This privacy policy covers the site http://lotgenius.com (individually, a "Website"). We encourage you to read this Policy carefully before providing any personal information on our Website. If you have questions or concerns regarding this Policy, you should contact our Consumer Privacy Advocate by e-mail at support@lotgenius.com.
Personal information collected on our Website is used to improve the content of our Website, customize the content or layout of our Website for individual users, provide services requested, notify users of updates to the Website, respond to any questions, problems or complaints, or request feedback and, subject to the limitations set forth below, to develop new products and services and to contact consumers for marketing purposes.
Lot Genius collects email addresses of consumers who communicate with us or through our authorized vendors via email. We also collect information about web pages visited (See Cookies and Web Beacons below) and other information that is provided by consumers either on our Website or in response to email communications from us.
We also collect information provided to us by consumers in purchase requests submitted through our Website or our authorized vendors' websites ("Purchase Request Information"). Purchase Request Information typically includes name, address, and phone numbers, email address and specific vehicle information.
In addition, consumers who express a desire to apply for vehicle financing provide us with and authorize us or third parties with which we have a business relationship to obtain from third parties necessary financial information such as credit reports ("Finance Information"). Finance Information typically includes name, address, and phone numbers, email address, age, occupation, income, social security number and other credit related data.
We do not provide financing, but instead transmit those requests to third-party vendors for consideration.
We may also collect other types of information during registration or in connection with your other activities on our Website, such as demographic information and information about or contained in postings you make in forums, blogs or any other interactive areas of our Website; your answers to surveys, your participation in sweepstakes, contests, games and promotional offers; and in any email request you send us for any reason (such as to request customer service or provide us with comments or feedback).
All information provided by consumers in any of the above-listed ways or otherwise becomes the property of Lot Genius once received by us and may be used and disclosed as permitted in this Policy.
If you choose to use our Website to tell a friend about our Website, we will ask you for your friend?s name and email address. We will automatically send your friend a one-time email inviting him or her to visit the Website. Lot Genius does not store this information. We use this third party information (email, name) for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email and tracking the success of our invite program.
Your friend may contact us at support@lotgenius.com to request that we remove this information from our database.
Lot Genius maintains relationships with outside service providers for some of the products and services offered on our Website. Certain of these providers are found on our Finance, New Car Quote, or other pages. The information these providers make available to you may be presented in a "framed" format, where the Lot Genius border will surround the pages served by the service providers, or by directly linking the user to the vendors' websites. In either case, the provider is prominently identified. Please be aware that any information you provide on such pages is provided directly to those providers and is subject to their security and privacy policies. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of these outside providers because their privacy policy and practices may differ from ours. Our content may be displayed on or through third-party websites through the use of inline frames or other framing techniques. We may collect personal information in such framed pages or content located on or provided by third-party websites. When you submit personal information to us in this manner, it is treated as personal information under this Policy. The collection and use of personal information by the third-party website directly (i.e., outside of our content framed pages) is governed separately by the privacy policy of those websites.
If you browse through our Website without entering any personal data, we will gather and store certain information about your visit. This information does not identify you personally and cannot be linked back to you unless you decide at some point to identify yourself. However, see Cookies and Web Beacons below.
Lot Genius may offer its users the advantage of personalization on our Website by using Cookies. (See Cookies and Web Beacons below.) Lot Genius may track consumer interest in goods and services marketed to users who are members of our on-site personalization areas. This information is used solely by Lot Genius and its affiliated companies for business purposes.
We share your personal information with third parties in order to identify products or services in which you may have interest, to improve our user experience and generally to engage in market research and for other internal business purposes. We may also aggregate your personal information with others' information and prepare reports on Website usage, purchase history or other factors for sale or distribution to others. Those reports are aggregated and include no personally identifying information. In addition, personal information provided on our Website may be linked together or merged with other personal information we obtain about you so that we may better understand your needs and inform you about our products or services and those of third parties with which we have a business relationship. Also, if we receive personal information from third parties with whom we have business relationships, we may combine this information with the other personal information we maintain about you. In either case, this Policy governs our use of this information. Finally, we may use your personal information to send you communications regarding products or services offered by us or by third parties in which we think you may be interested unless you have declined to receive these third party communications. See Your Right To Decline Communications From Us and Others below.
