Privacy policy

[DRAFT: first-draft copy awaiting the owner's sign-off. Not final.]

Needs legal review. This privacy policy is a first draft written in plain language. It has not been reviewed by a lawyer and must not go live until it has been. It does not claim that AutoMotor News meets any particular law.

This page explains what personal data AutoMotor News collects, why, how long we keep it, and how to reach us about it.

Who we are

AutoMotor News is published by Lln group, UAB (company code 307043594), Pakraščio g. 10-111, LT-11342 Vilnius, Lithuania. Lln group, UAB is established in the European Union and is responsible for the personal data described here. For any privacy question or request, write to news@automotor.news.

Reading the site

You can read every page without an account. Our pages are hosted by Cloudflare, which processes technical data such as your IP address to deliver pages and protect the site from abuse.

Analytics

We use Google Analytics 4 to understand how many people read our pages, which pages they read and how they found them. Google Analytics uses cookies and similar technology and collects data such as pages viewed, approximate location, device and browser type, and the site that referred you. We use these reports only in aggregate, to decide what to cover and to improve the site.

The VIN check

When you use our free VIN and recall check, the VIN you enter is sent to our checking service, which looks it up with the public databases of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and shows you the result. We don't store or log the VIN. Today the check uses only NHTSA's databases; if we add another data source, such as Zilocar's, we will update this page first.

The newsletter

• We collect only your email address, its status (waiting for confirmation, subscribed or unsubscribed) and the dates of those changes.
• We use your address only to send the newsletter and the confirmation email.
• Sign-up is double opt-in: you are subscribed only after you click the link in the confirmation email. Sign-ups that are never confirmed are deleted after 30 days.
• Every issue has a one-click unsubscribe link. After you unsubscribe, we keep your address marked as unsubscribed so we don't email you again. To have it deleted completely, write to us.
• Emails are sent through Amazon Simple Email Service (SES). Subscriber records are stored with Cloudflare.

Email you send us

Messages to news@automotor.news, corrections@automotor.news and tips@automotor.news are stored so the newsroom can read and answer them, and a copy is forwarded to the publisher. If you send a VIN, a license plate or your contact details, we use them only to answer you and delete them after 30 days. Messages that make a legal claim or demand against us are kept longer, as records.

Journalists

We sometimes email journalists who cover cars and consumer protection about our data studies. We keep their work contact details only for that purpose and delete them if they ask us to stop.

Zilocar

AutoMotor News is published by Lln group, UAB, which has the same owners as Zilocar. We don't share your newsletter address with Zilocar. When you follow a link to Zilocar, Zilocar's own privacy policy applies on its site. Links to Zilocar include tracking parameters that tell Zilocar which of our pages you came from, not who you are.

Your requests

You can ask us for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, or ask us to correct or delete it, by writing to news@automotor.news. You can also complain to a data protection authority.

Changes

If we change this policy, we will update this page.