Privacy Policy

Who We Are and What This Policy Covers

This Privacy Policy describes how Dealers Reviews (dealers-reviews.com), operated by Dealers Reviews, collects, uses, and protects personal information when you browse the site, create an account, or submit a review. It applies to everyone who uses the site, whether you read reviews without an account or write them with one.

Reading reviews is free and requires no account, no sign-up, and no personal information from you. This policy is not legal advice; it is our plain-English explanation of our actual practices.

Information We Collect

We collect information in three situations: when you create an account, when you submit a review, and — in a limited technical way — when any page loads. Here is the complete list:

• Account information: your email address, a public display name you choose, and your password. Passwords are stored only as cryptographic hashes — never in plain text — and no one at Dealers Reviews can see your actual password.
• Review content: your 1–5 star rating and written review, plus anything optional you choose to add — per-criteria scores (parts availability, service turnaround, warranty handling, sales honesty and pricing, trade-in fairness), purchase context (what you bought, type of visit, your state, month and year), and photos.
• Anti-abuse data: when you submit a review, we privately record the IP address and browser user-agent it was submitted from. This is used solely by our moderators to detect fake reviews, review rings, and other abuse. It is never shown publicly and is never attached to your published review.
• Optional proof documents: if you choose to upload a bill of sale or work order to earn a "Verified purchase" or "Verified service" badge, we hold that document temporarily and privately (see the Proof Documents section below).
• Essential cookies: a first-party session cookie that keeps you logged in. That is the only cookie we set.

How We Use Your Information

• To run your account: your email is used to sign in, to reset your password, and to send you service messages about your own reviews (for example, when a review you wrote is published or a moderation decision is made).
• To publish your reviews: your display name and, if you provided it, your state appear alongside your published review. Nothing else about you is published.
• To moderate and fight abuse: every review is read by a human moderator before it publishes. Moderators use the review content, the private IP address and user-agent, and any optional proof document to keep the platform honest — one review per person per dealer, no fakes, no manipulation.
• To verify purchases: an optional proof document is viewed only by a moderator, only to decide whether to grant a verification badge, and is then deleted.
• To keep the site working: the session cookie keeps you signed in as you move between pages.

What Is Shown Publicly

Your public identity on Dealers Reviews is your display name plus, only if you chose to include it, your state. That is all.

• Your email address is never displayed publicly, never shared with dealers, and never sold.
• Your IP address and browser information are never displayed publicly.
• Proof-of-purchase documents are never published — only the "Verified" badge they earn.
• Photos you attach to a review are public, but we automatically strip the embedded EXIF metadata — including any GPS coordinates and camera/device details — from the file before publishing, so that information can't leak from the photo itself.

Proof Documents: Private, Temporary, Then Deleted

Uploading a bill of sale or work order is entirely optional. If you do, here is exactly what happens: the document is stored privately, visible only to a human moderator, and used for one purpose — deciding whether your review earns a "Verified purchase" or "Verified service" badge. It is never published, never shared with the dealer, and never used for anything else.

Once the moderation decision is made, the document is deleted from our systems. Only the badge remains. We do not keep copies of your purchase paperwork.

Cookies

Dealers Reviews uses only essential first-party session cookies — the minimum needed to keep you logged in. We do not run third-party advertising cookies, tracking pixels, or ad networks of any kind.

We use standard search-engine tools (Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools) so that dealer pages can be found in search results. These tools help search engines index the site; they do not set cookies on your browser and do not track you on our pages.

We Do Not Sell Your Personal Information

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to anyone — not to dealers, not to advertisers, not to data brokers. We have not done so in the preceding 12 months and have no plans to. We also do not "share" personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising as those terms are defined under California law.

Dealers cannot buy access to reviewer information, and under our Independence Charter they cannot buy placement, badges, review removal, or rating changes either.

