Good neighbors respect your privacy.

Browse on your own terms.

You can browse without an account. Device location is optional and is requested only when you choose the location button. Your precise device coordinates stay in your browser. A rounded search center is sent to Porchlight to find nearby sales; it is not attached to your account or submitted as a sale location.

Porchlight receives the information needed to serve a request, such as a search area, filters, and connection information. Our hosting and network providers also process requests to deliver and protect the service. Abuse prevention uses limited, pseudonymous security counters derived from account identifiers, email addresses, or connection information, depending on the action.

Your account.

Creating an account requires an email address, a unique username, and a password. Porchlight stores your email encrypted and stores passwords as salted password hashes, rather than readable passwords. We use your email for account confirmation and password recovery. Resend delivers those account emails and receives the recipient address and email contents needed to deliver them.

A secure, HTTP-only cookie keeps you signed in for up to seven days. Signing out removes that browser’s session. Password-reset links expire after 20 minutes and can be used once. Resetting a password invalidates your other signed-in sessions. Keep recovery links and passwords private.

If you choose to link an older Porchlight profile, both the new account and that earlier profile must be authenticated. Linking is optional and connects the earlier listings and favorites to your Porchlight account.

What a sale shares publicly.

Sale titles, descriptions, cover photos, dates, neighborhoods, and general map areas can be viewed without signing in. Hosts choose approximate location or direct address sharing. Exact sale addresses and direct destination pins require a signed-in account and follow the host’s timing choice: during sale hours, immediately for members, or never for visitors. Private addresses and selected destination pins are encrypted in storage.

Do not put information you want to keep private in a public description or photo. Uploaded covers are resized and embedded metadata is removed before storage, but the visible image may still show an address, face, or license plate. An unpublished upload is available only to its owner; a published cover follows the sale’s discovery settings. Anyone who can view a listing may copy the information or image they see.

Choose who discovers your sales.

Your profile can allow everyone to discover your sales or limit discovery to searches centered within your chosen distance. The server applies this setting to listings, sale details, saved sales, and cover access. Visitors choose their own search center, so this setting does not prove their physical location. Exact address sharing is a separate choice.

Approximate location means a general area is shared for privacy and the sale may be harder to find. Direct address means the host chose a destination, with account and timing requirements still applying. Review the destination pin and address before publishing.

Maps and outside services.

Live sale pins come from hosts’ submissions. OpenStreetMap supplies the roads and place labels. Loading map tiles sends your connection information and the viewed map area to the tile provider. You can browse the sale list without using the map.

City and ZIP searches use U.S. Census Bureau Gazetteer data on Porchlight’s server. In Host a sale, choosing Find address sends the entered address to the U.S. Census Bureau geocoder. You can instead place a pin and enter an address manually. Geocoding is an estimate; check the result before publishing. Choosing directions opens an outside map service, which handles the selected destination under its own privacy practices.

Cookies and browser storage.

The account cookie is used for authentication. Your browser’s session storage also remembers a rounded search center and search preferences so you can return to your results. These preferences are kept on that browser, rather than synced as a location history on your account. You can clear cookies and website storage in your browser settings; clearing the account cookie signs you out.

Porchlight does not currently load advertising code or set advertising cookies. Advertising is not active on the website.

Your guided helper.

The Porchlight helper matches your questions with prepared help answers in your browser. It does not use an AI service, read your account or sale information, or send your questions to Porchlight support. Questions and answers stay in this page’s memory while you browse; you can clear them in the helper, and a page reload or full navigation removes them. Avoid entering passwords, recovery links, or private personal details. Navigation buttons open the usual Porchlight pages and controls, which make the normal requests described in this notice.

Advertising preparation.

Porchlight is setting up Google AdSense so advertising can help fund free browsing and sale listings. Ownership-verification information may be present on the site. That verification information does not load an advertising script or display ads.

If advertising is activated later, this notice and the site’s privacy choices will be updated to explain the advertising providers, information they receive, cookies or similar technologies they use, and available controls before that advertising begins. Google describes how it handles information from participating websites in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services.

Support and reports.

Help & contact includes public answers and shows whether private message delivery is available. Sending a support message requires an account and a reply email address you confirm. When delivery is available, your account identifier, reply email, and message are sent privately to support through an email delivery provider. Stored support message contents and reply email addresses are encrypted. They are not published on your profile or sale.

A listing’s Report a concern option records your account identifier, the sale reference, the concern category, and any details you provide for review. Avoid including unnecessary personal or sensitive information. Support and listing reports are not emergency response services.

Exporting and deleting your data.

In your account menu, you can download your account details, profile discovery settings, your listings and cover references, saved sale identifiers, reports you submitted, support requests, and any historical boost purchase records. You can edit or remove your own sale, or choose Delete account to remove your account credentials, recovery links, sessions, listings, uploaded covers, saved list, related reports, and stored support message contents.

Account and listing information is retained while it is needed to provide those features, unless you remove it. Expired session, recovery, and abuse-prevention records are cleaned up during later requests. Short security-counter windows may remain after account deletion to prevent abuse; their enforcement windows last up to one hour. Removing data from Porchlight does not recall a message already delivered to support or an email provider, or remove copies someone made of public content.

New paid listing boosts are no longer offered. Any historical billing references may be retained separately and are unlinked from a deleted Porchlight account. Account deletion does not automatically issue a refund for a historical payment. Payment providers handle any payment details they received under their own privacy practices; Porchlight does not store card numbers.

Questions about your information.

Use Help & contact and choose Privacy or my data for a question about your information. The page shows the current availability of message delivery. Your account menu provides export and deletion controls directly. We will update this page when the practices described here change.