In addition to our own internal uses of your personal information, we may provide your personal information to non-affiliated third parties under one or more of several circumstances:
In addition, we may release personal information when we believe release is appropriate to protect our users or others from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful use of our Website or its services; to protect our rights or property; to enforce policies or contests, sweepstakes, promotions, or game rules; or if we reasonably believe that an emergency involving immediate danger of death or serious physical, economic or other harm to any person requires disclosure of communications or justifies disclosure of records without delay.
Purchase Request Information is used to transmit to third parties requests for products or services and to contact consumers regarding vehicles. Similarly, Finance Information is used to transmit third party requests for vehicle financing. Typically, in either case the information is transmitted to dealers, manufacturers, lenders or fulfillment entities, as applicable, who may be in a position to respond to your request. As part of the request process, we may verify the information you provide, or obtain omitted address or other contact or demographic information, from third parties.
Occasionally, in the case of Purchase Request Information or Finance Information, when Lot Genius does not have a dealership or lender available to assist you, we may forward your request information to a manufacturer or another referral service for transmission to a dealer or lender. Your submission of the request authorizes us to do this. Any Purchase Request Information or Finance Information forwarded in this way becomes subject to the security and privacy policies that are posted on the websites of those third parties.
Similarly, Purchase Request or Finance Information transmitted to a dealer, manufacturer, lender or fulfillment entity becomes the property of that dealer, manufacturer, lender or fulfillment entity, in addition to Lot Genius. The information is used to process your request and to provide you with information about goods and services. Any request to opt-out of future dealer, lender, manufacturer or other third-party communications must be made directly to that third party.
We provide our users with the ability to choose whether to receive certain communications from us and whether to permit their information to be disclosed to third parties for marketing or related purposes.
Users who come directly to our Website will not receive those communications or have their information disclosed to third parties for marketing or related purposes unless they affirmatively consent or are already receiving such communications.
Users whose purchase, finance or other requests are submitted through third-party websites and are referred to us will receive those marketing communications and their information will be shared with other third parties unless they elect to opt out of those communications and disclosures.
To opt out of a category of email from us, click on the remove link at the bottom of the email. Alternatively, you may email Customer Service at support@lotgenius.com with the word "Remove" in the subject line, and we will remove you from all further email marketing communication within five (5) business days. You may also opt-out at any time by contacting us at support@lotgenius.com.
In addition, we provide you the opportunity to indicate your preferences as to what types of offerings of products or services you wish to receive from third parties or ? subject to the exceptions below - to opt-out of disclosures to those third parties altogether. You may update your preferences at any time by contacting us at support@lotgenius.com. Those third parties who receive your personal information prior to your opt-out will remain able to send you communications, subject to their privacy policies and practices.
In each case, even if you decide not to receive offers or other product or service information, Lot Genius and its member dealers or manufacturers, fulfillment third-parties and other automotive referral services, may use a phone number, mailing address or email address that you have provided to contact you regarding a request or content that you have submitted or in connection with other administrative matters, such as operation of our Website. Additionally, phone numbers may be used to conduct customer surveys regarding individual experiences with Lot Genius or Lot Genius-accredited dealers. Phone numbers are made available only to Lot Genius, its affiliates and member dealers, lenders or manufacturers or other referral services who receive your request.
The submission of a purchase or financing request itself is permission for us to submit your Purchase Request Information or Finance Information (as applicable) to third parties to fulfill your request. If you request to opt-out of receiving emails from us and subsequently submit a purchase or finance request (either directly or submitted through third-party websites and are referred to us), we will assume that you wish to reinstate your relationship with us and we will use your information as set forth herein, unless you subsequently request to opt-out. Each time you submit a purchase or finance request, this process will restart.