How Long We Keep Your Data

• Proof-of-purchase documents: deleted immediately after the moderation decision. This is our shortest retention period by design.
• Account information (email, display name, hashed password): kept for as long as your account is active, and deleted when you ask us to delete your account.
• Published reviews: kept for as long as they remain published, because the value of a review platform depends on its history. If a review is removed for breaking the posting guidelines, a public, dated record of the removal stays on the dealer's page so nothing quietly disappears.
• Per-review IP address and user-agent: retained privately for anti-abuse and moderation purposes, and never shown publicly.
• Session cookies: expire when your session ends.

How We Protect Your Data

• Passwords are stored only as cryptographic hashes, never in plain text.
• Proof documents are held in private storage accessible only to moderators, and are deleted after the moderation decision.
• Anti-abuse data (IP address, user-agent) is kept private and is accessible only for moderation and abuse prevention.
• Photos are scrubbed of location and device metadata before they are ever published.
• Access to personal information inside Dealers Reviews is limited to what moderation and support work actually requires.

Your Rights and Choices

You are in control of your information, wherever you live. You can:

• Request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• Correct your account information, including your display name and email.
• Delete your account and your personal information by emailing privacy@dealers-reviews.com.
• Choose what to include: per-criteria scores, purchase context, your state, photos, and proof documents are all optional.
• Decline to create an account at all — reading reviews never requires one.

California Privacy Rights (CCPA/CPRA)

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act, gives you specific rights. We honor them for all users, but California residents are entitled to them by law:

• Right to know and access: you may request the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, the purposes for collecting it, and the categories of parties it has been disclosed to. (Short version: the categories are listed in "Information We Collect" above. We do not sell or share your personal information; the only parties who ever handle it are the service providers that help us operate the site — such as our web host and email-delivery provider — and only as needed to run Dealers Reviews.)
• Right to delete: you may request deletion of your personal information, subject to legal exceptions.
• Right to correct: you may request that we correct inaccurate personal information.
• Right to opt out of sale or sharing: Dealers Reviews does not sell personal information and does not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, so there is nothing to opt out of. If that ever changed, we would provide the required opt-out mechanism first.
• Right to non-discrimination: we will never deny you service, charge you a different price, or degrade your experience for exercising any of these rights.
• How to exercise these rights: email privacy@dealers-reviews.com. We will verify your request using the email address on your account and respond within the timeframe required by law. You may use an authorized agent, in which case we may ask for proof of authorization.

Children's Privacy

Accounts on Dealers Reviews are intended only for adults 18 and older (see our Terms of Use). The site is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13, consistent with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

If you believe a child under 13 has created an account or submitted personal information, email privacy@dealers-reviews.com and we will delete it promptly.

Email and CAN-SPAM

The emails we send are primarily transactional and relationship messages: password resets, moderation decisions on your reviews, and responses to your requests. Consistent with the CAN-SPAM Act:

• We never use false or misleading subject lines or header information.
• Any non-transactional email will identify itself clearly, include a working unsubscribe mechanism, and honor opt-outs promptly.
• Opting out of non-essential email never affects your account or your reviews; we will still send messages necessary to operate your account, such as password resets and moderation notices.

Requesting Access or Deletion

To request a copy of your data, correct it, or delete your account and reviews, email privacy@dealers-reviews.com from the email address on your account. We will confirm receipt, verify that the request is really from you, and act on it. For general questions, contact support@dealers-reviews.com.

A Note on Review Content

Reviews are the opinions of the people who wrote them, not of Dealers Reviews. You keep ownership of the words you write; by publishing on the platform you grant Dealers Reviews a license to display, excerpt, and syndicate your review. As a platform hosting third-party opinions, Dealers Reviews is not the author or publisher of reviewer statements, consistent with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Changes to This Policy

When we change this policy, we will update the effective date at the top of this page. For material changes — anything that meaningfully affects what we collect or how we use it — we will also notify account holders by email before the change takes effect. Continued use of the site after a change takes effect means you accept the updated policy.

Governing Law and Contact

This policy is governed by the laws of the State of Missouri, without regard to conflict-of-law principles.

This platform is operated by Dealers Reviews. For a postal mailing address for legal or privacy notices, contact us at privacy@dealers-reviews.com.

Privacy and data requests: privacy@dealers-reviews.com. General support: support@dealers-reviews.com.