CarSoup of Minnesota, Inc. ("CarSoup"), has adopted this Privacy Policy for its www.carsoup.com website (the "Site"). The Policy describes situations in which information about users of the Site is collected, the purposes and use of that information, and choices you can make about information that pertains to you. In this Policy, CarSoup and its franchisees are referred to as "we" or "our." Users of the Site are referred to as "you."

We are an online publisher of information about vehicles and vehicle-related products and services. Much of the information we publish is aggregated from people and businesses who offer vehicles for sale. Other information is obtained from third parties. We try to make it easy to use the Site and to deliver relevant information to you and other users. In order to accomplish these goals, we need to collect information from or about users of the Site.

In some geographical areas we have created franchise relationships in which we license use of the Site and of the CarSoup® trademark to enable a franchisee to be the entity who compiles and publishes information about vehicles in that geographical market. In those cases, the franchisee also has access to information collected from or about visitors to pages of the Site that relate to its franchise. Our agreement with franchisees is that they will adhere to the terms of the privacy policies.

We may also establish relationships in which the Site is integrated into a third party website, whether belonging to a franchisee or not (e.g. forming an arrangement by which the Site can be accessed from a tab or button on another site). The CarSoup Privacy Policy is specific to information that is collected about users of the Site. We generally do not know, and cannot be responsible for how information about you is handled once you leave our Site.

There are three general types of information that may be collected as a consequence of your use of the Site. The most common is what we describe as "anonymous information." It is anonymous in the sense that it ties to an IP address, i.e. the machine used to generate the visit to the Site, but provides no information that is specific to the user of that machine. The second is personally identifiable information ("PII"). PII includes your name, address, e-mail address, phone number, or other information that is specific to you. Any PII we collect or use about you would have originally been provided by you. Finally, we may obtain credit card information if you purchase products or services from us. We handle different types of user information in different ways. The type of information being collected impacts on whether or how much third party access is permitted.

In order to make user visits to our Site more productive and enjoyable, we use "cookies" to track those visits. A cookie collects anonymous information. It allows us to know if users of a particular computer have been on the Site before and, if so, enables us to immediately provide users of that computer with information that ties to a geographical location or previous interest. Cookies are downloaded onto your computer from our servers. They cannot be opened or run by us on your computer and they cannot infect your computer with viruses. You can disable cookies or otherwise manage them through tools provided with your browser software and with commercially available software packages. If you turn off cookies, though, many CarSoup features will not work as well or at all. Furthermore, if you simply delete cookies, you should be aware that another cookie will be downloaded on your next visit to the Site. It is a process that happens automatically.

We also collect anonymous Site visit information in order to measure online marketing activity, to determine how the Site is working, to evaluate the content on the Site about which users are interested, and to otherwise try to make the Site meet user needs. Generally information captured for these purposes is reviewed and utilized in an aggregated fashion. That is, we focus more on number or frequency of uses than on any particular visit.

We allow third party companies ("Ad Networks") to serve ads on our Site and, in some instances, to collect certain anonymous information about users of the Site. These Ad Networks may use non-personally identifiable information (e.g. click stream information, browser type, time and date of visit, subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over) during your visit to the Site in order to provide advertisements about goods and services that are likely to be of greater interest to you than what would otherwise appear. Ad Networks typically use a cookie or a web beacon to collect anonymous information about activities on the Site. Review of those activities help Ad Networks develop a "profile" of users of your computer that, in turn, results in advertising being targeted to perceived interests of the users of your computer. A description of the user experience benefits of filtering out irrelevant messages appears on www.networkadvertising.org.

Ad Networks also collect anonymous information about the number of visitors who view or are exposed to an advertisement served by them on the Site. That information is primarily used for purposes of being able to report to the advertiser or to us. We also collect anonymous information about visitors who are exposed to advertising on our Site.

Another way that Advertising Networks may use anonymous "profile" information about users of your computer is to provide to you targeted information and advertising when you visit another website that is a part of their network. Targeted ads may be served to you on our Site based on a profile built from your visits to other websites participating in a network. Similarly, your activities on our Site may create or contribute to a profile that affects what ads are served to you on other websites in that network.

We will not allow third party advertising networks to collect information about visitors to our Site if we become aware that the networks are selling, renting, or sharing any of the anonymous data with other third parties. Third party Advertising Networks provide “opt out” mechanisms that are described in the "Privacy Choices" section of our Privacy Policy.

Advertisements and promotional offers from third party advertisers, sponsors, affiliates and service providers appear on the Site. Some of those advertisements and promotions may be served on the Site by third party Ad Networks. Others are the result of advertisements or sponsorships sold by us or our franchisees. If you click on a link contained on one of those advertisements, you are accessing a website that is not owned, operated, or controlled by us. The operator of that site may have its own privacy policy, which you should carefully review and which will govern the collection and use of information on that site. We are not responsible for any PII or other information collected or provided on the site of an advertiser, sponsor, affiliate, or other entity to whose website you can link from our Site.

