LEGAL · EFFECTIVE OCTOBER 29, 2026
Privacy Policy
What I collect on Franchise Watch Desk, why, where it lives, and how to get it deleted. If something here doesn't match what you see on the site, tell me (contact at the bottom).
Who this is
Franchise Watch Desk (franchisewatchdesk.com) is run by me, Don Drummond, CPA, and this policy covers every page under it. It does not cover third-party sites I link to — franchisor sites, court-record portals, SBA/EDGAR/EDD data sources, or Cal.com's own booking pages — each of those runs its own privacy policy.
What I collect
Your shortlist is stored in this browser’s local storage. It is not sent to me unless you submit it for a call or request brand alerts. Alert subscriptions store your email and selected brands, encrypted in storage, and require email confirmation. The site checks for changes weekly. Every alert includes an unsubscribe link. When you book, Cal.com sends the site a signed notification; the analytics event records that a booking happened, without attendee details.
Name, email, and what you fill in around them: the brand(s) you're weighing, which of buyer, owner or franchisor/broker/lender/vendor describes you (required), and optionally capital range, timeline, financing method and free-text notes. The contact form takes a topic, brand and message. I also record the referring page and a lead-priority score computed from your answers. Separate forms collect email addresses for the weekly digest and brand checklists, and accounts from current or former franchisees. Records from a business-owner form that has since been retired are kept on the same terms.
Google Analytics 4 and Vercel Analytics both run on every page: which pages you view, referring site, approximate location derived from IP (city/region level, not precise), device and browser type. Vercel Analytics is cookieless. GA4 sets its own cookies — see “Cookies” below.
No payment information (nothing on this site charges you). No government ID. No precise geolocation. I don't buy or append third-party data to what you submit.
How it's stored
Form submissions are written straight to Vercel Blob storage as individual records — there's no customer database, CRM, or spreadsheet they get copied into. Each record is stored at an unguessable random URL; the URL itself is not password-protected, but listing records requires a private access token that only I hold. I retrieve leads to respond to them. There's no automatic expiry today — a record is kept until I delete it, which I'll do on request (see below) or once it's no longer useful to either of us.
Who else sees it
I run every call myself and read what you submit to prepare for it. There is no staff, and nothing you send is passed to another adviser. I keep what you send confidential.
Booking opens Cal.com's own page in a new tab, with your name, email and a summary of your answers filled in. Cal.com processes those and your chosen time to run the booking, under its own privacy policy, not this one. I don't control what it does with them.
Emails — lead notifications to me, the checklist you request, the weekly digest, and a short follow-up series about the brand you asked about — are sent through Google (Gmail). Google processes your address and the message content to deliver them, under Google's own terms. Every marketing email carries a one-click unsubscribe.
I do not sell data. I do not share your intake-form answers with franchisors, brokers, advertisers, or data brokers. There is no ad-retargeting pixel on this site.
Cookies
Google Analytics 4 sets cookies to distinguish returning visitors and measure usage; you can block them site-wide with a browser extension like Google's Analytics opt-out add-on or your browser's cookie settings, and the site works identically either way. Vercel Analytics does not use cookies. Cal.com may set its own cookies on its booking page; that's its mechanism, not mine.
Why I use it
- ▸ To respond to your inquiry, prep for your free CPA session if you book one, and send a short series of follow-up emails about the brand you named (unsubscribe any time).
- ▸ To understand which pages and rankings are actually useful, so I build more of what works.
- ▸ To catch and drop spam submissions (a hidden honeypot field, invisible to real users, flags bots).
- ▸ Never for advertising, retargeting, or resale. I may use your submission to tell you about my own paid services; it is never sold or shared.
Your choices
Email the address below and I will, within a reasonable time, tell you what I have on file for you, correct it, or delete it. There's no account or login on this site, so verification is simply matching the email address you submitted with — there's nothing more sensitive on file to protect with a heavier process. This applies whichever state or country you're writing from; I don't gate rights behind a specific privacy law's jurisdiction.
Children
This site is about franchise investment and business operations. It isn't directed at children, and I don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe a minor submitted information here, email me and I'll remove it.
Security
Submissions travel over HTTPS and land in storage at unguessable URLs on the same infrastructure (Vercel) that serves the site itself. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, and I can't guarantee absolute protection.
Changes to this policy
If what I collect or how I use it changes, this page changes with it and the effective date at the top updates. I won't narrow your rights retroactively without telling you.
Contact
[email protected] — for data requests, corrections, or anything else on this page. See also the Terms of Use and the Methodology page for how the site's own data (about franchise brands, not you) is sourced and corrected.