Your home inspection software answers this in its privacy policy, not on its sales page. Four clauses hold the answer: what it says about selling, what the law counts as a sale, who else touches the data, and what happens if the company is bought. Here is where each one sits, and what the wording means.
Your client list is the one thing in an inspection company nobody rebuilds for you. The names, the addresses, the agents sending you work, the history of every property you have walked. Most people have given up on knowing where data like this ends up. Pew Research Center surveyed 5,101 US adults in May 2023 and found 73% say they have little to no control over what companies do with the data they collect, and 67% say they understand little to nothing about what companies are doing with it (How Americans View Data Privacy, read 2026-08-28). You do not have to be in either group about your own vendor. The answer is written down, in a document you already agreed to, and finding it takes about twenty minutes.
Read the sentence, then read what the law lets it mean
Almost every vendor's privacy policy carries a line close to “we do not sell your personal data”. Read it, then read the definition sitting underneath it. California's privacy law defines the word much more widely than handing over a list for cash.
“‘Sell,' ‘selling,' ‘sale,' or ‘sold,' means selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer's personal information by the business to a third party for monetary or other valuable consideration.” California Civil Code section 1798.140(ad)(1), read 2026-08-28.
“Monetary or other valuable consideration” is the phrase doing the work. A referral fee counts. A revenue share counts. Cheap software in return for access to the contacts counts. A vendor denying it under those terms has told you something real. A vendor staying quiet about it has not.
The four clauses holding the answer
Open your home inspection software's privacy policy and use the page's own table of contents. Four sections carry the whole answer, and three of them are rarely the one people read.
- How we share your information. A policy worth trusting names its processors one by one, with a purpose beside each. A list of categories with no company names in it is a list of nobody.
- Sale or sharing of personal information. Under California law a business selling or sharing has to put a link titled “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” on its homepage. Its presence proves little on its own, because consent tools often show the control by default. Its absence, next to a policy saying nothing either way about selling, is worth an email.
- Business transfers. Almost every policy says customer data moves to the buyer if the company is acquired. It is a normal clause, and it is also how a list changes hands without anyone selling anything today.
- Marketing and affiliates, read for your clients rather than for you. The question is not whether the vendor markets to you. It is whether anyone markets to the homeowner whose number went in for an appointment reminder.
The public register, and how to search it
California keeps a public register of data brokers, and the definition it registers people against is the one you care about.
“A data broker is a business that collects personal information about consumers from various sources and sells that information to other companies, even when the consumer did not interact with the business for its products or services.” California Data Broker Registry, California Privacy Protection Agency, read 2026-08-28.
Any business meeting the definition registers with CalPrivacy every year, between 1 and 31 January, and the register is public and searchable. Type a vendor's company name into it. One limit to hold on to before you draw a conclusion: the duty falls on businesses meeting the definition and doing business in California, so a name missing from the register proves nothing by itself. A name found in it is a conversation. Since 1 January 2026 a California resident has been able to send one deletion request to every registered broker at once, and brokers had to begin processing those on 1 August 2026.
What to ask, in writing
A privacy policy changes without telling you. An email answer is dated, and it keeps.
- Do you sell personal information as California law defines it, including for other valuable consideration rather than money?
- Do you, or anyone you pass data to, advertise or market to my clients?
- Name every third party touching my client records, and the reason each one has to.
- If you are acquired, what happens to my client list?
- What comes out with me if I leave, in what format, and how long does it take?
- Has any of this changed in the last twelve months?
Scope's answer, including the clause we are not going to hide
Your client list is yours. We never sell your data, and we never advertise to your clients. Our privacy policy says it in section 5, and section 5.1 names every processor and its job: AWS for hosting, Stripe and Helcim for payments, Twilio for SMS, Google Analytics for site measurement, OpenAI for the AI features. Section 5.5 says mobile information collected for SMS, including numbers and opt-in records, is not shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. The plain-English version of all of it is on data and trust.
The clause the check above tells you to hunt for is in ours as well. Section 5.3 says customer data would transfer to the successor if Scope were merged, acquired, or sold, under the same privacy protections. Every policy of this kind carries a version of it. We would rather you read it here than find it yourself and wonder why we left it out.
And not sold does not mean never shared. An appointment reminder cannot reach your client unless the company sending the text holds your client's number. A vendor promising total secrecy is describing a product unable to send a confirmation. Ask who is on the list and why, rather than for a promise nobody keeps.
Twenty minutes with a privacy policy is nobody's idea of an evening. It is also the only way to answer this about the home inspection software already holding your list, rather than about the one you might buy next. Start with the vendor you are paying today.
Common questions
- Does home inspection software sell your client data?
- It depends on the vendor, and the answer sits in their privacy policy rather than on their sales page. Read the sharing section, the sale-or-sharing section and the business transfer clause, then put the question in writing. Scope does not sell your data and does not advertise to your clients.
- What counts as selling data?
- Under California law, selling covers disclosing, releasing, making available or transferring personal information to a third party for monetary or other valuable consideration. A referral fee or a revenue share counts, so “we take no money for lists” and “we do not sell” are two different statements.
- How do I check whether a software company is a data broker?
- Search the California Data Broker Registry, which is public. Businesses meeting the definition and doing business in California register annually in January. A name missing from it proves nothing on its own, because the duty does not reach every company. A name found in it is worth a conversation.
- Is “we never share your data” the same as “we do not sell your data”?
- No. Any product delivering an email or a text has to give the recipient's address or number to the company sending it. A vendor claiming nothing is ever shared is describing software unable to send an appointment reminder. Ask who is on the list and why.
- Does Scope sell my client data?
- No. Section 5 of our privacy policy states we do not sell your personal data, section 5.1 names every processor and its purpose, and section 5.5 states mobile information collected for SMS is not shared with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes.