Privacy Policy

Introduction

Golden Road Cars ("Golden Road Cars," "we," "our," or "us") is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use, store, share, and protect information obtained from individuals ("you" or "your") who visit our website, communicate with us, or use our online automotive consulting services.

This Privacy Policy is designed to help you understand your rights with respect to your personal information and how we handle that information in compliance with applicable laws, including the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) where applicable, and other relevant federal and Missouri state privacy regulations.

By accessing our website or using our services, you consent to the data practices described in this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with this Privacy Policy, please refrain from using our website and services. We encourage you to read this document carefully and contact us with any questions you may have.

Information We Collect

We collect several categories of information in connection with your use of our services. The specific information collected depends on how you interact with us and which services you use:

Information You Provide Directly:

• Contact Information: Your full name, email address, phone number, and mailing address when you complete contact forms, book consultations, or communicate with us directly.
• Vehicle Information: Details about the vehicle you are considering purchasing, including make, model, year, mileage, VIN, listing URLs, photographs, vehicle history reports, and any other documentation you share with us to enable our consultation services.
• Communication Content: The content of your messages, questions, and communications sent to us through email, contact forms, online chat, video consultations, or any other communication channel.
• Payment Information: When you pay for our services, payment processing is handled by our third-party payment processors. We do not store full credit card numbers or banking details on our servers. We may retain transaction identifiers, purchase amounts, and dates for accounting and customer service purposes.
• Service-Related Submissions: Any additional documentation, reports, photographs, or materials you voluntarily share with us in the context of a consultation engagement.

Information Collected Automatically:

• Usage Data: Information about how you interact with our website, including pages visited, time spent on pages, links clicked, referral URLs, and navigation paths.
• Device and Technical Data: Your IP address, browser type and version, operating system, device identifiers, screen resolution, and other technical characteristics of your device and internet connection.
• Cookies and Similar Technologies: We use cookies, web beacons, and similar tracking technologies to enhance your experience on our website, remember your preferences, and gather analytics data. See Section 08 for detailed information about our cookie practices.
• Log Files: Our servers automatically record certain information, including access times, error logs, and other diagnostic data, which may be used for security monitoring and service improvement.

Information from Third Parties:

• We may receive information about you from third-party sources, such as analytics providers, advertising networks, or publicly available databases, to the extent permitted by applicable law.
• If you access our services through a third-party platform or link shared via social media, we may receive certain profile information from that platform, subject to your privacy settings on that platform.

How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for the following primary purposes, all of which are aimed at providing, improving, and protecting our services and our relationship with you:

• Delivering Our Services: Using vehicle information, contact details, and consultation-related data to prepare and deliver the specific automotive consulting services you have requested, including evaluations, listing reviews, checklists, and digital consultation sessions.
• Communication and Support: Responding to your inquiries, answering questions, sending consultation summaries, providing follow-up guidance, and offering customer support related to your service engagement.
• Account and Booking Management: Processing service reservations, managing your consultation schedule, sending appointment confirmations and reminders, and maintaining accurate records of your service history with us.
• Payment Processing: Facilitating payment transactions, issuing receipts, managing billing inquiries, and maintaining financial records in compliance with applicable accounting and tax requirements.
• Service Improvement: Analyzing aggregated, anonymized usage patterns to understand how clients use our services, identify areas for improvement, develop new service offerings, and enhance the overall quality of our consultations.
• Marketing and Communications: Sending you relevant educational content, service updates, promotional offers, and newsletters where you have consented to receive such communications or where we have a legitimate interest in doing so. You may opt out of marketing communications at any time.
• Legal and Compliance: Complying with applicable laws, regulations, and legal obligations; responding to lawful requests from governmental authorities; enforcing our Terms of Service and other agreements; and protecting the rights, property, and safety of Golden Road Cars, our clients, and the general public.
• Security and Fraud Prevention: Monitoring for unauthorized access, fraudulent activity, and other security threats; investigating and responding to security incidents; and maintaining the integrity of our systems and services.

Legal Basis for Processing Personal Data

For clients located in jurisdictions where data protection laws require a legal basis for processing personal data (such as the European Economic Area under GDPR), we rely on the following legal bases:

• Contractual Necessity: Processing is necessary to perform the consultation services you have engaged us for and to fulfill our obligations under our Terms of Service.
• Legitimate Interests: We process certain data based on our legitimate business interests, such as improving our services, preventing fraud, maintaining security, and communicating with clients about their consultations, where such interests are not overridden by your rights and interests.
• Legal Obligation: We process certain data to comply with applicable laws and regulations, including financial record-keeping requirements and responses to lawful governmental requests.
• Consent: For certain processing activities, such as marketing communications or non-essential cookies, we rely on your explicit consent, which you may withdraw at any time without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing.

Information Sharing and Disclosure

Golden Road Cars does not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties for their own marketing purposes. We only share your information in limited circumstances as described below:

• Service Providers: We share information with carefully selected third-party service providers who assist us in operating our business and delivering our services, including payment processors, website hosting providers, email delivery platforms, video conferencing tools, and analytics providers. These providers are contractually obligated to protect your information and use it only for the purposes we specify.
• Legal Requirements: We may disclose your information when required by law, court order, regulatory authority, or government request, or when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our legal rights, prevent fraud, or respond to an emergency situation involving risk to personal safety.
• Business Transfers: If Golden Road Cars is involved in a merger, acquisition, reorganization, asset sale, or bankruptcy proceeding, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you of any such change and any choices you may have regarding your information.
• With Your Consent: We may share your information with third parties when you have given us explicit permission to do so, such as referrals to related service providers at your request.
• Aggregated Data: We may share de-identified, aggregated statistical data about our client base and service usage with partners or publicly for business and educational purposes. This data does not identify individual clients.

