Privacy policy

Rust Automation & Controls, Inc. has been a family-owned manufacturers' representative and distributor of valves, instrumentation and automation since 1976. Our headquarters is at 8070 South 1300 West, West Jordan, Utah 84088, with offices in Richmond and Irvine, California, and Centennial, Colorado.

This policy covers this website: the pages you browse, the quote request form, the Ask Rust assistant, and signing in if you have a Rust account. It does not cover separate systems that have their own terms, such as our online store or a manufacturer's own website you reach from a link here.

Our customers are businesses. The people who use this site are engineers, plant personnel, maintenance teams and buyers doing their jobs, and we treat the information you give us as work information about a real project.

If you read nothing else, read this.

• We collect what you type into the quote form, and what your browser sends us automatically. That is it.
• We use it to answer you and to run the site. We do not sell it and we do not share it for advertising.
• Nothing optional, including analytics, runs until you allow it. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, we treat that as no and never ask again.
• We do not run advertising or remarketing trackers on this site.
• You can ask us what we have about you, ask us to fix it, or ask us to delete it. Email [email protected].

The quote form is the main place this site collects personal information, and it collects only what we need to give you a real answer. Your name, a working email address, and a description of what you need are required. Everything else is optional and helps us route the request faster.

Here is the whole list of what the form can capture:

• Your name, and your company if you give it.
• Your email address, and your phone number if you give it.
• Where you are: city, state, ZIP code, and for California visitors, which of our offices is nearest.
• What you need: your description of the application or parts list, the market or industry, when you need it, the manufacturer lines involved, and how you would prefer we get back to you.
• Any files you attach, such as prints, drawings, spreadsheets or parts lists. Up to six files, 20 MB total.

When you submit the form we save the request first, before we send any email, so that your request is not riding on email delivery. If we cannot save it, we tell you to call us rather than pretending we have it.

Files you attach go into a private cloud storage bucket that is not readable by the public and is not indexed by search engines. The internal notification email does not carry your files as attachments; it carries download links that stop working after seven days. The files themselves stay in private storage.

The request itself goes to our inside sales team. Every web request lands in that one queue, and the reply comes from a person there. We also work out which sales territory you are in and put that on the record, because knowing who covers your area is useful context for whoever picks it up.

Your contact details also become a record in our customer system, alongside any other history we have with your company. That is how a request you send today is still findable years later when you call about the same equipment, and how whoever picks up the phone can see the whole picture instead of asking you to start over.

You get your own confirmation email with a reference number you can quote if you call us. When our team replies to the internal notification, the reply goes straight to you.

Some information arrives on its own when any browser visits any website. We keep it narrow and we do not use it to build a profile of you.

• Standard server and network logs from our hosting and content-delivery providers: the page requested, the time, the browser and operating system, and the network address the request came from. These exist to keep the site up, fast and secure.
• On a quote request specifically, we store your browser's user-agent string and the page you came from, alongside the request.
• Instead of storing your IP address on a quote request, we store a one-way scrambled version of it. We cannot turn it back into an address. It exists only so we can spot someone hammering the form, and it is what stops abuse without keeping the address.
• If you allow analytics, aggregate measurements of which pages, manufacturer lines and calculators get used. See the cookies section below.

The assistant on this site is built on Claude, an AI model from Anthropic. When you type a question, that message and the recent messages in the same conversation are sent to Anthropic's API so a reply can be generated, then the reply comes back to your browser.

We do not save the conversation. What we keep is a usage record that an assistant conversation happened, which model answered, and how many tokens it used, so we can see whether the feature is worth running. That record does not contain what you typed.

Anthropic acts as a service provider for this feature and processes your message to produce the reply. Treat the assistant like a helpful front desk, not a secure channel: please do not paste confidential specifications, pricing, or anything covered by an NDA into it. If your question involves information you would not put in an ordinary email, use the quote form or call us at (800) 772-0878.

