Privacy Policy

The short version

• We only get personal information such as your name, email or phone number when you type it into one of our forms or email us.
• We use it to answer your request. If you ask us to help you find a funeral home or plan ahead, we may pass your details to the providers we put you in touch with.
• We use Google Analytics to see how the sites are used. You can opt out, and we honor the Global Privacy Control signal on every site.
• We do not sell your personal information.

ObituaryUS: accounts, obituaries and condolences

ObituaryUS lets families write and publish obituaries, so it collects more than our other sites. Where this section and the rest of the policy differ, this section applies to ObituaryUS.

Your account and sign-in codes

• To write an obituary you give us your email address. We email you a six-digit code to confirm it; there is no password. The code and sign-in are handled by our database provider, Supabase, and sent through our email provider.
• If EverSettled created a draft for you, EverSettled sent us your email address and the details it already had, such as the name, years and state of the person who died. A one-time link it gives you signs you in to that draft.
• We keep your email address as the owner of the obituary, so only you can edit, unpublish or delete it, and so we can send you codes and notices about it (for example a new condolence waiting for approval).

What you publish

An obituary contains what you write and choose: the person's name, dates or years, places, life story, family members' names, service times and places, an optional donation link, a quote, and the style. Published public pages can be seen by anyone and found in search engines; unlisted pages are seen by anyone with the link but are kept out of search engines and our lists. Drafts are visible only to you.

We also store your answers to the questionnaire, so you can come back and change them. By default we show the birth year only, not the full birth date, and we never ask for a home address, a Social Security number or anything about money or a will.

Please only add living relatives' names with care. You can list survivors by first name only, and we suggest leaving out minors' last names.

Photos

Photos you upload are made smaller in your browser, then re-encoded on our servers. Re-encoding removes the hidden data inside image files (EXIF), including the camera's GPS location. We store the re-encoded copy, not your original file. You can delete a photo at any time.

Condolences and reports from visitors

• When you leave a condolence, we collect your name, your relationship to the person, your message and your email address. Your email is never shown on the page. The obituary's owner sees your note before it is published (unless they chose to publish notes at once) and may approve or hide it.
• The condolence form offers two separate, unticked boxes: one to get updates about that memorial, and one to let EverSettled email you about help settling a loved one's affairs. We store which boxes you ticked, when, and the exact wording you saw. If you tick the EverSettled box, we share your name, your email and the page address with EverSettled for that purpose.
• When you report a problem with a page, we collect the page, the reason and anything you write, and send it to our team's Slack so we can review it.
• To stop spam and abuse, condolence and report forms use Cloudflare Turnstile, which checks your browser and may set cookies, and we use your IP address to apply rate limits.

ObituaryUS and EverSettled

ObituaryUS is a free service from EverSettled. When you start an obituary you can tick an unticked box to let EverSettled email you about help with the estate and affairs of the person who died. Only if you tick it do we send EverSettled your name and email, the exact wording you agreed to, and the address of the obituary page you were on. Without that, we do not share your account or your obituary with EverSettled, except a draft's status back to EverSettled when EverSettled created that draft for you.

Unpublishing and deleting

You can unpublish or delete your obituary from your account. Removed pages stop being shown and are dropped from our sitemaps; search engines may take some days to catch up. To delete your account and everything in it, or a condolence you wrote, email info@funeralus.com.

Information you give us

Some pages have forms. What a form collects depends on the form:

• Funeral planning and pre-planning requests (FuneralUS, Cheap Funeral, VeteranFunerals): your name, email address, phone number if you give one, ZIP code or location, who the plan is for, the kind of service you want, your timing and how you plan to pay, and anything else you write in the form. On VeteranFunerals this can include the veteran's name and branch of service.
• Call requests on FuneralUS listings ("Request a call"): your name, email, phone number, an optional message, and the funeral home you want us to call.
• Business and partner inquiries (for example from funeral homes, hospices or other providers): contact name, business name and address, email, phone and the service you are asking about.
• The estate-settlement form on FuneralUS: your name, email address and, if you give it, your phone number, together with your consent to receive emails from EverSettled.
• The funeral program and invitation makers on DeathUS: when you print, your email address and, if you give them, your first name and how you knew the person, together with the text of the program or invitation. That text can include the name and dates of the person who died, the time and place of the service, a life story, the names of pallbearers and how guests should reply. Photos you add stay on your device and are never sent.
• The PDF downloads on HospiceCompare (a comparison of hospices, a funeral-home partnership report, a hospice scorecard): your email address and, if you give them, your first name or the name of your funeral home or hospice. For the partnership report we also keep the ZIP code or city the report covers. We do not keep which hospices you compared or the street address you typed.
• The chat assistant on FuneralUS: the questions you type.
• Emails you send us: your email address and whatever you write.
• The checks on ProbateUS ("Do I need probate?" and the state death tax check): your email address and, if you give it, your first name, with the state you picked. For the death tax check we also keep the general result. For "Do I need probate?" our team also receives the answers you picked on its map and the path you ended on, the county if you pick one and a rough value range if you typed a figure (not the figure itself).

With a form submission we also record the page you sent it from, the campaign tags in that page's address (UTM parameters) if there were any, whether you opted in to email, and the consent wording you agreed to.

Please don't send us sensitive details such as medical, financial or Social Security information. None of our forms need them.

