Privacy Policy
This is a small consultancy, not an ad network. We collect what we need to reply to you and run the business — nothing is sold, and nothing is shared for advertising.
1. Who we are
PantherByte is a trade name of BLKPVNTHR LLC, based in Germantown, Maryland, United States. We are the controller of the personal information described here. Reach us any time at contact@blkpvnthr.com.
This policy covers pantherbyte.org and the information we handle while providing our services.
2. What we collect
Information you give us. When you submit the contact or booking form, we receive what you type into it:
- Your name and email address
- Business name, and billing address details (street, city, state, ZIP, country) if you provide them
- Your time zone, used for scheduling and invoice dates
- The service, timeframe, and budget range you select
- The description of the problem you want solved, and anything else you write to us
Information collected automatically. When you visit the Site, standard analytics data is recorded: pages viewed, approximate location derived from IP address (city or region level), referring site, device and browser type, and time spent. This is aggregated and is not used to identify you personally.
Information from an engagement. If you become a client, we may receive access to your systems, accounts, and data as part of the work. That material is governed by the confidentiality obligations in our Terms of Service and by any separate agreement we sign. We access it only to do the work, and we do not use it for any other purpose.
We do not intentionally collect sensitive categories of personal information — health data, government ID numbers, biometrics — and we ask that you not send them through the forms.
3. Why we use it
- To reply to your inquiry and prepare a plan or quote
- To schedule and deliver the services you request
- To issue invoices and keep required financial and tax records
- To understand which pages are useful and improve the Site
- To meet legal obligations and enforce our Terms
Where the GDPR or UK GDPR applies, our legal bases are: performance of a contract (delivering services you request), legitimate interests (responding to inquiries, understanding site usage, securing the Site), legal obligation (tax and accounting records), and consent where you have given it.
4. What we do not do
- We do not sell or rent your personal information — to anyone, ever.
- We do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.
- We do not add you to a marketing list because you submitted a form. If we ever start a newsletter, it will be opt-in.
- We do not use your data to train machine-learning models.
5. Who processes data on our behalf
We keep the vendor list short. Each of these acts as a processor for us and has its own privacy policy:
- FormSubmit — delivers form submissions from the Site to our email inbox. It receives the contents of the form you submit.
- Google Analytics (Google LLC) — measures site usage. It sets cookies and processes usage data as described in Section 6.
- Vercel — hosts the Site and processes server request logs, including IP addresses, for delivery and security.
- Our email and accounting providers — hold correspondence and invoice records in the ordinary course of business.
We may also disclose information if required by law, to respond to a valid legal request, to protect our rights or someone's safety, or in connection with a merger or sale of the business — in which case this policy continues to apply to the transferred data.
6. Cookies and analytics
The Site uses Google Analytics, which sets first-party cookies to distinguish visitors and measure sessions. The Site also stores your light/dark theme preference locally in your browser; that never leaves your device and is not personal information.
We do not use advertising, retargeting, or social media tracking pixels.
You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, or install Google's Analytics opt-out add-on. The Site works normally without analytics cookies. We honor Global Privacy Control signals where required.
7. How long we keep it
- Inquiries that do not become engagements — up to 24 months, then deleted.
- Client records and correspondence — for the life of the engagement and 7 years after, to meet tax, accounting, and legal recordkeeping requirements.
- Client systems and credentials — access is revoked and any copies deleted at the end of an engagement, or sooner on request.
- Analytics data — retained per Google Analytics' configured retention period.
8. Security
The Site is served over HTTPS. We use access controls, a password manager, and multi-factor authentication on accounts that touch client data, and we keep credentials out of source control. No system is perfectly secure, but we treat client data as if losing it would end the business — because it would.
If a breach affects your personal information, we will notify you and any required authority without undue delay.
9. Your rights
Whatever jurisdiction you are in, you can ask us to:
- Access — tell you what we hold about you
- Correct — fix anything inaccurate
- Delete — erase your information, unless we are legally required to keep it
- Port — send you a copy in a portable format
- Object or restrict — limit how we use it
- Withdraw consent — where processing is based on consent
Email contact@blkpvnthr.com and we will respond within 30 days. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights.
If you are in the EU or UK and believe we have mishandled your data, you may also complain to your local supervisory authority. California residents have rights under the CCPA/CPRA, including the right to know, delete, correct, and opt out of sale or sharing — noting that, as stated above, we do not sell or share personal information.
10. International visitors
We operate in the United States, and information you send us is processed there. If you are outside the US, you are sending your information to a country whose data-protection laws may differ from your own. Where required, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses with our processors.
11. Children
The Site is meant for businesses and is not directed at children under 16. We do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has sent us information, email us and we will delete it.
12. Third-party links
The Site links to sites we do not control, such as GitHub. Their privacy practices are their own — please read their policies.
13. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as the business changes. The effective date is shown in the sidebar, and material changes will be noted on this page. Continued use of the Site after an update means you accept the revised policy.
14. Contact
Questions, requests, or concerns about privacy: contact@blkpvnthr.com, or BLKPVNTHR LLC, Germantown, Maryland, United States. A real person reads it.