The assistant does not quote prices, stock or lead times, and it hands real buying questions to a person.

Most of this site needs no account. If you do sign in, we use Google sign-in through Firebase, which means we never see or store a password.

We keep a user record with your account identifier, your email address, your display name, your profile photo link if Google provides one, the role your account has (such as employee, customer or vendor), and when you last signed in. A signed session cookie keeps you signed in for up to 14 days.

For signed-in visitors we also log which internal pages get viewed, so we can tell which tools are actually useful. That logging applies to signed-in activity only; browsing the public site anonymously is not tracked this way.

This site uses five cookies in total, and we control every one of them. There are no advertising trackers, no data brokers, and no third-party consent vendor loading its own script to ask you about cookies.

Nothing optional is switched on until you choose it. Analytics and marketing categories start denied before any tag can run, and if you later turn analytics off, we delete the analytics cookies from your browser instead of just stopping new ones. Google Analytics is not running today; if we turn it on, it will run only for visitors who allow it.

Every cookie is named and explained on our cookies page at /cookies.html, along with what each one does and how long it lasts. You can change your choices at any time from the Cookie preferences link in the footer of any page, and the change takes effect immediately.

We use what we collect for these purposes, and not for others:

• To stay in touch. Your details become a contact record in our customer system, and unless you tell us not to (or your record is marked do-not-email or do-not-contact), we may email or call you about products and lines, training and events, and the occasional friendly thing like a Christmas card. Every email of that kind carries a one-click unsubscribe, and once you unsubscribe we mark your record so it sticks.
• To send safety and recall notices. When a manufacturer issues a recall, a safety notice or a field advisory on equipment you bought from us, we will reach you about it by email or phone. These are not marketing. We send them whether or not you have opted out of marketing, because you need to know.
• To answer your quote request, size and select product, cross-reference a part, and follow up on the project you asked about.
• To route your request to the right people and know which territory covers you.
• To keep a record of the request so anyone here can pick it up, and so we can find it again when you call with your reference number.
• To operate, secure and troubleshoot the site, and to stop spam and abuse of the form.
• To understand in aggregate which pages and tools get used, so we build more of what helps you. Only if you allow analytics.
• To meet our legal, tax and recordkeeping obligations.

We do not sell your information and we do not trade it. We do use a small number of service providers to run this site, and they only handle your information to do work for us:

• Google Cloud, which hosts the site and stores the quote-request records and file attachments.
• Cloudflare, which delivers the site at the edge and filters malicious traffic.
• Google Workspace, which sends our email, including the notification to our team and your confirmation.
• Anthropic, which powers the Ask Rust assistant.
• Google Analytics, only if you allow analytics cookies.

Beyond those providers, there are only three situations where your information goes anywhere else.

• When you ask us to. If answering your request means going to a manufacturer we represent for an application review, a factory quote, or a special build, we share what that manufacturer needs to help you. This is ordinary manufacturers' representative work, and it is the point of sending us a request.
• When the law requires it, such as a valid legal process, or to protect our rights, our people, or the safety of others.
• If the business is ever sold or reorganized, in which case records transfer with it and this policy travels with them until it is replaced.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. There is nothing on this site that hands your browsing to an ad network, and there is no advertising or remarketing pixel here.

That means there is no opt-out link to click, because there is nothing to opt out of. If that ever changes, this policy, the cookie table and the consent banner all change with it, and the opt-out will be here before the tracker is.

If your browser or a privacy extension sends the Global Privacy Control signal, we honor it automatically. Everything optional stays off, and we do not show you a cookie banner at all, because you have already told us your answer.

You can still override it for your own browser in the cookie preferences panel if you want analytics on.

Quote requests, their attachments and the resulting correspondence are business records. We keep them while the opportunity is live, and after that for as long as we have a reason to: warranty and application history, repeat orders on the same equipment, and our own tax and legal recordkeeping. Equipment we quote often outlives the people who specified it, so a request from years ago is genuinely useful when you call about the same valve.

