Last updated: July 21, 2026
This Privacy Policy explains how [LEGAL ENTITY NAME] d/b/a Dental.me (“Dental.me,” “we,” “us”) collects, uses, discloses, and protects information in connection with the dental.me website and related services (the “Services”).
An important distinction: Dental.me is a directory of dental practices — businesses. Most information in our directory describes a business, its location, its services, and its publicly available business contact details. We are not a healthcare provider, we are not a HIPAA covered entity or business associate, and we do not collect, request, or want patient health information. Please never send us information about a patient or a course of treatment.
1. Information we collect
a. Directory information about dental practices
We compile practice profiles from sources including the federal NPPES provider registry, publicly available business-profile and mapping data, practice websites, owner-submitted updates on claimed profiles, corrections submitted by users, and confirmations completed by our staff. This typically includes practice name, provider names, business address, business phone, website, specialties, hours, public star ratings and review counts, and derived geographic attributes.
Some of this information — such as the name of a solo practitioner or a business phone number that is also a personal number — may constitute personal information under some laws even though it identifies a business. We treat it accordingly.
b. Information you give us
When you claim a profile, create an account, submit a correction, contact us, or purchase a placement, we may collect: your name, business email, business phone, the practice you represent, account credentials, verification information, the content you submit (services, hours, photos, FAQ answers), and correspondence with us.
c. Payment information
Payments are processed by Stripe, Inc. Card details are submitted directly to Stripe. We do not receive or store full payment card numbers. We receive limited billing records such as the last four digits, card brand, expiration, billing ZIP, subscription status, and transaction history.
d. Information collected automatically
Like most websites, we collect IP address, browser and device type, operating system, referring and exit pages, pages viewed, timestamps, and similar log data, through cookies and comparable technologies.
e. Call recordings
Where we place or receive telephone calls in connection with the Services, those calls may be monitored or recorded consistent with our Call Recording Policy and applicable law.
2. How we use information
We use information to: build, maintain, and improve the directory; verify claims of authority over a practice; operate accounts and dashboards; calculate the Dental.me Score and organize rankings; process payments, subscriptions, and renewals; provide customer support; send transactional and service messages; detect and prevent fraud, abuse, and unauthorized claiming; produce aggregate analytics and market research; comply with legal obligations; and enforce our terms.
3. How we share information
We share information only as described here:
- Service providers. Vendors who perform functions on our behalf under contract — hosting and infrastructure, payment processing (Stripe), transactional email delivery, analytics, mapping, customer support, and data enrichment. They may use the information only to provide services to us.
- Publicly, as part of the directory. Practice profile information is published on the Services and may be indexed by search engines. Do not submit anything you do not want publicly visible.
- Legal and safety. When required by law, subpoena, or legal process, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Dental.me, our users, or the public.
- Business transfers. In connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets, subject to this Policy.
- With your direction or consent.
We do not sell the personal contact information that you submit to us. See Section 7 for what “sell” and “share” mean under California law and how that applies to aggregate and business directory data.
4. Cookies and analytics
We use cookies and similar technologies to keep you signed in, remember preferences, secure the Services, and understand usage. We use third-party analytics providers who set their own cookies and process usage data on our behalf. Most browsers let you refuse or delete cookies; some features may not work correctly if you do.
Global Privacy Control. Where required, we honor the Global Privacy Control (GPC) browser signal as a valid request to opt out of sale/sharing of personal information for the browser transmitting it.
5. Data retention
We retain directory information for as long as the profile remains part of the directory. Account and billing records are retained while your account is active and afterward as needed for legal, tax, accounting, dispute-resolution, and fraud-prevention purposes — typically no less than seven years for financial records. Log data is retained for a shorter period. When information is no longer needed, we delete or de-identify it.
6. Security
We use administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect information, including encryption in transit, access controls, and use of a PCI-compliant payment processor so that card data never touches our systems. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. Please use a strong, unique password and tell us immediately if you suspect unauthorized access.
