Directory takedown and correction requests

RFP.co publishes a directory of solicitations collected from public sources. This page explains what it contains, how to have a listing corrected or removed, and what happens to a request after it arrives. Send everything to legal@rfp.co.

1. What the directory publishes

Each listing describes a solicitation published elsewhere: its title, the issuing body, the instrument, the dates, the place of performance, a classification, and a link to the issuer’s own posting. Listings are generated from the sources RFP.co monitors — nothing on them is written by hand.

Whether any of the issuer’s own text appears is decided per source, from that source’s terms. A source whose terms have not been assessed contributes facts and a link and none of its prose; the listing then carries a sentence assembled from the record instead, and says so on the page.

No customer’s activity is in the directory. It is built from public sources only, and the table behind it has no column for a score, a match, a bid decision, an estimated value, a named contact or any customer’s activity. A customer’s own pursuit is not eligible for it and there is nowhere in the record for one to be written.

2. Who can ask, and for what

Five kinds of request, and each is handled differently:

• The issuer. A buying body that would rather its solicitation was not mirrored, or that has withdrawn it. We do not require you to assert a legal right — tell us and we will remove it.
• A rights holder. Copyright in text or an image reproduced on a listing. See §4 for what a notice needs.
• A source operator. A portal whose terms of use our collection or republication breaches. Tell us which term, and we will change the republication policy for that source rather than fixing one page.
• A named individual. A contracting officer or point of contact whose name, email or telephone number appears because the issuer published it in a notice. See §5.
• Anybody, about an inaccuracy. If a listing says something the issuer’s own posting contradicts, the posting is right and we want to know.

3. What to send

Email legal@rfp.co with the subject line “Directory takedown”. A request we can act on contains:

• The full address of each listing concerned.
• What the request is: copyright in the material, the source’s terms of use, an inaccuracy, personal data, or a solicitation the buyer has withdrawn.
• For a copyright or terms claim, identification of the work and a statement that you are the rights holder or are authorised to act for them.
• Your name, your organization and an address we can reply to.

A request that names an address we have no listing at is still recorded, so that “we have nothing there” is an answer we can give and evidence it.

4. Copyright notices

For a notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, send to the address above and include the six things section 512(c)(3) requires:

1. A physical or electronic signature of the owner or somebody authorised to act for them.
2. Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed.
3. Identification of the material claimed to be infringing, with enough detail for us to locate it — the listing address is enough.
4. Your address, telephone number and email address.
5. A statement that you have a good faith belief that the use is not authorised by the owner, its agent or the law.
6. A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information is accurate and that you are the owner or authorised to act for them.

We act on a complete notice expeditiously and will tell you what we did. If you believe material was removed in error, send a counter-notice with the elements in section 512(g)(3) and we will handle it under the same statute.

A note on what is usually at issue. The facts of a procurement — who is buying, what, by when, where — are not anybody’s expression and are what a directory is for. What copyright reaches is the issuer’s prose, and that is exactly what the per-source republication policy governs. Most notices we expect to receive are better resolved by changing a source’s policy than by removing a page, and we will say so if that is the case.

5. Personal data on a listing

Listings sometimes name a contracting officer or a point of contact, because the issuer published that name in a procurement notice. If that is you and you want it removed, write to privacy@rfp.co and we will remove it from the listing.

We will not remove your name from the issuer’s own posting, because we do not control it. Ask the issuer. Removing it here stops us republishing it; it does not unpublish the source.

Where you have rights under the GDPR, the UK GDPR or a U.S. state privacy law, the privacy policy explains how to exercise them and how quickly we answer.

6. What happens next

Every request is recorded when it arrives, with its claim and its statement, and is either upheld, rejected or withdrawn. A decision carries the reasoning behind it, and both the decision and the reasoning are kept whichever way it went.

Upholding a request suppresses the listing immediately and blocks it from being rebuilt. That is a permanent bar rather than a deletion the nightly pass would undo: the same solicitation arriving again tomorrow from a second source does not restore the page.

Rejecting one leaves the listing in place and records why. We will say so, and say what would change the answer.

Timing. We acknowledge a request within three business days and aim to decide within ten. A complete copyright notice is acted on expeditiously, ahead of that schedule.

7. Corrections

If a listing states something the issuer’s own posting contradicts, the posting is right. Tell us and we will correct the record — usually by fixing what the source we read it from gave us, which fixes every listing derived from it rather than one page.

That is why a correction is worth sending even about a listing you do not want removed: the fix reaches the collection rather than the symptom.

8. Listings that expire on their own

A closed solicitation keeps its page, marked closed, and leaves search results 30 days after its deadline. Its address stops resolving 365 days after that deadline. No request is needed for any of this — it is what the directory does by itself.

A solicitation with no stated deadline is treated as closed 180 days after publication, on the reasoning that a two-year-old “current opportunity” is worse than no listing.

9. Repeated or abusive requests

We record every request, including ones we reject. Where somebody sends notices we conclude are materially false, we may decline to process further requests from that party and will say so. Section 512(f) provides its own remedy for a knowing misrepresentation, and we reserve it.

10. Contact

Notices and takedowns: legal@rfp.co. Personal data: privacy@rfp.co.

Nead, LLC
1425 Broadway, Suite 22689, Seattle, WA 98112, United States