Privacy policy

Last updated October 20, 2026

This policy explains what MS Construction and Services (licensed deck contracting under MS Decking and Services, CSLB #1148079) does with the information you send us. We build decks on the Peninsula and in the South Bay; the only information we ask for is what we need to quote your project and get out to your property.

What we collect

What you type into the estimate form or tell us on the phone, plus a few things recorded automatically or by us as your project moves:

Your name, phone number and email address.
The ZIP code of the property, so we know whether we cover it.
What you told us about the project: type of work, size, material, condition.
Photos of the deck, if you choose to send them to us.
Which page or ad you came from, so we know which advertising works. This includes the markers Google, Meta and OpenAI attach to their own ads (gclid, fbclid, oppref) and the cookie identifiers Meta's measurement code sets in your browser (_fbc, _fbp). If you send us a request, these markers are saved with it.
Where your project stands with us: booked estimate, estimate sent, accepted estimate, paid job and the amount paid. We record this in our project system.

We do not ask for a social security number, a date of birth, or payment details through this website. If a project goes ahead, contract and payment paperwork happens separately, on paper or through the agreement you sign.

What we do with it

Contact you about the visit, the estimate and the work itself.
Prepare a written scope and price for your project.
Keep a record of the job so we can honor the warranty later.
Understand which advertising brought us real customers.

AI assistance

This site has an optional estimate assistant — a chat window you can use instead of the form. It runs on an AI language model, so what you type into that chat is processed by software, not only read by a person. We use it for one thing: to understand your project and work out an approximate range. The AI never sets your price — every number it shows comes from our own rate table, and a real estimate always follows an on-site visit.

Using the assistant is your choice; the phone number and the form work exactly as before. What you type there reaches our team the same way a form submission does. Please don't type anything sensitive into it — it is a tool for describing a deck, nothing more.

Text messages

Text and email are how we run a project. When you send us an estimate request with your phone number or email address, you are asking us to get back to you, and you agree we may text or email you about that project only: scheduling the visit, the estimate, and questions about the work. That is the whole list. No marketing, no newsletters, no offers, and we never sell your number. Besides the services listed under “Who else sees it”, which handle it on our behalf, it goes to advertising companies only as a scrambled code, as described under “Advertising and measurement”. Message frequency depends on your project and is usually a few messages around the visit and the estimate. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP at any time and we stop texting; reply HELP for help. Stopping texts does not cancel your project — write to us by email or call, and we carry on.

Who else sees it

We do not sell your information and we do not hand it to data brokers. It reaches four kinds of hands and no others:

Our crew and office, to do the work.
The services that run this website and deliver our messages, which handle the data on our behalf and not for their own purposes: Vercel (hosting for this site and its forms), Telegram (how your enquiry reaches our team), Prosbuddy (the system we run projects in — your name, phone, email and what you told us about the project are kept there, otherwise the job cannot be scheduled or quoted), and the AI provider behind the estimate assistant (currently DeepInfra, used only to process what you type into that chat). We do not sell or trade your information with any of them. The fonts on this site come from Google Fonts. To show them, your browser loads them from Google's servers, so Google sees your IP address and browser type, the same as any website you open.
Google, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI, for advertising and measurement — see the next section, which explains exactly what goes to them and how to stop it.
Anyone the law requires, which for a licensed contractor means permitting authorities and, if it ever came to it, a court order.

Advertising and measurement

We advertise on Google, on Instagram and Facebook, and in ChatGPT. To know whether that money buys real customers rather than clicks, this site carries small pieces of code from Google Analytics, Google Ads, Meta and Microsoft Advertising. They set cookies in your browser and tell those companies that a visit and, if you send one, a request for an estimate happened here.

Two things worth being plain about. The first: this is what lets us show our ads again to someone who has already been on this site. If you have ever wondered why a deck company followed you around Instagram, now you know how it works — ours included. The second: when you send the form or leave your contacts in the estimate chat, the phone number and email you gave us are scrambled into an unreadable code (a SHA-256 hash) before anything goes to an ad company. They never receive your number or email as you gave them, your address, or your photos. The code can still be matched to an account you already have with them — that is how they connect your request to the ad you saw. Meta also gets one more scrambled code, made from the ID of your record in our system. That is how it ties the later steps below to the same request.

