← Back to Fredericksburg, Texas

Privacy Policy

Effective May 22, 2026

HillCountry.ai is operated by Backroads Hill Country (Bandera, Texas) as a regional AI discovery network for the Texas Hill Country. This page explains what information we collect, why, and how we use it across the HillCountry.ai network — including the hub at hillcountry.ai and connected town sites such as bandera.ai.

What we collect

We collect only what's necessary to provide the service and respond to your inquiries:

• Email addresses you provide through forms (early access signups, business inquiries, property management inquiries, partner inquiries). We use these only to follow up with you about the specific reason you submitted them.
• Business information you provide through the founder application form (name, business name, category, town, phone, message). Used only to evaluate and respond to your application.
• Anonymized site usage data via privacy-respecting analytics (counter.dev). This data is aggregated and does not identify individual visitors. We use it to understand which pages and features are useful.
• Chat conversations with our AI guides (Brody on Bandera.ai, Scout on the network, and future town-specific guides) are processed by AI services described in the AI Chat section below. We also log these conversations to our own systems for service quality, training improvements, and to spot patterns we should fix. Logs are anonymous — no name, email, or identity tied to the messages — and grouped only by an anonymous browser session ID.

What we don't do

• We don't sell your information to third parties.
• We don't run third-party advertising trackers or behavioral profiling.
• We don't share your email with other businesses or partners outside of what's necessary to respond to your inquiry.
• We don't authorize AI providers to train their models on conversations from this site.

Third-party services

We use a small number of third-party services to operate the network:

• Web3Forms for form submissions (early access, business and property inquiries). Submissions are delivered to our email and not retained by Web3Forms beyond delivery.
• counter.dev for anonymized site analytics. No cookies are set and no personal data is captured.
• Google Analytics 4 for aggregate traffic measurement across the network. Configured with privacy-respecting defaults.
• Netlify hosts the network sites. Standard server-level logs apply.
• AI providers for chat features — see the AI Chat section below for details.

AI Chat (Scout, Brody, and the HillCountry.ai network)

The HillCountry.ai network includes AI travel guides: Brody on Bandera.ai, Scout as the general Hill Country guide, and future town-specific guides as the network expands. Here's how the AI chat works and what you should know:

Which AI providers we use. Our AI guides are powered primarily by Anthropic's Claude. The broader HillCountry.ai network may also incorporate large language models from other AI providers — including but not limited to OpenAI, Google, Meta, Mistral, xAI, and comparable services — for related functions such as content generation, search, recommendations, or other supporting tasks across the network. The specific provider used for any given feature may change over time as the technology evolves. When we make material changes to which providers we use for chat, we'll update this page.

What gets sent. Your typed messages and the context of your conversation are sent to the AI provider's servers for processing and reply generation. Standard request metadata (timestamps, technical headers) is sent along with each message.

What doesn't get sent. We don't tie chat conversations to your identity, email, name, or any other personal information unless you voluntarily provide it in the chat itself (which we recommend against — see below).

What's retained. AI providers may temporarily retain chat data on their own servers according to their respective data retention policies — typically for short periods (e.g., up to 30 days) for abuse monitoring and service quality, before deletion. We do not authorize AI providers to use this chat data to train their models.

Our own conversation logs. We log AI guide conversations — the question you asked, the AI's reply, a timestamp, the town context, and an anonymous session identifier — to our own systems. We use these logs to improve answer quality, fix mistakes our AI guides are making, and understand what travelers actually want to know about the Hill Country. Logs are not tied to your identity. We don't sell them, share them with other businesses, or use them to build a profile of you. If you want a log entry removed, contact us with enough context to identify the conversation (rough date and topic) and we'll remove it.

What you should not share. Don't share sensitive personal information in chat — full credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, passwords, government IDs, medical details, or anything similar. For booking details, account-specific information, or anything sensitive, contact us directly by email or phone (see Contact below).

What our AI guides are and aren't for. Our AI guides offer travel and area information for the Texas Hill Country. They are not a substitute for emergency services, professional medical or legal advice, real-time conditions, or guaranteed bookings. Verify time-sensitive details (business hours, prices, event schedules) with the business directly before relying on them.

Cookies

This site does not use tracking cookies. Any cookies set are strictly functional (e.g., session preferences) and contain no personally identifiable information.

Your choices

If you've submitted your email to us and want it removed from our records, email [contact email] and we'll remove it.

Children

This site is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect information from children, including through the AI chat feature.

Updates to this policy

We may update this policy as the network evolves — including when we add or change AI providers, add new features, add new town sites, or refine how we handle data. The effective date above will be updated to reflect any changes. Material changes will be noted on this page.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data: [contact email]