CarSoup’s Site products and services are neither developed for, nor directed at children. We do not employ or offer targeting toward children under the age of 18. If you believe that your child has provided us with personal information and would like to have that information deleted, you can contact us in the manner described in the “Contacts” section of this Privacy Policy.

We may collect information about you through social media accounts affiliated with CarSoup. Unless you specifically choose to allow that information to be used in other ways (like e-mail newsletters or contests), we will only uses the information accessible as a consequence of contact by you through your social media account to contact you through the same social media channel where the original connection was made.

When you register with us in order to use Site features such as MyGarage and Car Detective, it is with the purpose of enabling us to communicate directly with you to further the purposes of the services for which you are registering. We also collect PII when you purchase products and services from us, including advertising of a vehicle, or purchase products or services from third parties through us (e.g. vehicle history reports). In those cases, our primary purpose for collecting the information is to enable prompt and accurate processing of your order. If a third party product is involved, we will provide your PII to the seller of that product for the same purpose. The seller’s use of information about you is solely governed by the seller’s privacy policy. Finally, personally identifiable information could be collected in connection with your participation in contests or other promotions organized by us. In that case, the information would be used in connection with administration of the contest or promotion. Other purposes for which PII obtained by us may be used (a) include you in email, website or direct mail announcements that contain information perceivable to be of relevance to you, and (b) to conduct audits, research or other analysis about either operation of the Site or products or services offered on the Site. You can opt out of those uses. Furthermore, we will not use your PII to contact you by telephone or text message unless you expressly consent (opt in) to that contact. Except for the relatively remote possibility described below, we will not sell, rent, or share any of your personally identifiable information to or with third parties unless you have expressly consented to that use. However, if CarSoup were to be sold, the PII we have compiled would likely be sold as part of that transaction unless you have opted out of that use. That PII would, though, be subject to the same limitations on use by the buyer that are described in this Privacy Policy.

When you purchase services from CarSoup through use of a credit card, we collect information that is of a more sensitive nature. That credit card information is used only to process orders placed with us. We utilize secure server software (SSL) to encrypt all account and personal information you input in connection with processing of an order. We also segregate customer credit card data to protect it from unauthorized access.

As a consequence of use of the Site, you may provide personally identifiable information to third parties, including dealers and private parties who have listed vehicles for sale on the Site. An example of this information sharing is filling out a form to obtain a price quote on a vehicle. We do not control, and are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of the recipient of information you provide to a third party via the Site. That is also true of communications with buyers or sellers of vehicles or other products and services that occur after you have left the Site. For that reason, we encourage you to be careful about information provided to parties with whom you are not familiar. We have provided information on the Site about that topic.

We develop, implement and periodically review procedures that are intended to protect personally identifiable information and any sensitive financial information stored by us.

If you wish to know whether we have collected personally identifiable information about you, you can direct your inquiry to privacy@carsoup.com. We will use good faith efforts to respond within a reasonable time to your inquiry. Similarly, we will use good faith efforts to respond within a reasonable time to any requests to you may make to update or change any PII which has been collected by us about you. As noted previously, we will not use your PII to contact you via telephone or text message without your prior express consent (opt in). If you do not want us to use your personally identifiable information to include you in e-mail, direct mail, or website announcements, you can opt out of that use of your personally identifiable information. That opting out can be accomplished by clicking “unsubscribe” on an e-mail if that choice is provided or by contacting us at privacy@carsoup.com. We will not disclose your personally identifiable information to third parties for marketing purposes without your express consent (opt in). If you do not want anonymous profile information to be used by third party Ad Networks, whether on the Site or on other sites, you can opt out of that use. We try to work only with third party advertising networks who are members of the Network Advertising Initiative. Consequently, you can generally opt out of online advertising tailored to user interest profile by going to http://networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp . Note, though, that if you thereafter delete cookies, change browsers, or use a different computer, you will need to again opt out if you wish to continue to avoid targeted advertising. If the opt out mechanism available on networkadvertising.org does not work, please feel free to contact us at privacy@carsoup.com. Finally, if there are legally-required opt in or opt out choices that apply to us and are different from what is in this Policy, we intend to comply with those legal requirements. Please let us know if you believe that information about you needs to be handled differently from what happens under our current practice.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us at privacy@carsoup.com or to write us at CarSoup of Minnesota, Inc., Attention Privacy Issues, 1401 East American Boulevard, Suite 6, Bloomington MN 55425.

By using the Site, you consent to the collection and use of information in the manner described in this Privacy Policy. If you feel that we aren’t following our Privacy Policy with respect to information about you, please contact us at the e-mail address, mailing address, or phone number contained above. Any unresolved disputes about our collection or use of information collected about you shall be subject to our Terms of Use of Site and shall be exclusively resolved by the method described in that Terms of Use.

We may change this Policy at any time. When we make changes to the policy, we will update the date in this section. Please check the Privacy Policy from time to time to see whether there have been any changes that would affect your decision to use the Site or to opt in or opt out of uses of your information.