Cookie Policy

1. What Are Cookies

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your device when you visit a website. They are widely used to make websites work more efficiently, provide a better user experience, and give website operators information about how their site is being used.

This Cookie Policy explains how Hydrovac Hotline, a service operated by Hydrovac News LLC ("we," "us," or "our"), uses cookies and similar technologies on hydrovachotline.org. This policy should be read together with our Privacy Policy, which provides more detail about how we collect and use your personal information.

2. Cookies We Use

What runs on our site falls into three groups. Our cookie banner offers three choices: “Reject optional” (always-on items only), “Analytics”, and “Accept all”.

1. Always on: what the site needs to work (sign-in session, your cookie-banner choice, saved form drafts, an offline page cache), a cookie that counts sponsored-ad views for billing, and our maps and video players (see section 3).
2. Analytics (only if you choose it): measuring visits, pages, searches and page speed. This covers our own visitor and session identifiers, page-view, scroll-depth and time-on-page measurement, and page-view analytics and page-speed measurement from our hosting provider. Loads only when you click “Analytics” or “Accept all”.
3. Advertising (only with “Accept all”): ad-platform pixels used to measure ad performance and retarget (see section 3).

A Global Privacy Control signal from your browser turns off analytics and advertising, whatever you chose in the banner (see section 5).

Below is a detailed breakdown of each cookie we set on the public site (staff-only admin screens set a few more preference cookies). Browser storage is listed in section 4, and third-party services in section 3.

Session Cookie

Cookie Consent Preference

Other Cookies We Set

3. Third-Party Cookies

Some third-party services we use run in your browser and may store their own data there. The advertising pixels listed below ONLY load when you click “Accept all” in our cookie banner.

Maps (always on)

Our maps provider displays the interactive maps of provider locations and service areas, and turns the places you type into locations. When a map loads, the provider's map software may keep a usage identifier in your browser's local storage, cache map images, and send map-usage events to the provider.

Page-view analytics and page-speed measurement (analytics)

Page-view analytics and page-load speed measurement from our hosting provider. Load only when you accept the “Analytics” or “Accept all” cookie option and your browser does not send a Global Privacy Control signal. Neither sets cookies.

Embedded videos (always on)

Some provider listings include videos, which play through a video provider's privacy-enhanced player. The player loads and starts playing, muted, when you scroll to the video, and the video provider may then store its own data in your browser.

Advertising & retargeting (Accept-all tier)

The pixels below only load when you click “Accept all” in our cookie banner. They share pseudonymous identifiers with their respective platforms for ad measurement and retargeting (cross-context behavioral advertising).

4. Local Storage

In addition to cookies, we use browser local storage for the following purposes:

• Form draft saving (local storage, always on): we save quote request and provider sign-up drafts so you can continue if you navigate away from the page. Drafts stay on your device until you submit the form, and are discarded after 7 days.
• Visitor measurement (analytics only): a random visitor identifier, the date of your first visit, and the time of your last activity in local storage, plus a session identifier, session start time, and any campaign (UTM) tags from the link you arrived on in session storage. We send these with our analytics events. Without analytics consent, or with a Global Privacy Control signal, none are created, and any left from an earlier visit are removed.
• Cookie-banner choice: described in section 2.
• Offline cache: our site stores copies of its own pages and images in your browser's cache so repeat visits load faster.

Apart from form drafts, local storage data does not expire on its own, but you can clear it in your browser settings at any time.

5. Managing Cookies

You can control and manage cookies in several ways. Please note that removing or blocking cookies may impact your user experience and some functionality may no longer be available.

Browser Settings

Most browsers allow you to view, manage, delete, and block cookies for a website. Be aware that if you clear this site's data, any preferences you have set will be lost, including your cookie-banner choice, which is saved in your browser's storage. Below are links to cookie management instructions for common browsers:

• Google Chrome
• Mozilla Firefox
• Safari
• Microsoft Edge

Do Not Track & Global Privacy Control

Some browsers include a "Do Not Track" (DNT) feature that signals to websites that you do not want your online activity tracked. Since there is no universally accepted standard for how to interpret DNT signals, we currently do not respond to DNT signals.

We do honor Global Privacy Control. If your browser sends aSec-GPCsignal, we treat it as an opt-out of analytics, advertising and retargeting: none of the analytics or ad pixels listed above are loaded — even if “Accept all” was chosen in our cookie banner. You do not need to do anything else.

GPC does not switch off the always-on items in section 2: what the site needs to work, the sponsor billing cookie, and our maps and video players. You can also turn analytics and advertising off with “Reject optional” in our cookie banner. To re-open the banner, clear our site data in your browser and reload the page.

6. Impact of Disabling Cookies

If you choose to disable or block cookies, please be aware of the following impacts:

• Provider authentication: You will not be able to log in to your provider dashboard, as the session cookie is required for authentication.
• Map functionality: Interactive maps may not load or work properly if our maps provider's storage is blocked.
• Consent preferences: You will see the cookie banner on each visit if your browser blocks site storage, because your choice is saved in local storage.

Public pages such as the provider network, quote request forms, and informational content will continue to function without cookies.

7. Policy Changes

We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time to reflect changes in the cookies we use or for other operational, legal, or regulatory reasons. When we make changes:

• We will update the "Last revised" date at the top of this page
• For significant changes, we will provide notice through our website
• Continued use of our website after changes indicates acceptance of the updated policy

We encourage you to review this Cookie Policy periodically to stay informed about how we use cookies.

8. Contact Information

If you have questions about our use of cookies or this Cookie Policy, please contact us:

For more information about how we handle your personal data, please see our Privacy Policy.