Data Retention

We retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, to provide our services to you, and to comply with our legal, accounting, and regulatory obligations. The specific retention period depends on the type of information and the purpose for which it was collected:

• Client and Consultation Records: We typically retain client consultation records, including vehicle information and related communications, for a period of three (3) to five (5) years following the completion of a service engagement, to enable follow-up support and to comply with applicable record-keeping requirements.
• Financial Records: Transaction and billing records are retained for a minimum of seven (7) years in accordance with applicable tax and accounting regulations.
• Marketing Communications: Records of marketing consent and opt-out preferences are retained for as long as necessary to honor your preferences, and for an additional period to demonstrate compliance with applicable marketing laws.
• Website Analytics Data: Aggregated, anonymized website analytics data may be retained indefinitely for historical trend analysis. Raw session-level data is typically deleted after twenty-four (24) months.
• Correspondence: General communications and support correspondence are typically retained for two (2) years following the resolution of the relevant inquiry or service engagement.

When we no longer have a legitimate need to retain your information, we will securely delete, destroy, or anonymize it in accordance with our internal data management procedures.

Your Rights and Choices

Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have certain rights with respect to your personal information. We are committed to honoring these rights to the extent required by applicable law. Your rights may include:

• Right of Access: The right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you, along with information about how we use and share it.
• Right to Correction: The right to request that we correct inaccurate or incomplete personal information we hold about you.
• Right to Deletion: The right to request that we delete your personal information, subject to certain legal exceptions (such as information we are required to retain for legal or accounting purposes).
• Right to Restrict Processing: The right to request that we limit the ways in which we use your personal information in certain circumstances.
• Right to Data Portability: The right to receive a copy of your personal information in a structured, machine-readable format and to transmit it to another organization, where technically feasible.
• Right to Object: The right to object to our processing of your personal information based on legitimate interests, and to object to receiving direct marketing communications.
• Right to Withdraw Consent: Where our processing is based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing prior to withdrawal.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the information provided in Section 12 of this Privacy Policy. We will respond to your request within the timeframe required by applicable law, typically within thirty (30) days. We may ask you to verify your identity before processing your request.

Cookies and Tracking Technologies

Our website uses cookies and similar tracking technologies to enhance your browsing experience, remember your preferences, and gather analytics about how our website is used. A cookie is a small text file placed on your device when you visit a website.

We use the following categories of cookies:

• Strictly Necessary Cookies: These cookies are essential for the basic functioning of our website, enabling core features such as page navigation, security, and access to service booking functionality. These cookies cannot be disabled without significantly impacting your ability to use our website.
• Analytics and Performance Cookies: These cookies help us understand how visitors interact with our website by collecting anonymous data about page visits, traffic sources, and user behavior. This information is used to improve website performance and content relevance.
• Functional Cookies: These cookies remember your preferences and settings (such as language preferences or previously viewed pages) to provide a more personalized experience on subsequent visits.
• Marketing Cookies: These cookies may be used to deliver relevant advertisements and to track the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns. These cookies collect information about your browsing habits and may be shared with our advertising partners.

You can control and manage cookies through your browser settings. Most browsers allow you to block or delete cookies, though doing so may affect certain website functionality. For more information about managing cookies, visit your browser's help documentation.

Data Security

Golden Road Cars implements a range of technical, administrative, and physical safeguards designed to protect your personal information against unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, destruction, and loss. These measures include encryption of data in transit using SSL/TLS protocols, access controls limiting data access to authorized personnel only, regular security assessments and monitoring, and secure data storage practices.

However, no method of electronic transmission or storage is completely secure. While we strive to protect your information using commercially reasonable security measures, we cannot guarantee absolute security. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure, please notify us immediately using the contact information in Section 12.

Children's Privacy

Our services are not directed to individuals under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18 years of age. If we become aware that we have inadvertently collected personal information from a child under 18, we will take steps to delete such information as promptly as possible.

If you are a parent or guardian and believe that your child has provided us with personal information without your consent, please contact us immediately at support@goldenroadcars.com. We take children's privacy seriously and will act promptly upon notification.

Third-Party Links and Services

Our website may contain links to third-party websites, tools, and services that are not operated by Golden Road Cars. This Privacy Policy applies solely to our website and services and does not govern the privacy practices of any third parties. We are not responsible for the privacy practices, security, or content of any third-party websites or services.

We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party services you access through our website. The inclusion of a link to a third-party website does not imply our endorsement of that website or any representations made therein regarding privacy or data practices.

When you use third-party payment processors to pay for our services, your payment information is subject to the privacy policy and terms of service of that payment processor. We recommend reviewing their policies before submitting any payment information.

Updates to This Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to update or modify this Privacy Policy at any time to reflect changes in our data practices, applicable law, or our business operations. When we make material changes, we will update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this policy and, where appropriate, notify you by email or through a prominent notice on our website.

We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed about how we collect, use, and protect your information. Your continued use of our services following the posting of changes constitutes your acceptance of the updated Privacy Policy.