Privacy Policy
Short version: you don’t need to give us any personal information to use Lost Homesteads, and we never sell anything about you.
What We Collect
The map view you ask the AI to scan. When you press “Ask AI to Scan This View,” pictures of that map view (ground, photo, old map) and its location are sent to Anthropic’s Claude API to be read, and the results come back to your screen. We do not keep these pictures. Anthropic processes them under its commercial terms, which do not allow it to train its models on them.
A one-way scrambled form of your network address. Not your actual address — a scrambled version that cannot be turned back. It only counts your free scans each day so one person can’t run up our bill. These daily counters are deleted automatically after two days.
Scan pass codes. If you buy a scan pack, your pass code is saved in your own browser so you don’t have to retype it. On our server we keep only a scrambled form of the code and how many scans are left on it.
Payments
Scan packs are paid through Stripe. Your card details go straight to Stripe and never touch our site. Stripe tells us only that a payment went through.
Affiliate Links
Some links on our Gear page go to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases — a small commission at no extra cost to you. Amazon may set its own cookies when you follow one of those links; that is Amazon’s activity under Amazon’s privacy policy, not ours.
Maps and Other Services
The map pictures come straight to your browser from the U.S. Geological Survey, Esri, OpenStreetMap and the Maine GeoLibrary, the map software comes from the cdnjs and jsDelivr networks, and the lettering from Google Fonts. Like any website, those services see your network address when your browser asks them for a picture. We set no advertising cookies and run no analytics or tracking.
Children
This site is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect information from them.
Your Choices
Write to jim@guardianstonecare.com with any question about your information, or to ask us to delete a pass code. You don’t need to give a reason.
Lost Homesteads is operated by L&E Operations LLC, Vassalboro, Maine. This policy was last updated on 6 November 2026.