The download links in our internal notification emails expire after seven days, which is much shorter than the life of the record itself.

Cookie lifetimes are listed individually on our cookies page. Your account record lasts as long as you have an account with us.

This is a deliberate choice, not an oversight. In this industry a plant calls about a gauge or a valve that was specified fifteen years ago by someone who has since retired, and the quote record is often the only place the original part number, materials and process conditions still exist. Being able to find that is a service we want to be able to provide, so we keep quote and order history as a long-term business record rather than deleting it on a schedule.

If you would rather we did not, say so and we will delete your request and its attachments, unless the law requires us to keep them.

The whole site runs over encrypted connections. Your data lives in Google Cloud, encrypted in transit and at rest. File attachments go into a private bucket that is not publicly readable. Session cookies are marked secure and cannot be read by scripts in the page. We store a scrambled version of your network address rather than the address itself.

Access to quote requests is limited to Rust people who need it to do the work, and sign-in is delegated to Google so there is no password of yours for us to lose.

No system is perfectly secure, and we are not going to claim otherwise. If we ever have a breach affecting your information, we will tell you and the relevant authorities as the law requires.

California's privacy law gives residents specific rights, and we extend the same treatment to everyone who contacts us rather than checking your address first. You can:

• Know what we have. Ask us what personal information we hold about you, where we got it, why we have it, and who we disclosed it to.
• Get a copy. Ask for a portable copy of the information you gave us.
• Delete it. Ask us to delete what we hold, with the exception of records we are required to keep, such as completed transactions and tax records.
• Correct it. Tell us something is wrong and we will fix it. This one is in our interest too: a wrong phone number costs us a sale.
• Opt out of sale or sharing. We do not sell or share personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of, but the right stands.
• Stop the email. Every marketing message we send carries a one-click unsubscribe, and unsubscribing sets a permanent do-not-email flag on your record rather than just skipping one send. You can also simply reply and tell us to stop, or ask us to mark you do-not-contact entirely. Both work. Safety and recall notices are the one exception: we will still tell you if equipment you bought is affected.
• Not be penalized. Exercising any of these rights will not get you worse service, worse pricing, or slower answers. We do not run loyalty schemes or price differences tied to your data.

Email [email protected] with what you want, or call (800) 772-0878 and ask for support. There is no form to fill out and no portal to register for.

We will confirm we received your request within 10 business days and respond within 45 days. If a request is genuinely complicated we may need more time, and if so we will tell you why before the 45 days are up.

We do need to be reasonably sure you are who you say you are before we hand over or delete anything, so we may ask you to confirm details we already hold, such as the email address a quote request came from or its reference number. We use what you send for verification only, and then we are done with it.

If you want someone else to make a request on your behalf, tell us that in your email and we will tell you what we need to confirm they are authorized.

This is an industrial B2B site about valves, instrumentation and automation. It is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has sent us information through this site, email [email protected] and we will delete it.

We link out to the manufacturers we represent, to product configurators, and to our own separate tools. Once you leave this site you are on someone else's, under their privacy practices, not ours. We do not control what those sites collect, and a link from us is not an endorsement of how they handle your data. Worth a look at their policy if it matters to you.

When we change how this site handles information, we update this page and change the date at the top. If a change is significant, such as turning on a category of tracking we do not use today, we will make it obvious on the site rather than quietly editing this page. The cookie table, the consent banner and this policy are kept in step with each other on purpose.

Privacy questions, requests about your information, or a complaint about how we handled something, all go to the same place, and a person reads it.

Email [email protected]. Call (800) 772-0878 and ask for support. Or write to Rust Automation & Controls, Inc., 8070 South 1300 West, West Jordan, UT 84088.

If we get something wrong, tell us. Fifty years in this business has been built on people picking up the phone, and this is no different.