7. Your California privacy rights (CCPA/CPRA)
If you are a California resident, you have the rights described below. We extend these rights to all U.S. users as a matter of practice.
Categories of personal information
In the preceding 12 months we may have collected these statutory categories: identifiers (name, business address, business email, business phone, IP address, account ID); commercial information (subscriptions purchased, transaction history); internet or network activity (browsing and interaction with the Services); geolocation data (approximate, derived from address or IP); audio information (call recordings where applicable); and professional or employment-related information (practice affiliation, provider role, specialty).
We do not collect Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, financial account numbers, precise geolocation, biometric information, or health information. We do not knowingly collect sensitive personal information requiring a right to limit its use.
Sources, purposes, and disclosures
Sources are described in Section 1, purposes in Section 2, and the categories of third parties to whom we disclose for business purposes in Section 3.
Sale and sharing
We do not sell or share for cross-context behavioral advertising the personal information you submit to us (such as your account, billing, or correspondence information), and we have not done so in the preceding 12 months.
We may license or publish aggregate, de-identified, or business directory data — for example market statistics or practice counts by city. To the extent any such offering were ever deemed a “sale” or “share” under California law, you may opt out using the contact methods below or by transmitting a GPC signal. We do not sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16.
Your rights
- Know / access the categories and specific pieces of personal information we collected, the sources, purposes, and recipients.
- Delete personal information we collected from you, subject to legal exceptions.
- Correct inaccurate personal information.
- Opt out of any sale or sharing.
- Non-discrimination — we will not deny service, charge different prices, or provide a different quality of service because you exercised a right.
How to exercise your rights
Email support@dental.me with the subject line “Privacy Request,” or use our contact page. We will verify your request by confirming information already in our records and, where appropriate, confirming control of the email address or practice concerned. An authorized agent may submit a request with written permission and proof of authority. We respond within 45 days and may extend once by another 45 days with notice.
Practice profile removal. A practice may request removal or correction of its profile through Data Corrections. We review every request. We may decline to remove lawful, accurate information about a business, but we will correct demonstrable inaccuracies.
8. Other state privacy rights
Residents of states with comprehensive privacy laws — including Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, Oregon, and others — may have rights to access, correct, delete, obtain a portable copy of, and opt out of certain processing of their personal information, and to appeal a denial. Use the same contact methods above; we honor these requests on the same basis. If we deny a request, you may appeal by replying to our decision, and you may contact your state attorney general.
9. Children’s privacy
The Services are intended for adults and for business use. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we will delete it.
10. Third-party sites and content
The Services link to and display data from third parties, including practice websites and mapping providers. Their privacy practices are their own and are not covered by this Policy.
11. Do Not Track
Browsers may transmit “Do Not Track” signals. Because no common standard has been adopted, we do not currently respond to DNT signals, but we do honor Global Privacy Control as described in Section 4.
12. Changes to this Policy
We may update this Policy. We will revise the “Last updated” date and, for material changes, provide notice through the Services or by email. Your continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance.
13. Contact us
[LEGAL ENTITY NAME] d/b/a Dental.me
[STREET ADDRESS]
[CITY, STATE ZIP]
Email: support@dental.me
Web: dental.me/contact
How this page supports the Dental.me directory
Dental.me organizes 249,344 dental practice profiles across 13,146 U.S. city directories and 56 state directories. Pages like Privacy Policy support that system by explaining how patients compare dentists, how practice teams improve profiles, how corrections move through review, how Featured placement stays separate from organic ranking, and how Dental.me keeps structured profile data useful for search engines and AI answer systems.
The public directory is built around a clear flow: state pages connect to city pages, city pages connect to ranked practice profiles and supported specialty paths, practice profiles connect back to parent cities, nearby alternatives, claim forms, correction forms, guide content, and methodology pages. That internal-link structure helps patients move from broad searches to specific dental offices, while giving dentists a direct path to strengthen the information patients see.