Information collected automatically

• Analytics. Every site uses Google Analytics 4, which sets cookies and records the pages you view, how you arrived, your device and browser, your approximate location (from your IP address) and some actions such as clicking a link to EverSettled. FuneralUS also uses Vercel Web Analytics, which counts visits without cookies.
• Server logs. Our hosting provider records technical data for each request, such as IP address, browser type, the page requested and the time, to run and protect the sites.
• Browser storage. The sites save a few small items in your browser's local storage: your analytics choice, a random visitor ID used to show the same version of an EverSettled message on every visit while we test wording, a timer that keeps a closed pop-up away for a while, whether you already sent or dismissed a form, and on DeathUS the drafts you write in its tools, the photos you add to them and the email you gave before printing. These stay on your device. The only one that leaves it is the name of the message version, which is added to links to EverSettled and reported to our analytics.
• Location searches. When you search by city, ZIP code or address, the search is sent to our servers to find nearby listings. On FuneralUS some searches are looked up with TomTom's geocoding service. If you let your browser share your location on a map, we use it only to show what is near you.
• Maps. Map tiles load from OpenFreeMap, so your browser contacts their servers and they see your IP address.

How we use information

• To answer your request and follow up with you by email or phone.
• To put you in touch with funeral homes and other providers when you ask us to.
• To send you email you opted in to. You can unsubscribe at any time.
• To run, fix and improve the sites and to understand which pages help people.
• To prevent spam, fraud and abuse, and to meet legal obligations.

How we share information

• Providers you ask us to contact. When you ask for help finding a funeral home or planning ahead, we may share your details with the funeral homes, low-cost providers or licensed pre-need insurance agents in your area that we put you in touch with, only as needed to answer your request. When you ask us to call a funeral home for you, we tell the home what you want to know and, if they need it to reply, how to reach you. If a form says more narrowly what it shares, that statement applies.
• EverSettled. EverSettled (eversettled.com) is our own estate-settlement service, run by Kempster Berger Inc. like the sites this policy covers. If you tick the EverSettled box on a ProbateUS check, submit the estate-settlement form on FuneralUS, or tick the EverSettled box before printing a program or invitation on DeathUS or before downloading a PDF on HospiceCompare, and agree to hear from EverSettled, we share your name, email and phone number (if you gave one) with EverSettled so it can contact you.
• Service providers that run the sites for us: Vercel (hosting), Supabase (database), Google (analytics, and the AI model behind the FuneralUS chat assistant), Slack (internal alerts to our team when a form is submitted), TomTom (address lookup) and our email provider. They may use the data only to provide their service to us.
• Legal and safety reasons: if the law requires it, or to protect the rights and safety of our users, the public or us.
• Business transfers: if the sites are sold or merged, the information may pass to the new owner under this policy.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it with advertisers.

Links to EverSettled and other sites

Our pages link to funeral homes, courts, government agencies and EverSettled. Links to EverSettled are marked as sponsored and carry tags that tell EverSettled which of our sites, which page and which spot on the page the click came from. They carry no personal information. Other websites have their own privacy policies, and this policy does not cover them.

Your choices

• Analytics: turn on Global Privacy Control in your browser and none of our sites will load Google Analytics. On FuneralUS and ProbateUS you can also choose Opt Out in the cookie banner, and on ProbateUS use the "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information" link in the footer. Google also offers a browser add-on that blocks Google Analytics everywhere.
• Browser storage: clearing your browser's site data removes everything the sites stored on your device.
• Email: use the unsubscribe link in any marketing email, or email us.
• Your data: email info@funeralus.com to ask what we hold about you, to correct it or to delete it.

California privacy rights

If you live in California, the California Consumer Privacy Act (as amended by the CPRA) gives you rights over your personal information. In the past 12 months we have collected:

• Identifiers, such as your name, email address, phone number, IP address and the random visitor ID in your browser.
• Personal information you give us in a form, such as your location and the details of your request.
• Characteristics of a protected classification, namely veteran status, if you share it in a VeteranFunerals form.
• Internet activity, such as the pages you view and how you use the sites.
• Approximate location, from your IP address or the place you search.

We collect this from you and from your browser, for the purposes described above. We disclose it for business purposes to the service providers listed above and, at your request, to the providers you ask us to contact. We do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and we have no actual knowledge of selling or sharing the personal information of anyone under 16. We do not use sensitive personal information to infer characteristics about you.

You have the right to know what personal information we collect, use and disclose; to get a copy of it; to have it deleted or corrected; to opt out of its sale or sharing; and not to be treated differently for using these rights. We treat a Global Privacy Control signal as a request to opt out.

To make a request, email info@funeralus.com. We will confirm your request by matching it to the information we hold, such as the email address you used in a form, and answer within 45 days. You can use an authorized agent; we may ask the agent for your signed permission and ask you to confirm your identity with us.

Children

The sites are meant for adults. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you think a child has sent us information, email info@funeralus.com and we will delete it.

How long we keep information

We keep form submissions and emails for as long as we need them to handle your request and keep a record of it, and delete them sooner if you ask. Google Analytics keeps data for the retention period set in our analytics account. Our hosting provider keeps server logs for a limited time.

Security

The sites use HTTPS, and access to the data we hold is limited to the people and providers who need it. No system is perfectly secure, so we can't guarantee that information will never be accessed without permission.

Where your information is processed

The sites are run from the United States for people in the United States. Your information is stored and processed in the United States.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. The date at the top shows when it last changed. If a change affects how we use information you already gave us, we will say so on this page.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your information: email info@funeralus.com. See also our Terms of Use.