Privacy Policy

Who we are

The Proving Ground, LLC (“we”, “us”) runs a franchise tournament bowling league in Texas and operates theprovinggroundbowling.com. Questions about this policy go to [email protected].

What this policy covers

This policy covers every website and service The Proving Ground, LLC operates, including theprovinggroundbowling.com and its subdomains, such as our gear store at gear.theprovinggroundbowling.com (coming soon). Where a practice applies only to one site or service, we say so.

What we collect

When you use the contact form on our main website

• Your name and email address
• The franchise or city you mention, if any
• What you're interested in (for example, owning a franchise or bowling)
• Your message

When you visit any of our sites

Like every website, the servers that deliver ours receive technical details with each request: your IP address, browser type, the page you asked for, and the time. That comes from our hosting and font providers (below), not from anything we build ourselves.

We use Cloudflare Web Analytics to count visits and see which pages are read. It does not use cookies, does not fingerprint your device, and does not track you across other sites.

When you shop our gear store (coming soon)

• Your order: the items, cut, size, and fit you choose, any name, number, or logo reference you want on them, and the franchise the gear is for
• Delivery details: your name, shipping address, and email, plus a phone number if you give one at checkout
• Refund and privacy requests you send us, and the reasons you give

You can check out without an account. If you sign in, we use your email address only; there's no password. We send a one-time sign-in link to your inbox, and signing in lets you see your orders and make requests.

Payment happens on Stripe's checkout page. We never see or store your card number, and we don't keep your billing address.

Cookies and your browser

Our main website doesn't set cookies. The gear store sets a sign-in cookie when you sign in (it lasts up to 7 days) and a short-lived cookie that returns you to the right page afterward. It also keeps your bag, unfinished orders, and the shipping state you picked in your own browser's storage, so they're there when you come back; that stays on your device until you clear it. None of our sites use advertising or tracking cookies.

What we don't collect

We don't run advertising trackers on any of our sites, and we don't collect payment card details on any of them.

How we use it

• To reply to your message and follow up on franchise or league inquiries
• To make, ship, and support the gear you order, including refunds, replacements, and sales tax
• To sign you in to the gear store and handle requests about your data
• To keep our sites running, secure, and free of spam
• To understand, in aggregate, which parts of our sites people read

We don't sell your personal information, share it for advertising, or use it to make automated decisions about you.

Who handles it for us

We rely on a few service providers. Each only gets what it needs to do its job.

Cloudflare

Hosts our main website, protects all our sites from attacks, serves gear store images, provides the visit counts described above, and stores our backups.

Resend

Delivers each contact-form submission to our inbox as an email.

Google

Hosts our inbox (Gmail), where contact-form messages are kept, and serves the site's fonts (Google Fonts), which means your browser contacts Google when a page loads.

Stripe

Gear store: takes payment, calculates sales tax, collects your shipping address, and processes refunds. Stripe also receives the details of what you ordered.

Stytch

Gear store: sends sign-in links and manages your sign-in, using your email address.

Fly.io and Neon

Gear store: Fly.io runs the store and Neon hosts its database, both in the United States.

Shippo and shipping carriers

Gear store: Shippo buys shipping labels, and the carrier delivers your package. Both receive your name, shipping address, and phone number if you gave one.

Our manufacturer

Gear store: makes your gear. It receives what's needed to make each item, such as size, cut, and the name and number on the back, but not your email or address.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect the league, our members, or the public.

How long we keep it

Our main website doesn't store contact-form submissions in a database. Messages live in our inbox for as long as we need them to deal with your inquiry or run the league, and we delete them when asked. Our providers keep technical logs for their own limited periods.

Gear store: we keep order records for up to seven years for tax and accounting, then remove the personal details from them. Stripe's raw payment notifications are deleted after 30 days. Your sign-in stays with Stytch until you ask us to delete it. Backups follow the same rules as they cycle out.

Your choices

You can ask us to show you, correct, or delete what we hold about you. Email [email protected] from the address you used, or, for the gear store, use your account page, and we'll respond within 45 days. Some order details have to be kept for tax and accounting even after you ask us to delete them; we'll tell you what we kept and why. We won't treat you differently for asking.

Children

Our sites aren't directed to children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their information. If you think a child has sent us something, contact us and we'll delete it.

Other sites

Links to TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and other sites take you somewhere with its own privacy practices. This policy doesn't cover them.

Changes

If we change this policy, including when we add a new service to it, we'll update the date at the top of this page. Significant changes will be called out on our sites.