Privacy Policy

Information we collect

We collect the account information you provide, such as your name and email address, plus the vehicle-search preferences and cost assumptions you save in LotGauge. Those preferences can include ZIP code, search radius, vehicle criteria, financing assumptions, insurance estimates, trade-in values, taxes, fees, saved vehicles and notification settings.

When you use support or feedback features, we collect the messages and related account context you choose to send. We also keep operational records needed to run the service, such as search-run status, listing matches, subscription status and security/session information.

If you join the car finder beta list, we keep the email address and any optional details you enter (ZIP code, monthly budget, what you're shopping for and when you plan to buy) to invite you to the beta and tell you about LotGauge's launch. We don't sell this list. To be removed, reply to any of our emails or write to [email protected].

Public calculator and financial assumptions

The free public car payment calculator calculates financial scenarios in your browser. The vehicle price, down payment, trade, APR, insurance, fees and monthly budget you enter are not submitted to LotGauge servers to perform the calculation and are not automatically saved to an account. If you explicitly request an automatic sales-tax estimate, the calculator sends only the buyer registration ZIP, purchase type and (for dealer transactions) seller ZIP to LotGauge's rate-limited lookup. Our server may use a ZIP geography service to resolve the state and then reads previously verified, cached official tax rules and rates. This public lookup does not request new paid AI tax research. The ZIP lookup may create technical and security/rate-limit records, but does not save your financing inputs to an account.

Using the public calculator does not require registration, bank access, a Social Security number, income documents or a credit check. Manual tax entry remains available when an official-source cached ZIP estimate cannot be established. Normal website visits may still create technical, security or aggregate site-usage records as described elsewhere in this policy.

When you choose to save a signed-in vehicle-search profile, we retain the financing and budget assumptions needed to rank vehicle matches and perform any monitoring or alerts you enable. These may include down payment, trade-in equity, APR, loan term, insurance estimate, fees and monthly target. Adjusting a scenario in the signed-in deal calculator does not by itself overwrite those saved search settings.

How we use information

We use your information to provide and personalize vehicle searches, estimate true monthly costs, save your settings and vehicles, send requested notifications, maintain account security, provide support, improve reliability and enforce plan limits.

LotGauge may send vehicle criteria and listing identifiers to service providers used to discover or verify public vehicle inventory. We do not intentionally send your payment-card number to LotGauge servers.

AI-assisted support

When you use AI support, the text you send and the limited LotGauge account context needed to answer your question may be processed by third-party artificial-intelligence service providers, including OpenAI and backup AI providers used when the primary service is unavailable.

If you attach an image or PDF to a support conversation, that attachment and your related instruction may also be sent to an AI provider so the assistant can analyze it. Customer and widget support attachments are stored privately and are scheduled for deletion after 30 days. Do not include information in support messages or attachments that you do not want processed for this purpose. Human-support requests do not depend on the AI service.

Payments

Paid subscriptions are processed by Stripe. Stripe receives payment and billing information under its own privacy practices. LotGauge receives billing status, subscription identifiers and related account information needed to activate and manage your plan, but not your full payment card number. LotGauge does not ask you to connect a bank account or provide a credit report to estimate used-car costs.

Vehicle listings and external sites

LotGauge uses public dealer and marketplace information to identify and check vehicle listings. When you open a listing link, you leave LotGauge and the destination site's privacy policy applies. Dealers and marketplaces control their own listing pages, availability and tracking technologies.

Advertising

The Free plan may display third-party advertising; paid LotGauge plans are intended to remain ad-free. If ad technology is enabled, third-party vendors, including Google, may place and read browser cookies or use web beacons, IP addresses and similar identifiers to deliver, measure, protect and, where permitted, personalize advertising. Google's advertising cookies can enable Google and its partners to serve ads based on your visits to LotGauge and other websites. This is distinct from the private numerical inputs of the public calculator.

You can manage Google ad personalization in Google Ads Settings. Learn about opting out of certain other vendors' personalized advertising at aboutads.info. These choices may not remove all ads or essential service technologies. See also how Google uses data on partner sites.

We do not give advertising providers your individual public-calculator figures or saved financing assumptions for financial-profile ad targeting.

Free information pages (such as the calculator and guides) load Google AdSense; sign-in, account and search-results screens do not. Visitors in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland are asked for consent through Google's consent message before personalized ads are used. Visitors in US states with applicable privacy laws can use the "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information" link shown by Google's privacy message to opt out of the sale or sharing of their information for advertising. LotGauge also uses basic site analytics from our hosting provider to understand page usage.

To see how many people visit its public pages, LotGauge counts visits itself, without cookies and without any outside analytics service. For each visit it records the page (without anything typed into the calculator), the referring website's name, whether the device is a phone, tablet or computer, whether the visitor looks like an automated bot, and a one-way code made from your network address and browser with a random value that changes every day and is then deleted. That code can't be turned back into your address and can't link your visits across days. These records are deleted after 90 days.

Cookies and similar technologies

LotGauge uses cookies or similar browser storage where needed for authentication, security and core service operation. Third-party services may set their own cookies when their features are used or, for Free users, when advertising is enabled.

How we share information

We share information with service providers only as reasonably necessary to operate LotGauge, including hosting, authentication, email delivery, billing, AI-assisted support, vehicle search/verification and advertising when enabled. We may also disclose information when required by law, to protect users or the service, or as part of a business transfer subject to applicable law.

We do not sell or rent the financing assumptions you type into LotGauge to dealerships, lenders or data brokers for lead generation. We do not sell your personal information for cash. Third-party advertising technology, if enabled, can independently collect technical visit/device information as described in the Advertising section; this is not a claim that the website uses no cookies or tracking technology.

Data retention and your choices

We retain account and service data for as long as reasonably needed to provide LotGauge, meet legal or accounting obligations, resolve disputes and protect the service. You can change saved search and notification settings in the product.

You can delete your account yourself at any time from the Account page while signed in; this removes your saved search, matches, saved cars and notifications and cancels any active subscription. To request access or correction of account information, use the Help & feedback feature while signed in or email [email protected]. Some records may be retained where required for security, fraud prevention, legal or accounting purposes.

Security and children

We use reasonable technical and organizational safeguards, but no online service can guarantee absolute security. LotGauge is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as LotGauge changes. The effective date above identifies the current version. Material changes may also be communicated through the service when appropriate. Questions can be sent to [email protected].