Privacy Policy

Who we are

SunBid is a free solar quote-comparison service operated by 5207418 LLC ("SunBid," "we," "us"). This policy explains what personal information we collect through our website, emails, calls and texts, why we collect it, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and the choices and rights you have. It applies to homeowners using our service, visitors to our website, and installers who apply to join our network.

Questions? Email support@sunbid.energy or use the form on Your Privacy Choices.

Notice at Collection

This notice describes the personal information we collect, why, whether we sell or share it, and how long we keep it. We give you a short version of it right where you enter your address and your contact details.

Categories of personal information we collect, purposes, sale or sharing, and retention
Category	What it includes	Why we collect it	Sold?	Shared for cross-context ads?	How long we keep it
Identifiers	Name, email address, phone number, IP address, browser and device identifiers, your private dashboard link	Provide the service, send you updates, connect you with the installer you choose, prevent fraud, keep consent records	No	No	30 days if you don't finish your request; otherwise 24 months after your project's last activity. Consent records (with the phone number and email they cover, and your IP address): 5 years, even after a deletion request
Customer records (Cal. Civ. Code §1798.80(e))	Name, property address, phone, email, and the self-reported financial details you choose to give: monthly electric bill, financing preference, credit range	Build your project profile, request quotes, compare offers fairly	No	No	Same as identifiers
Commercial information	Your project details and answers (homeowner status, roof age, shade, timeline, battery and EV plans, HOA), quotes you receive, the installer you choose	Request and compare quotes, make the introduction you ask for, keep records of what was shared and when	No	No	24 months after your project's last activity; records of which installers received what: 5 years
Documents you upload	A utility bill you choose to upload (homeowners) or a proposal (installers), including whatever is printed on it, such as the account holder's name, service address, account number and usage	Read your usage, utility and rate plan to size your system; pre-fill an installer's quote	No	No	We don't keep the file. From a bill we keep only your utility, rate plan, yearly usage, months of history, average bill and whether it shows solar credits, with your project (same as commercial information)
Internet or other electronic network activity	Pages viewed, links clicked, referring site and campaign tags	Run and improve the site, measure our marketing, prevent fraud and abuse, prove consent	No	No	Up to 24 months; analytics providers keep their copies under our account settings, which we keep at 14 months or less
Geolocation data	Your property address and its map coordinates (not your device's location; we don't ask for it)	Find and measure your roof, find installers who serve your area	No	No	Same as identifiers
Sensory or visual information	Aerial or satellite imagery of your property's roof from Google (Maps Platform and the Solar API) or Esri World Imagery	Measure your roof and show you the result	No	No	We don't store the images; we get them from the provider each time we measure or show your roof. Roof measurements: 30 days if no request is submitted for the home, otherwise kept with your project
Inferences	Estimated system size, production and savings for your home	Show you estimates and compare quotes on the same assumptions	No	No	Same as commercial information
Professional information (installers)	For installers who apply: company, contact name, license number, service area, business details	Review applications and manage our installer network	No	No	24 months after an application is declined; for the life of the relationship plus 5 years for partners

Consent records are kept for 5 years from when you agreed, or from when you withdrew if that's later, even if you ask us to delete the rest of your data. Federal telemarketing rules require us to be able to prove consent, so this is a legal-obligation exception to deletion. See Consent records for exactly what they contain.

You can opt out of sale or sharing at any time on Your Privacy Choices. We don't collect sensitive personal information about homeowners, and we don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.

Where your information comes from

You, when you enter your address, answer our questions, give your contact details, talk or write to us, or make a privacy request.
Documents you upload, such as a utility bill (homeowners) or a proposal (installers).
Your browser or device, automatically, when you use our site (for example, IP address and pages viewed).
Mapping, imagery and solar data providers (Google Maps Platform and the Google Solar API, Esri World Imagery, and the PVWatts service), which return imagery and roof and solar data for the address you give us.
Installers, who send quotes and status updates about your project.

We don't buy leads, contact lists or data about you from data brokers.

How we use your information

Measure your roof and estimate system size, production and savings (estimates, not quotes or offers).
Build a de-identified project profile and, when you click "Request quotes," send it to installers who serve your area.
Show you installers' quotes side by side and explain how they compare.
Connect you with the installer you choose, in the way you choose.
Send you updates by email and your dashboard, and by call or text only if you agreed.
Keep the service secure, prevent fraud and spam, and fix problems.
Understand how our site is used and improve it.
Keep records the law requires, such as consent and opt-out records, and respond to legal requests.