Lot Genius understands the importance of security for our users. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. In particular, we use SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption technology to protect personal data such as credit card information and finance or insurance information during transmission, and maintain other commercially reasonable precautions to protect information that we store or retain.
No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. We cannot guarantee protection of all information against interception, misappropriation, misuse, or alteration, or that your information may not be disclosed or accessed by accidental circumstances or by the unauthorized acts of others. Furthermore, we have no control over the security of other websites you might visit.
We restrict access to personal information about you to our employees and third parties who need to know that information in order to manage your account or provide you with services or information you requested. We review our safeguards from time to time, and strive to maintain them in a manner consistent with applicable regulations, if any, that may be in effect from time to time. Any of our employees who violate these policies and procedures are subject to disciplinary action.
If you have any questions about security on our Website, you can send an email to us at support@lotgenius.com.
We do not intend, and the Website is not designed, to collect personal information from children under the age of 13. If you are under 13 years old, you should not register with or otherwise provide personal information to our Website.
You may also make corrections and updates to your personal information by contacting support@lotgenius.com.
Lot Genius offers users the convenience of online personalization by using Cookies. Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that are transferred to your computer's hard drive through your website browser. When this information is stored on your hard drive, our system is able to recognize your browser and in turn customize web page content for you. (See Personalization above)
Cookies cannot be used to retrieve data from your hard drive, obtain your email address or obtain personal information about you. When a Cookie is set, your browser will check it for length, an expiration date, and where it originated.
We also use a third party tracking service that sets cookies on our Website to track visits, page views and click stream behavior. The third party tracking service reports this data to us in aggregate so we can better understand our users and to improve our Website. This information is not tied to any individual user. We have no access to or control over these third party tracking utilities.
If you prefer not to accept cookies, most browsers will explain how to disable cookies under the help portion of the toolbar or notify you when you receive a new cookie. However, if you choose to disallow cookies on your hard drive, our Website will not be able to provide personalization services.
These advertising or other service providers may place "web beacons" on our Website. A web beacon is a small, transparent image placed at various sections of our Website or in Web-based documents or in email messages to monitor user traffic. The web beacon records the number of click-throughs to the page where it resides and collects users' IP addresses, time the page was viewed, type of browser used, and existence of cookies from a previous visit. Among other things, they help to better target advertisements on our Website. Information collected by web beacons is used only by Lot Genius, its affiliates and authorized vendors. Web beacons may be linked to your personal information.
Information about our users and our Website is a business asset of Lot Genius. As we continue to develop our business, we might sell or buy websites, subsidiaries or business units. In such transactions, personal information generally is one of the transferred business assets but remains subject to the promises made in any pre-existing privacy policy. Also, in the event that Lot Genius or substantially all of its assets are acquired, personal information will of course be one of the transferred assets. In addition, personal information will be disclosed as part of any creation of a separate business to provide our Website, or to provide other services or fulfill products; debt financing, sale or pledge of company assets, or insolvency, bankruptcy or receivership. We will make reasonable efforts to ensure that the acquirer of our users? personal information respects the provisions of this Policy, although this may not be possible in certain legal settings (such as bankruptcy).
If we are going to use your personal information in a manner different from that stated in this Policy at the time of collection, we will notify you via email. You will have a choice as to whether or not to allow us to use your information in this different manner. In addition, if we make any material changes in our privacy practices, we will revise this Policy and update the date displayed at the top of this Policy to reflect that the policy has been changed. In some cases we will also email users who have opted to receive communications from us, notifying them of the changes in our privacy practices.
We take our commitment to protection of your privacy, as set out in this Policy, seriously. Nevertheless, NOTHING IN THIS PRIVACY AND SECURITY POLICY IS INTENDED TO CREATE OR PROVIDE ANY RIGHT OF ACTION FOR VIOLATION.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding privacy, security, opting-out of email offers or understanding how your personal information is being used, please contact our Consumer Privacy Advocate at support@lotgenius.com.
For any other issues, please contact our customer service department at support@lotgenius.com.