Dental.me keeps the broad national backbone visible while enrichment improves profile quality over time. Provider, practice, location, website, business-profile, rating, review, hours, map, category, owner-submitted, VA-reviewed, and correction data can all strengthen a profile. When a practice has stronger source-supported signals, those signals improve comparison quality and ranking context. When a practice has fewer public signals, it remains discoverable and can be improved through the claim, correction, and verification workflow.
Organic Dental.me rankings are independent. A dentist cannot buy a better organic rank or a better Dental.me Score. Paid Featured placements are premium visibility products, labeled separately, and kept apart from the organic list. This gives practice teams a real advertising path without weakening the trust patients expect from an independent directory.
For patients, the practical goal is simple: compare offices by city, specialty path, phone, address, website, provider names, ratings, review volume, hours, profile completeness, nearby alternatives, and Dental.me Score. For dentists, the practical goal is profile control: claim the profile, correct outdated information, add stronger details, and request paid visibility where appropriate. For search engines and LLMs, the practical goal is clean structure: visible facts, matching schema, canonical URLs, indexable sitemaps, and crawlable internal links.
Use the links below to move through the authority layer that supports the directory: Dental market data, dental guides, how Dental.me ranks dentists, verification methodology, advertising policy, claim your profile, and suggest a correction.
What happens after a patient or practice team uses this page
Patients usually move from this trust layer into a state hub, a city directory, a city-specialty page, or a specific practice profile. Those pages are where the practical comparison happens: office name, phone number, address, website, map links, rating and review count, hours, provider names, categories, nearby alternatives, Dental.me Score, and claim or correction paths. The trust layer explains why the comparison system is structured the way it is.
Practice teams usually move in the other direction. They search for the office profile, check the details patients see, submit a claim or correction, and then strengthen the profile with better phone, website, provider, category, hours, photo, FAQ, and business information. The more complete the profile becomes, the easier it is for patients to compare and the easier it is for Dental.me to keep the profile organized across city pages, specialty pages, guides, data studies, and schema.
How Dental.me keeps authority and monetization separate
Dental.me can be aggressive about visibility without confusing advertising with ranking. Organic results are built around independent comparison signals. Featured placements are commercial inventory and are labeled as Featured. Corrections and accuracy updates are not paywalled. A dentist can improve profile completeness by correcting or claiming the profile, and a dentist can buy additional visibility through Featured placement, but payment does not rewrite the organic order.
This is important for SEO, AEO, GEO, LLM citation, and trust. Search engines need to see that the same facts appear visibly on the page and in schema. Patients need to know when a result is organic versus sponsored. Dentists need a path to update their profile without paying for basic accuracy. Dental.me needs a scalable operating system that keeps those responsibilities distinct while the directory grows state by state.
What Dental.me checks before sending authority to a page
A page is strongest when the visible content, schema, canonical URL, sitemap status, and internal links all tell the same story. That means the public text should match the structured data, the page should link to the right state and city hubs, the profile or policy should explain the next action clearly, and old or ambiguous URLs should not compete with canonical routes. Dental.me uses those checks across city pages, profile pages, specialty pages, guides, market-data pages, and trust pages.
The same standard applies to back-office work. A correction request should create a review trail. A claim should connect to the right practice profile. A VA review should preserve notes and field-level evidence. A paid placement should be labeled without touching organic score. A profile update should improve the public page only when the supporting data is reviewable. That operating discipline is what lets Dental.me move fast without looking thin, messy, or pay-to-rank.
That is why these support pages matter. They are not side pages floating outside the product; they explain how Dental.me earns confidence while expanding quickly. The directory can be broad, commercial, and aggressive about visibility while still keeping profile accuracy, source support, ranking integrity, and patient usefulness at the center of the system.
For a national dental directory, this foundation matters at scale. A patient in a major metro and a patient in a smaller city both need the same clean path: find the city, compare the offices, review the profile, call or visit the website, and correct anything that looks off. The support layer makes that path explicit.
That same clarity is what helps Dental.me earn trust from dentists, patients, search engines, and AI systems while the directory expands.
Clear policy pages also reduce confusion before a practice team claims, corrects, advertises, or updates a profile.