Privacy Policy
The short version. We collect what we need to run the Service and nothing else. We do not sell your data. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking. We do not market to your clients. The entity information we display comes from public records published by the State of Texas — not from your files, and not from tax returns.
1. Who We Are
GoodStandingTX is operated by Useful Trouble LLC, a Texas limited liability company located at 22001 Northpark Dr., Ste 245, Kingwood, TX 77339. This policy explains what we collect through goodstandingtx.com, how we use it, and what control you have. It forms part of our Terms of Service.
2. What We Collect
| Category | What it includes | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Account information | Firm name, the type of firm you select at signup, your email address (which is also your username), a cryptographic hash of your password, and the email address where alerts should be sent. | To create and secure your account, deliver notifications, and understand what kinds of firms use the service. |
| Entities you monitor | The taxpayer numbers and names of entities you choose to track, plus any notes or groupings you add. | To know what to monitor and to organize it for you. This is your confidential information; see Section 5. |
| Monitoring history | The public-record values retrieved for each monitored entity over time, and the changes detected between checks. | To detect changes and show you history. |
| Access requests | If you request access, the name, firm name, email address, and any note you submit. | To evaluate and respond to the request. |
| Billing information | Name, billing address, and email associated with your subscription; the amount, date, and tax collected on each transaction; and the card brand and last four digits as reported to us by our payment processor. Full payment card numbers are submitted directly to our payment processor and are never received or stored by us. | To process subscription payments, issue receipts, and meet tax and accounting recordkeeping requirements. |
| Technical logs | Server logs generated in the ordinary course of operating the Service, which may include IP address, request time, and browser user-agent. | Security, troubleshooting, and abuse prevention. |
We do not ask for and do not want tax returns, financial statements, Social Security numbers, or other sensitive client records. Please do not put such information into free-text notes.
3. Public Records Displayed by the Service
The entity information the Service displays — including status, report year, registered agent, registered office and mailing addresses, federal employer identification numbers where published, and officer or member names and addresses — is obtained from public records published by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. We retrieve it from the Comptroller's public data interfaces.
This information is publicly available from the State of Texas regardless of the Service. We do not obtain it from you, from your clients, or from any private source, and we do not add to it.
Because these records identify individuals in some cases — for example an officer, member, or registered agent — we treat them with the same care as other data we hold, and we do not use them for marketing, profiling, or any purpose other than presenting them to the customer who is monitoring or searching for that entity.
If a public record about you is inaccurate, we cannot correct it. Corrections must be made with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts or the Texas Secretary of State, and will appear in the Service once the State publishes them.
4. How We Use Information
- To provide the Service: authenticate you, monitor the entities you select, and send alerts.
- To communicate with you about your account, including password resets, invitations, and service notices.
- To secure the Service, investigate abuse, and diagnose problems.
- To understand aggregate usage so we can improve the product.
- To comply with law and enforce our Terms.
5. What We Never Do
These are commitments, not aspirations. They also appear in Section 7 of our Terms of Service, where they are contractually binding.
- We do not sell, rent, or license your information to anyone.
- We do not use your client list, or the identity of any entity you monitor, to market to those entities or contact them for any purpose.
- We do not use your data to compete with you or solicit your clients.
- We do not run advertising, ad networks, or cross-site tracking, and we do not share data with advertisers or data brokers.
- We do not use your Customer Data to train machine learning models.
Many of our customers — accountants, tax practitioners, attorneys, and others acting on behalf of the entities they track — have their own confidentiality obligations. These commitments are intended to let you engage us as a service provider consistent with those obligations.
