Privacy Policy

Last updated 2026-09-19 · The Bid Scout LLC

TheBidScout, operated by The Bid Scout LLC, helps small facility-services contractors find federal opportunities worth bidding on. This policy explains, in plain English, exactly what we collect and how we handle it. The short version: we collect as little about you as we can.

What we collect

• Your email — the only personal information we ask for. We use it to sign you in and deliver your Weekly Fit Report. We don't ask for your name, phone number, or mailing address, and you can use a simple display name for your company profile.
• Your company profile: the business details you choose to enter so we can score fit — your services, NAICS & PSC codes, set-aside eligibility, service area, capacity, bonding, and licenses. This is information about your business, not about you personally.
• Operational logs: basic records (such as sign-in events) needed to run and secure the service.

The opportunity data we score comes from public government sources (e.g. SAM.gov). We do not buy information about anyone from data brokers. If you signed up with us, we don't look you up anywhere else — not in public records, not through data brokers: what we hold is what you entered, plus the records your own use of the service creates (listed above). The one case where we look something up ourselves is described under "If we wrote to your business first" below.

How signing in works

Sign-in is passwordless — we email you a short-lived secure sign-in link (it expires after about 15 minutes). You may optionally set a password; if you do, we store it only as a salted one-way (bcrypt) hash that even we cannot read.

Cookies

We use only strictly-necessary first-party cookies — one to keep you signed in, and one to protect forms from cross-site request forgery. We set no advertising, analytics, or cross-site tracking cookies, so there is no cookie banner: there is nothing to consent to beyond the cookies that make sign-in and security work.

Advertising

We advertise TheBidScout with Google Ads to reach contractors searching for help with federal bids. We measure those ads without cookies: when you create a profile, our app sends Google a single, anonymous "it worked" signal that carries no name, email, or company — at most the anonymous click id from the ad you clicked. We don't run remarketing, we don't upload customer lists, and we build no advertising profile of you. The Google tag runs on this site and the app in cookieless consent mode: it sets no cookies, builds no profile of you, and respects your browser's Do-Not-Track setting — we load it only so ad clicks can be measured. If you arrive from one of our ads, a small first-party script also carries the anonymous click id to the signup page. There is still no cookie banner because nothing is stored on your device.

If we wrote to your business first

For a limited test in September and October 2026 we are writing to a small number of companies that have won federal contracts in the trades we cover, and to a few consultants who help such companies bid. If you heard from us that way, this is everything we did:

• Where we found you: public sources only. For contractors, we found your company in the award records on USAspending.gov, then looked up the business contact details your company lists about itself there and in the SBA's small business search — business name, address, phone, email, and website. For consultants, we used the contact details on your own public website. We did not buy a list.
• What we do with it: send one business note and, at most, make one follow-up phone call. There is no mailing list and no series of emails. Each note is sent individually from our own business mailbox, not through a marketing platform.
• How it's handled: the details sit in a working file outside the product, and we use Anthropic's Claude to help compile and check that file from the public records. We don't sell them. The only others who handle them are the two providers this work depends on: Anthropic, as just described, and the company that hosts our business mailbox. We share them with no one else.
• How to stop it: reply "no", or tell us on the call. We delete your contact details and keep only your business name and email on a do-not-contact list, so that we never write to you again.
• When it ends: when the test is over we delete the contact file either way, and keep only the do-not-contact list.

What we don't do

We do not sell your data, we do not build an advertising profile of you, and we do not track your behavior across the web — there is no third-party behavioral analytics or session recording in the product.

How we use AI

We use Anthropic's Claude for two things. First, we use it to read the public solicitation documents (the government's PDFs) an opportunity posts and pull out their stated requirements. Second, on our paid plans, an advisory bid-readiness read compares those public requirements against the business-profile facts you gave us — your company name, services, NAICS and PSC codes, set-aside eligibility, service area, capacity, bonding, and licenses — to flag likely gaps before you bid. It is advisory only and does not produce your score.

That readiness read is given only those surface business facts. It is not given your email, and there is nothing more to give: we don't collect personal contact details such as a phone number or mailing address, and we never hold your card details (Stripe handles payments). Your fit score itself is produced by a deterministic formula, not AI — the same inputs always produce the same result. We have configured our Anthropic account so the content we send is not used to train AI models.

Service providers (sub-processors)

We rely on a few trusted providers to operate TheBidScout, and share only the data each needs to do its job:

• Render — application hosting and database.
• Resend — delivery of our transactional email: your sign-in links, Weekly Fit Report, and account notices.
• Stripe — payment processing for paid plans. We never receive or store your full card details.
• Anthropic (Claude) — reads public solicitation documents to extract their requirements, and (on paid plans) performs the advisory bid-readiness read described above. During the September–October 2026 test it also helps compile the public-records contact file described under "If we wrote to your business first".

How we protect it

Traffic is encrypted in transit (HTTPS). Sign-in links and session identifiers are stored only as one-way hashes — never in the clear. Access to your reports requires an authenticated session and is scoped to your own account.

Your rights & choices

Your data is yours, and the controls are built into your account — no request form, no waiting:

• Access & export — download everything we hold about you, anytime.
• Correct — edit your company profile whenever it changes.
• Delete — permanently delete your account and all of its data yourself. This is a true hard delete: your profile, reports, and account are removed (we retain only a minimal, non-identifying record that a deletion took place).
• Opt out of email — turn off the Weekly Fit Report email at any time; the report stays readable in your account, and sign-in emails are unaffected.

Prefer to have us do it? Email support@thebidscout.com.

Data retention

We keep your profile and reports while your account is active, and remove them when you delete your account. Operational logs are kept only as long as needed to run and secure the service.

Children

TheBidScout is a tool for businesses and is not directed to anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect information from children.

Who we are

TheBidScout is operated by The Bid Scout LLC, based in Denver, Colorado, USA, and this policy is governed by the laws of the State of Colorado. TheBidScout is not affiliated with SAM.gov or any U.S. government agency; we use public procurement data and link back to the official sources.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we'll update the date at the top, and for any material change we'll notify active users by email. Continuing to use TheBidScout after a change means you accept the updated policy.

Contact

Questions about your privacy? support@thebidscout.com.