Privacy Policy

What we collect

When you visit ProblemsByVin, our hosting provider (Vercel) and our analytics provider (Google Analytics 4) automatically collect:

• Your IP address (used to determine general geographic region)
• Browser type and version
• Operating system
• Pages you view and the order you view them
• How long you spend on each page
• The referring website or search query that led you here

Information you choose to give us

Browsing the site needs no signup. We only hold personal information you choose to give us through these features:

• Monthly vehicle report and alerts: your email address and the vehicle you ask us to watch (year, make, model, and the mileage or VIN if you enter them). We use it only to send that report, after you confirm your address, and every email has an unsubscribe link.
• Press recall alerts: your email address, name, outlet, and beat, used only to send those alerts.
• Dealer and seller accounts: your email address and a password, plus the business details and vehicle listings (including VINs) you add. Passwords are held by our authentication provider (Supabase Auth); we never see or store them ourselves.
• Contacting us: if you email us, we use your address only to reply.

To delete any of this, use the unsubscribe link, delete your listings from your account, or email contact@problemsbyvin.com.

We do NOT collect or store:

• VINs you look up (lookups decode through NHTSA's public API and we do not store the results; only a VIN you add to an alert or a dealer listing is kept)
• Payment information (we have no checkout)
• Saved vehicles in My Garage, which stay in your own browser and are never sent to us

How we use this data

• To understand which pages are useful and which need improvement
• To detect and prevent abuse (bot traffic, scraping)
• To comply with legal requirements when applicable

We do not sell your data. We do not share it with advertisers for ad targeting. We do not build behavioral profiles for resale.

Third parties that receive data

• Google Analytics receives anonymized usage data per the Google Privacy Policy.
• Vercel (our hosting provider) receives server logs and request metadata per the Vercel Privacy Policy.
• Supabase stores subscriber, press-alert, and dealer-account records and handles dealer sign-in, per the Supabase Privacy Policy.
• Resend delivers our emails (confirmations, reports, alerts, password resets) and receives the recipient address to do so, per the Resend Privacy Policy.
• Affiliate networks (MaxBounty for our extended-warranty referral links) receive a click identifier when you click an affiliate link. This identifier confirms whether your visit resulted in a referral and does not transfer your personal information. See affiliate disclosure in our Terms of Use.

YouTube API Services

ProblemsByVin uses YouTube API Services to publish videos to our own YouTube channel (@ProblemsByVin) and to show those videos on this site. By watching our videos or the YouTube players embedded on this site, you are also bound by the YouTube Terms of Service, and Google handles that data under the Google Privacy Policy.

• What our API client accesses: only our own channel. It uploads videos we make, sets their titles, descriptions and thumbnails, adds them to our playlists, posts one comment on our own videos, and reads our own list of uploads so we don't post duplicates and so this site links the right video.
• What we store: the IDs, titles and publish dates of our own videos. We do not access, collect, store or share any information about YouTube viewers or any other YouTube user, and we never ask you to sign in with Google.
• Embedded players: YouTube videos on this site use YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode (youtube-nocookie.com); on our vehicle pages the player loads only after you click play. Once a player loads, YouTube may set cookies or collect data under the Google Privacy Policy.
• Revoking access: we do not ask anyone for access to their Google account. If you ever authorized an app with your Google account, you can revoke it at any time at Google security settings.
• Deletion: we hold no YouTube user data to delete. For any other data request, email contact@problemsbyvin.com and we will respond within 30 days.

Your rights

California residents have rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) to request information about, deletion of, or opting out of the sale of personal information. Email contact@problemsbyvin.com to exercise these rights. (Note: we do not sell personal information.)

EU and UK residents have rights under GDPR including access, correction, deletion, and data portability. Email contact@problemsbyvin.com to exercise these rights. Our lawful basis for processing is legitimate interest in operating and improving a free informational website.

Opting out of analytics

You can opt out of Google Analytics tracking by:

• Installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on
• Using a browser with privacy protection (Brave, Firefox with strict mode)
• Using browser extensions like uBlock Origin or Privacy Badger

Children

This site is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 13.

Changes to this policy

If we update this policy, we will change the "Last updated" date above. Material changes will be noted on the homepage for a reasonable period.

Contact

Questions about this policy: contact@problemsbyvin.com