1.Who We Are
Built With Forté (“we,” “us,” “our,” or “Forté”) is a Digital Growth Agency operated by Built With Forté LLC, a California limited liability company with its principal place of business at 4101 Birch Street, Newport Beach, CA 92660. Forté provides website design, AI customer service agents, automated review generation, content creation, and related digital marketing services to local businesses.
You can reach us at info@builtwithforte.com or via our contact form.
2.The Short Version
We collect contact information when you fill out a form (audit, intake, contact, newsletter), conversation transcripts when you chat with our AI agents, and standard technical data when you visit the site. We use this data to deliver the service you requested, send you the newsletter you signed up for, and improve our products. We never sell your personal data. You can request access, deletion, or correction of your data anytime by emailing us.
3.Information We Collect
3.1 Information You Provide
Depending on which forms you submit, we collect:
- Identification: name, email address, phone number, business name
- Business Context (intake only): industry, location, annual revenue band, business goals, brand vibe, services you're considering, budget range
- Free-text Messages: anything you type into the contact form, AI chat agents, or intake conversation
- Audit Inputs: your website URL, business name, primary goal
3.2 Information Collected Automatically
When you visit our site, we automatically collect:
- Technical data: IP address, browser type and version, device type, operating system, referring URL, pages viewed, time spent
- Usage data: which CTAs you click, which forms you start vs. complete, which audit results you view
- Cookies and similar technologies: see Section 7
3.3 AI Conversation Data
When you interact with our AI customer service agent, AI intake chat, or AI site audit:
- Your messages are sent to Anthropic (Claude API) for processing
- The full conversation transcript is stored in our database so you (and we) can reference it later
- Conversation data is used to fulfill your immediate request, improve our prompt engineering, and (where you've explicitly consented as a paying client) train per-client AI agent personalization
3.4 Information We Do NOT Collect
We do not request or knowingly collect: Social Security numbers, credit card numbers (Stripe handles those directly), driver's license numbers, health information, biometric data, or any information from individuals under 18.
4.How We Use Your Information
We use the information we collect to:
- Deliver the service you requested — generate your audit, complete your intake, respond to your contact form
- Communicate with you — send confirmation emails, audit results, newsletter editions, proposal documents, contract signature links
- Provide customer support — answer your questions, troubleshoot issues
- Operate our business — process payments (via Stripe), generate proposals, deliver client work
- Improve our products — analyze aggregate usage to refine our marketing, fix bugs, train AI agents (in compliant ways — see Section 5)
- Comply with legal obligations — respond to subpoenas, court orders, applicable regulations
- Prevent abuse — detect spam signups, prevent fraud, protect our infrastructure
5.Third-Party Service Providers
We use the following third-party processors. Each receives only the data necessary to perform their function:
| Provider | Purpose | Data Shared |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic (Claude API) | AI inference for chat agents, audit, proposals | Conversation messages, audit inputs, business context |
| Resend | Transactional email delivery | Recipient email, name, message content |
| Twilio | SMS for reviews + CS agent (post-A2P) | Recipient phone, message content |
| Stripe | Payment processing | Cardholder name, billing address (Forté never sees card number) |
| Vercel | Website hosting | All traffic to builtwithforte.com |
| MySQL (self-hosted) | Persistent storage | All data described in Section 3 |
| n8n (self-hosted) | AI agent workflow orchestration | Per-client agent activity logs (paying clients only) |
Each provider has its own privacy policy and security practices. By using our services you consent to data being processed by these providers under their respective terms.
Anthropic specifically: API data is not used to train Anthropic's models per their API data usage policy. Conversation data sent to Claude API is processed for your request and not retained by Anthropic beyond their standard logging windows.
6.Data Retention
- Newsletter subscribers: indefinite while subscribed; deleted within 30 days of unsubscribe
- Audit submissions: indefinite (audits are useful client-history artifacts) — request deletion anytime
- Intake submissions: indefinite for active prospects; archived to anonymized form after 24 months of inactivity
- Cold leads (contact form): 24 months from last interaction, then anonymized
- AI conversation transcripts: 12 months active; archived for 5 years for product improvement; deletable on request
- Payment records: 7 years per IRS retention requirements
- Server logs: 90 days
You can request deletion of any of the above at any time (Section 8).
8.Your Rights
Regardless of jurisdiction, you can request the following at any time by emailing info@builtwithforte.com:
- Access — a copy of all personal information we hold about you
- Correction — fix anything that's wrong or outdated
- Deletion — remove your personal information from our systems (subject to legal retention requirements like tax records)
- Portability — get your data in a machine-readable format
- Opt-out of marketing — unsubscribe from newsletters via the one-click link in every email, or email us
If you are a California resident, you additionally have rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), including the right to know what categories of personal information we collect, to know whether we sell or share personal information (we don't), and to non-discrimination for exercising your rights.
If you are a resident of any other state with a comprehensive privacy law (Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, etc.), the rights above generally apply to you as well.
We respond to rights requests within 30 days (or sooner where required by law).
9.Data Security
We use industry-standard security practices including:
- HTTPS/TLS encryption for all data in transit
- Encrypted database storage for sensitive fields
- Access controls — only Shaun Young (founder) and approved contractors have admin access to client data
- API keys and secrets stored in encrypted environment variables, never in source code
- Regular security audits and dependency updates
No system is 100% secure. If you believe your data has been compromised, contact us immediately at info@builtwithforte.com.
10.Children's Privacy
Forté's services are directed at business owners and operators — adults engaged in commerce. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe a minor has provided us with personal information, contact us and we'll delete it.
11.International Data Transfers
Forté operates from the United States and our servers are located in the United States. If you access our services from outside the US, your information will be transferred to, processed, and stored in the United States. By using our services from outside the US, you consent to this transfer.
We do not currently serve customers outside the United States. If you are a resident of the European Union, United Kingdom, or other jurisdiction with comprehensive data protection laws, please do not submit personal information through this site.
12.Mobile Messaging (SMS)
If you provide your phone number and check the SMS consent box on our audit or contact forms, you opt in to receive text messages from Built With Forté about your requested website audit and the services you asked about. Message frequency varies, and message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to unsubscribe at any time, or HELP for help. Consent to receive texts is not a condition of any purchase.
We do not sell, rent, or share your mobile phone number or your SMS opt-in/consent data with third parties or affiliates for their own marketing or promotional purposes. This text-messaging opt-in data and consent are never shared with any third party. Service providers that transmit messages on our behalf (such as Twilio) act only under our instructions to deliver the messages you requested and are not third parties for this purpose.
13.Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Material changes will be communicated by:
- Updating the “Last Updated” date at the top of this page
- Posting a notice on builtwithforte.com
- Emailing registered subscribers and clients
Your continued use of the service after a change constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.
14.Contact Us
Questions, concerns, or rights requests:
- Email: info@builtwithforte.com
- Mail: Built With Forté LLC, 4101 Birch Street, Newport Beach, CA 92660
- Contact Form: /contact