AI processing (Anthropic)

We use Anthropic's Claude AI service as our service provider in three places. Under our agreement with Anthropic, what we send isn't used to train its AI models.

Bills you upload. When you upload a utility bill, the whole document, including any name, service address and account number printed on it, is sent to Claude to read your usage, utility and rate plan. We don't store the file. We keep only the summary listed in the Notice at Collection.
Proposals installers upload. When an installer uploads a proposal to fill in its quote, the whole document is sent to Claude to read it. We don't store the file; the installer reviews the numbers before sending the quote.
Roof measurement. When we measure a roof from licensed Esri aerial imagery, we send Claude that image and its map coordinates. When we use Google's Solar API, Claude may get the roof's measurements (no image). Either way we never send your name or contact details, and we never send Google imagery to an AI service.

1. A de-identified project profile, with installers who may quote

Only after you click "Request quotes," we send a project profile to licensed installers who serve your ZIP code, never more installers than the "up to" number shown when you agreed (currently up to 4). Installers see: your city and ZIP code, rounded roof measurements, your rounded electricity use and bill range, your timeline, your battery and financing preferences, and your self-reported credit range (as a broad band). It doesn't include your name, phone number, email, street address, or any photo or other imagery of your home. We don't try to re-identify these profiles, and every installer agrees by contract not to try either.

2. Your contact details, with the installer you choose

When you pick an installer and agree on screen, we send that installer your name, email, property address and project details, plus your phone number if you chose "phone and email." This is a disclosure you direct, not a sale. The installer pays us a fee for the introduction. Once they have it, the installer's own privacy policy also applies, and our contract requires them to use it only for your project and never resell it.

3. Service providers

We use companies that process information for us under contracts that limit how they can use it, such as: cloud hosting and database providers; email delivery (Postmark); text messaging and phone verification (ClickSend); maps, address lookup and roof imagery (Google Maps Platform, Esri); solar and weather data (Google Solar API and the PVWatts service of the U.S. National Laboratory of the Rockies, formerly NREL); AI document and image analysis (Anthropic, described under AI processing); and bot protection (Cloudflare Turnstile).

4. Analytics and advertising partners

We don't currently use third-party analytics or advertising tags. If we add them, they'll run only on informational pages without forms, never when your browser sends Global Privacy Control, and we'll update this policy first.

5. Text messaging

No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Text messaging originator opt-in data and consent are excluded from all of the sharing described in this policy and will not be shared with any third parties. Our messaging provider (ClickSend) processes your number only to deliver our texts. Sending your contact details to an installer you choose (section 2) is a separate disclosure you direct with its own consent; it never includes your text opt-in, and it's never for marketing.

6. Legal and safety reasons

We may disclose information if the law requires it, to protect people's rights and safety, to prevent fraud, or as part of a merger or sale of our business (with notice to you and the same protections).

We don't sell personal information, and in the past 12 months we haven't sold it. In the past 12 months we haven't shared it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We don't sell or share the personal information of anyone we know is under 16.

How long we keep it

Record	How long
Requests you start but don't submit	Your answers stay in your browser tab only (cleared when you close it, and not used after 24 hours). The roof measurement for the address is deleted after 30 days.
Submitted projects (contact details, address, answers, bill summary, quotes)	Deleted or de-identified 24 months after the project's last activity, or sooner if you ask us to delete them
Consent and opt-out records (the wording, version and hash, the phone number and email covered, IP address, browser, page, and any TrustedForm certificate link), and a record of each verification code we text you (the number, time, notice version shown, IP address and browser)	5 years from when you agreed, or from when you withdrew if later, then deleted. Kept even after a deletion request, and not removed by the 24-month clean-up above.
Records of what we sent to which installers, and when	5 years
Files you upload (bills, proposals)	Not stored: read once and discarded
Copies of emails we send (to homeowners, installers, and about privacy requests)	Message text deleted after 12 months; the delivery record after 24 months
Emails you send us (for example to support@sunbid.energy), their attachments, and our replies	24 months after the message, or sooner if you ask us to delete your data
Abuse-prevention counters (your IP address, and a one-way hash, never the original, of any email, phone number or address they count)	2 days
Privacy requests and how we handled them	24 months after we complete the request
Installer applications we decline	24 months after the decision

When you ask us to delete your data, we delete or de-identify everything about your project except your consent records, which we keep until their 5 years are up because the law requires it (California Civil Code §1798.105(d) allows this to comply with a legal obligation). We use them only to prove consent and honor opt-outs.

