Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Digital Standards Union, also called DSU, collects, uses, stores, and shares information when you use our website, directory, events, audits, business verification tools, and related services.

We try to write this in plain language. The short version is that we collect the information we need to run DSU, improve the network, protect the platform, market the service, and make decisions about who can join, stay listed, or participate.

What We Collect

We may collect:

• Your name, email address, phone number, company name, website, and account details.
• Business details you submit during audits, verification, directory setup, or profile editing.
• Information about licenses, insurance, digital setup, schema markup, domain records, and related trust signals.
• Payment, billing, and subscription information when paid services are introduced or used.
• Event registration details, RSVP activity, workshop participation, and member communications.
• Device, browser, IP address, cookies, log data, and usage analytics.
• Messages you send to us, including support requests, audit inquiries, and feedback.

How We Use Information

We may use your information to:

• Operate the DSU website, directory, audits, events, and member tools.
• Verify business ownership, evaluate businesses, and decide who qualifies for listing or membership.
• Create, maintain, suspend, remove, or update accounts, listings, and organization workspaces.
• Contact you about your account, your business, DSU updates, events, or future offers.
• Improve the platform, train internal workflows, and understand how people use DSU.
• Protect DSU, our members, and the public from fraud, abuse, false claims, or security problems.
• Enforce our rules, investigate complaints, and respond to legal requests.

How We Share Information

We may share information when we believe it helps us operate DSU, support the network, or protect the platform. That may include sharing with service providers, contractors, event partners, marketing providers, analytics tools, payment processors, professional advisors, prospective buyers or investors, affiliates, and law enforcement or regulators when appropriate.

We may also share business profile information, audit outcomes, verification status, public listing content, event participation, or other information that helps us run the network and explain why a business is or is not included. Some of that information may be public, some may be private, and some may be shared internally or with selected third parties.

If you submit information to us, you should assume we may use and share it as reasonably needed to operate, evaluate, market, defend, improve, or monetize DSU, except where the law clearly limits us.

Audits, Re-Audits, and Verification

DSU may run an audit, require a new audit, repeat a verification step, or request updated business information at any time. We may do that before listing a business, after listing a business, during a dispute, after a complaint, when standards change, or whenever we believe it is useful for quality control, trust, safety, or product improvement.

Passing an audit once does not guarantee permanent approval. We reserve the right to re-check your business, ask for more documents, change our standards, or remove or limit access if information becomes outdated, incomplete, misleading, or inconsistent with how we want DSU to operate.

Payments and Future Charges

Some parts of DSU may be free today and paid later. We reserve the right to introduce fees, subscriptions, listing charges, event charges, audit fees, verification fees, premium features, or other paid services in the future.

We reserve the right to charge because DSU requires real operating work, including audits, support, hosting, infrastructure, moderation, marketing, data review, and business verification. Charging may also help us improve the network, reduce abuse, and invest in better tools for legitimate members.

If we introduce paid features, we may also change pricing, package features differently, grandfather some users, stop grandfathering others, or require payment to keep access to specific features, listings, visibility, or member benefits.

Cookies and Analytics

We may use cookies, analytics tools, and similar technologies to understand traffic, measure engagement, remember preferences, improve performance, and support advertising or remarketing efforts.

Data Retention

We keep information for as long as we think it is useful for operating DSU, enforcing our rules, resolving disputes, meeting legal obligations, preserving records, or supporting business decisions. We may keep backup copies, archived data, logs, and records even after an account, listing, or event record is deleted from the live product.

Your Choices

You can choose not to submit certain information, but that may limit your ability to use DSU, claim a business, join events, or stay listed. You may contact us if you want to update or delete information, but we do not promise that every request will be honored in full.

Security

We use reasonable measures to protect information, but no system is perfectly secure. You use DSU and submit information at your own risk.

Policy Changes

We may change this Privacy Policy at any time. If we do, we may update the date at the top and continue using information as allowed by the updated version, to the extent permitted by law.

Contact

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, contact us through the DSU website or any support channel we make available.