6. Who We Share With
We share information only with the following service providers, only to the extent needed to operate the Service, and only under confidentiality obligations:
| Provider | Purpose | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean, LLC | Server hosting (United States) | Hosts the application and database, and therefore stores data at rest on our behalf. |
| Resend (and its email infrastructure provider) | Email delivery | Recipient address and message content for alerts and account email. |
| Stripe, Inc. | Payment processing | Your name, email address, billing address, and payment card information, which you submit directly to Stripe. Stripe processes this as an independent controller under its own privacy policy. |
| Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts | Source of public records | Receives the taxpayer number being looked up. Receives no information about you. |
We may also disclose information if required by law, subpoena, or valid legal process; to protect our rights, safety, or property; or in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, in which case we will give notice before your information becomes subject to a different policy.
7. Cookies and Analytics
We use a single cookie, which keeps you signed in. It is a session cookie marked
HttpOnly, Secure, and SameSite=Lax, meaning it cannot be
read by scripts, is only transmitted over an encrypted connection, and is not sent from other
sites. It expires after seven days.
We use no advertising cookies, no third-party trackers, and no cross-site tracking pixels.
For usage statistics we use self-hosted analytics software running on our own server. It measures aggregate traffic — page views, referrers, general location — and does not set advertising cookies, does not follow you across other sites, and does not send data to any third-party analytics company. Because we host it ourselves, this data is not shared with anyone.
8. Security
- All traffic to the Service is encrypted with TLS (HTTPS).
- Passwords are stored only as salted bcrypt hashes. We cannot see or recover your password.
- Data is separated by firm, and accounts can only access their own data.
- Sign-in, password reset, and access request endpoints are rate limited.
- Backups are taken regularly and stored in more than one location.
- Access to production systems is limited to personnel who require it.
- Payment card information is submitted directly to our payment processor and does not pass through or reside on our systems.
No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If we become aware of a breach affecting your information, we will notify you as required by Texas law, including Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 521.053.
9. How Long We Keep Data
- While your account is active: we retain your account information, the entities you monitor, and their monitoring history so history remains available to you.
- After cancellation or termination: we retain your data for ninety (90) days so it can be restored if you return, then permanently delete it. Backup copies are purged on our normal backup rotation.
- Access requests: retained while we evaluate them and for a reasonable period afterward.
- Technical logs: retained for a limited period for security and troubleshooting.
- Billing and tax records: retained as required by law, including Texas sales tax recordkeeping requirements, which is longer than the ninety-day period above. These records are kept independently of your account and are not deleted when an account closes.
- Public records: our copy of the Comptroller's published data is maintained independently of any customer account and is not deleted when an account closes, because it is public information not specific to you.
10. Your Choices and Rights
You may:
- Access the information in your account at any time through the Service.
- Correct your firm name, alert address, and entity notes directly in the Service.
- Export or request a copy of your Customer Data by contacting us.
- Delete your account and its data by contacting us. We will action deletion within thirty (30) days, except for billing and tax records we are required by law to retain, as described in Section 9.
- Stop alert emails by removing monitored entities or closing your account. Alerts are a core function of the Service rather than marketing, so they cannot be disabled separately while entities are being monitored. We do not send marketing email.
Write to privacy@goodstandingtx.com to make a request. We may need to verify your identity before acting.
11. Texas Residents
The Texas Data Privacy and Security Act gives Texas residents rights to confirm whether we process their personal data, to access, correct, and delete it, to obtain a portable copy, and to opt out of sale, targeted advertising, and certain profiling. We do not sell personal data, conduct targeted advertising, or engage in profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects, so those opt-outs do not apply to anything we do.
To exercise any right, contact us at the address in Section 14. If we decline a request you may appeal by replying to our response; if the appeal is denied you may complain to the Texas Attorney General.
12. Children
The Service is a business tool intended for professional and commercial use. It is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18.
13. Changes
We may update this policy. If we make a material change, we will give at least thirty (30) days' notice by email to your account address or by notice in the Service before it takes effect. The effective date at the top of this page always reflects the current version.
14. Contact
Questions, requests, or complaints about privacy:
Useful Trouble LLC
22001 Northpark Dr., Ste 245
Kingwood, TX 77339
privacy@goodstandingtx.com