Your rights

If you live in California, you have the right to:

Know and access the personal information we have about you, including the categories, sources, purposes and recipients, and get a copy.
Delete personal information we collected from you, subject to legal exceptions.
Correct inaccurate personal information.
Opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information.
Not be discriminated against for using these rights. We won't deny you service, charge you more or give you worse quotes for making a request.

We don't use sensitive personal information for purposes that would give you a right to limit it, and we don't use automated decision-making to make significant decisions about you. Ranking quotes isn't a decision about you, and financing decisions are made by installers and their lenders, not by us.

How to make a request

Use the form on Your Privacy Choices, or
Email support@sunbid.energy with the request and the email address or phone number you used with us.

Verification. For access, deletion and correction requests, we confirm it's you by matching details you give us with our records and, usually, by asking you to confirm from the email address on file. We ask for more for a copy of specific information than for categories. We'll never ask for a password, Social Security number or payment card. Opt-out requests don't need verification.

Authorized agents. Someone you authorize can make a request for you. We'll ask for your signed permission and may ask you to verify your identity with us directly.

Timing. We confirm receipt within 10 business days and respond within 45 calendar days. If we need more time (up to another 45 days), we'll tell you why. Requests are free.

Appeals. If we decline your request, we'll explain why. You can appeal by replying to our decision, and we'll respond within 45 days.

Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track

If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal, we treat it as a request to opt out of the sale and sharing of personal information for that browser and, if we know who you are (for example, you submit a quote request from that browser), for you. We honor it automatically: third-party analytics and advertising tags don't load, and the Your Privacy Choices page shows "Opt-Out Request Honored." We treat a Do Not Track signal the same way for those tags. Other websites may track you across sites; we don't allow third parties to do so from our quote request, dashboard or installer pages.

Cookies

We set one cookie of our own for visitors, and it's strictly necessary. When we measure a roof, your browser gets a cookie named sb_roof that holds only a random id, so your browser gets back its own roof measurement if you return to the same address. It's httpOnly (scripts on the page can't read it), sent only to our roof measurement service (path /api/roof) and expires after 30 days. We store a one-way hash of the id with the measurement, never the id itself.

Calls and texts

Verification codes. When you enter your mobile number on our quote form and continue, we text you a one-time code to confirm the number is yours, as the notice next to the phone field says. We send one text each time you ask for a code and never use it for marketing.

Text messaging and your privacy. No mobile information will be shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Text messaging originator opt-in data and consent are excluded from all sharing and will not be shared with any third parties.

Quote updates. We call or text you about your quotes only if you check the optional box on our contact step; it's never a condition of getting quotes. An installer can call or text you only after you pick that specific installer and agree to share your phone number with them. That consent names only that installer. To stop texts, reply STOP; you can also tell us or the installer in any other reasonable way. We pass opt-outs on to the installer within one business day. See our SMS Terms and the exact wording on Consent terms.

When you agree to something on our site, we keep a record of the exact wording you saw (version consent-contact-v1.1 for our contact consent, for example) with a fingerprint (hash) of it, the time, the phone number and email address it covers, your IP address and browser, the page you were on, and when you later withdrew it. This proves what you agreed to and lets us honor opt-outs. We keep each record for 5 years from when you agreed, or from when you withdrew if that's later, even if you ask us to delete your other data, and then delete it.

Sensitive personal information

We don't collect sensitive personal information about homeowners as California law defines it. A property address you type isn't "precise geolocation" from your device, and we don't ask for your device's location. Your self-reported credit range isn't a credit report: we never check credit. We still treat it as confidential and share it with installers only as a broad band.

Children

Our service is for adults 18 and older. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children, and we don't sell or share personal information of anyone under 16.

Security

We protect your information with encryption in transit, access controls and private, hard-to-guess links. No system is perfectly secure, so keep your dashboard link private: anyone with the link can see your project. If a breach affects your personal information, we'll notify you as the law requires.

Data broker statement

We work only with information from people who come to us to get solar quotes. We don't buy or resell data about people who don't have a relationship with us, so we aren't a data broker.

Other state laws

If you live in another state with a consumer privacy law, you can use the same request form for the rights your state gives you, including appeals. California's "Shine the Light" law lets California residents ask about disclosures to third parties for their own direct marketing; we don't make those disclosures except to the installer you direct us to share with.

Changes to this policy

We'll post any changes here with a new "Last updated" date and keep a record of earlier versions. If a change materially affects how we use information we already have, we'll tell you before it takes effect.

Contact us

5207418 LLC (SunBid)
Email: support@sunbid.energy
Privacy requests: Your Privacy Choices