t earn revenue from selling or sharing personal information). But our actual practices go further than the CCPA asks regardless:

• We don’t sell anyone’s personal information.
• Nothing is “shared” with Meta from California visitors by default. Our ad-measurement tools are blocked for all visitors outside Florida and activate only on your affirmative opt-in through the consent banner. No opt-in, no data to Meta.
• We honor Global Privacy Control signals as a valid opt-out.
• We’ll honor any right-to-know, correction, or deletion request from a California resident as a matter of courtesy. Just email us.
• For data you entered into our job board (Kardow), dinner club (DNNR), or an experience booking (FareHarbor), those companies are the ones holding it; exercise your California rights with them directly at kardow.com/privacy, getriver.io/privacy-policy, and fareharbor.com/privacy. DNNR’s policy in particular describes its own “sale/share” practices and opt-out.

California law requires a “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” link from businesses that sell or share personal information by default. We don’t provide one because there’s nothing to opt out of: no California resident’s information goes to Meta or anyone else for advertising unless that person affirmatively opts in first. If you did opt in through our banner and later change your mind, you can withdraw your consent anytime by reopening the banner settings and turning those categories off, by using a browser with Global Privacy Control enabled, or by emailing us at hello @ orlandosignal.com.

If you’re in another U.S. state, the EU, or the UK

Several states (Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Texas, Oregon, and others) and the EU/UK under GDPR give residents privacy rights. We don’t believe these laws apply to us, since we’re a Florida-directed publication that doesn’t target or monitor people elsewhere, but our setup already works the way these laws prefer: tracking blocked by default, affirmative opt-in via the banner, GPC honored, and your access, correction, deletion, portability, and consent-withdrawal requests honored on request. Email us and we’ll respond within 30 days. (We don’t have an EU or UK representative, as we don’t believe we’re subject to mandatory GDPR compliance.)

To withdraw a consent you gave through the banner, clear your browser cookies or email us. Note that data you entered into our job board (Kardow), dinner club (DNNR), or an experience booking (FareHarbor) is held by those companies under their own policies; direct privacy requests about that data to them at kardow.com/privacy, getriver.io/privacy-policy, and fareharbor.com/privacy.

Children

Orlando Signal isn’t directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect their information. If you’re a parent and believe your child has given us personal information, email us and we’ll delete it.

Security

We use encrypted connections (HTTPS everywhere), reputable providers, and access controls so only people who need your data can see it. No system is perfectly secure and we can’t guarantee absolute security, but we treat your information the way we’d want ours treated.

Where your data lives

We’re based in the United States and our providers’ servers are operated here. If you’re visiting from outside the U.S., your information is transferred to and processed in the U.S.

Changes to this policy

As the publication grows, we’ll update this policy and change the “Last updated” date at the top. For material changes (new categories of data, new third parties, or anything that meaningfully changes how your information is handled), we’ll flag it more visibly, normally with a note in the newsletter. Continuing to use the site or read the newsletter after an update means you accept the revised policy.

Contact

Orlando Signal

Email: hello @ orlandosignal.com