Privacy
What we collect
Very little. There are no accounts, no advertising trackers and no analytics scripts, and the only form that collects anything is the optional contact form, described below.
Your VIN
The VIN decoder runs in your browser. The VIN you type never leaves your browser: it is not sent to this site or anyone else, not put in the page address, and not saved. The only thing your browser downloads is the same set of rule tables every visitor gets, and it downloads them before you type anything. Pressing Clear removes the VIN from the page.
Cookies and tracking
This site sets no cookies while you read it; only the contact page sets one small security cookie (see the contact form section). It loads no analytics, advertising or social-media scripts. Its security policy tells your browser to load scripts, styles and data only from this site.
Server logs
Like any website, the server that delivers these pages keeps ordinary technical logs, such as the page requested, the time, and the requesting network address, so it can run reliably and resist abuse. These logs are not used to build profiles, are not sold, and never contain a VIN, because the VIN is never sent to us.
Search
The site search sends the words you type to this site to find matching pages. It is not linked to you or stored as a profile. Don't type a VIN or other personal information into it; use the VIN decoder instead, which never sends anything.
The contact form
The contact form is optional and is the only place the site collects anything you type. It stores the category, your message and subject, the page you sent it from, the time and a random reference number, plus a name and an email address only if you choose to give them. An email address is needed if you ask for a reply and for a privacy request; otherwise leave it out and the message is anonymous.
- Purpose. To read your message, correct the site, and reply if you asked. Nothing you send is published or shown to other visitors, and email addresses are never used for marketing, sold or shared.
- Where it lives. In a private inbox on the site's own storage that only the owner can open, signed in with an individual account. Email addresses are held in a separate registry, once per address.
- Retention. Messages stay until the owner deletes them or the inbox's size cap of about 5 MB is reached, when the oldest are removed first. Ordinary deletion removes the message and its link to you but leaves your address in the registry so a correspondence is not lost. A verified privacy request removes the address and every message from it; send it through the form in the Privacy request category, with your email address. Deletion leaves only a record of when, the category and the reason.
- No backup. The inbox is not backed up, so a storage failure can lose messages. This is a deliberate trade for keeping less of your data.
- Network address. To limit floods the server counts messages per network address for a few minutes in memory only; the address is never stored with your message. Ordinary server logs are described above and never contain the text of a message.
- Cookie. Showing the form sets one cookie, a random token that lets us confirm the form was submitted from this site. It holds no personal detail, is not used for tracking, and is removed when you close your browser.
- Sending. The site sends no email. If you asked for a reply, the owner writes to you from a personal mailbox, so your address is visible to that mail provider like any correspondence.
Changes
If we ever add something that collects more than this, this page will say what it collects and why before that feature goes live.