Microsoft Advertising gets less than that. Its code (Microsoft Advertising UET) tells Microsoft that a visit and, if you send one, a request happened here, using its own cookies in your browser — including its ad marker (msclkid) if you came from a Microsoft ad. It does not receive your email or phone number in any form, scrambled or not, and it is not told about the steps after your request. We have not set Microsoft up to show our ads again to people who visited this site. How long Microsoft keeps what it receives is set by its own policy: Microsoft Privacy Statement.

After you send a request. Your request can move through a few steps with us: you book an on-site estimate, you accept an estimate, the job is paid. When that happens, we tell Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and OpenAI (ads in ChatGPT) which step it was and when. Each company gets only its own marker: Meta gets its ad marker and its browser cookies (fbclid, _fbc, _fbp), if your visit had them; OpenAI gets its ad marker (oppref), if your visit had one. Neither gets the other's. Both get your email and phone number as the same scrambled code. Meta also gets the scrambled code of your record ID in our system. When we send you an estimate, we tell Meta about that step as well. If your request came through a form inside Facebook or Instagram, Meta gave it an ID of its own, and we send that ID back to Meta with this step so it can match the two. For a paid job we include the amount paid, when we have recorded it.

We do this for one reason: so these companies can tell which of our ads brought people who actually hired us, and show our ads to people more like them. We do not sell this information and do not share it for any other purpose.

A step is sent only if it is less than 7 days old; older steps are not sent at all. How long Meta and OpenAI keep what they receive is set by their own policies: Meta Privacy Policy, OpenAI Privacy Policy.

Your project details, the photos of your deck, and what you write about the project — on the form or in the estimate chat — never go to ad companies. If you leave your phone number or email in the chat, they are handled exactly as on the form: only as the scrambled code. Advertising learns which steps happened and, for a paid job, the amount. It does not see what you told us about the project.

How this page gets used

We also run Microsoft Clarity. It records how pages are used — where a cursor moves, what gets clicked, how far down someone scrolls — so we can see where this site confuses people and fix it. Think of it as watching someone use the site over their shoulder, except we never learn who they are.

What it deliberately does not capture: anything you type. Your name, phone number, email and project description are blanked out before the recording leaves your browser. The same switch below turns this off along with everything else.

Don't want any of it? Turn it off and the site works exactly as before — the form, the phone number and the chat do not depend on it:

Turn off advertising cookies on this site — one click, remembered in this browser.
Switch on Global Privacy Control in your browser or extension. Our site honors that signal on its own: with it on, none of this code loads at all, and you don't have to click anything here.

These two work in this browser, for visits and for any request you send from it. If you have already sent us a request and don't want your project steps shared with ad companies, tell us: email info@msconstructionandservices.com, or call (669) 219-1955. We mark your record, and nothing more about your project goes to Meta or OpenAI after that. This stops future sending; it does not erase what was already sent. What Meta and OpenAI keep is governed by their policies linked above. If you turned this off before sending your request, that choice already covers your project.

Photos of your property

Photos you send are used to understand the job and to prepare the estimate. We do not publish a photo of your deck as an example of our work without asking you first. If you would like the photos deleted after the estimate, say so and we delete them.

How long we keep it

Requests that do not turn into a project are kept for about a year, in case you come back. Records of completed work are kept longer, because a written warranty needs a record of what was built and when. Ask us to delete your information and we will, unless we are required to keep a record of a completed contract.

Your choices

Whether or not the law requires it of a company our size, we will do these things if you ask:

Tell you what information about you we hold.
Correct anything that is wrong.
Delete your information, subject to the record-keeping above.
Stop texting or emailing you.
Keep you out of advertising measurement — the switch is in the section above, and it takes effect immediately in the browser you use it in.

Two ways to ask, and either one works: email info@msconstructionandservices.com, or call (669) 219-1955. We do not treat anyone worse for asking.

A note on California privacy law. The California Consumer Privacy Act applies to businesses above certain thresholds — broadly, more than $26.6 million in annual revenue, or handling the personal information of 100,000 or more California consumers, or making most of their money from selling data. We are a local deck contractor and we are under all three, so the Act does not apply to us. We wrote the commitments above anyway, because they are how we would want our own information handled.

Children

This is a site for homeowners arranging construction work. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 16.

Changes

If we change how we handle information, we update this page and the date at the top. The date tells you which version you are reading.

Contact

MS Construction and Services · licensed deck contracting under MS Decking and Services · CSLB #1148079
Email info@msconstructionandservices.com · phone (669) 219-1955
Serving San Jose, Los Gatos, Saratoga, Cupertino, Los Altos and the surrounding Peninsula and South Bay.