Privacy Policy

Effective Date: October 9, 2026

GradeMyCar ("we," "our," or "us") operates the GradeMyCar Chrome extension, the website at grademycar.com, and the GradeMyCar phone app at grademycar.com/phone.html. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and your rights. By installing or using GradeMyCar, you agree to the practices described here.

1. Information We Collect

We collect only what is necessary to provide the service:

• Account information — Your email address, collected via Firebase Authentication (Google) when you create an account. Passwords are managed entirely by Firebase — we never see or store them.
• Payment information — Payments are processed by Stripe. We never see or store your credit card number, billing address, or any other payment details.
• Credit balance — The number of report credits remaining on your account, stored in our database.
• Search history and saved vehicles (phone app and website dashboard) — When you are signed in to the phone app or the website dashboard, the year, make, model, and grade of vehicles you look up are saved to your account so you can see your history. Vehicles you save with the heart button in the phone app are stored the same way. If you are not signed in to the phone app, recent searches are stored only on your device.
• Premium report details — When you unlock a premium report, we record the vehicle's year, make, model, and the mileage you entered, along with the credit used, so we can keep an accurate record of your credits.
• Owner ratings (phone app) — If you rate a car you own, we store your answers with your account: the car's year, make, model and engine, its mileage, your rating, whether you'd buy it again, and any problems you report with when they started and roughly what they cost. We only ever show totals across many owners, never your email or individual answers. If you use a VIN to fill in the form, it goes directly to NHTSA's decoder and is not stored.
• Usage analytics — We use Google Analytics (via Firebase) to understand how the website and phone app are used, such as which pages are visited and which features are used. Google Analytics uses cookies and similar technologies and collects device and browser information. See how Google uses this data.

We do not collect or store:

• VINs or the listing pages you view
• Your browsing history or the URLs you visit
• Any data from car listing websites through the extension — vehicle analysis happens entirely within your browser

2. How We Use Your Information

• To create and manage your account
• To process payments and track your credit balance
• To send transactional emails (receipts, account updates)
• To show your search history and saved vehicles
• To build owner-reported reliability totals for each model year from owner ratings
• To improve and debug the website, phone app, and extension
• To respond to support requests

3. How Vehicle Data Is Processed

When you visit a supported car listing site (CarMax, AutoTrader, Cars.com, CarGurus, Edmunds), the GradeMyCar extension reads the vehicle information displayed on that page — such as make, model, year, mileage, and price — directly within your browser. This data is never transmitted to or stored on our servers.

4. Information Sharing

We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information for marketing purposes. We share data only as follows:

• Firebase / Google — Provides our authentication, database, and analytics (Google Analytics) infrastructure.
• NHTSA — When you unlock a premium report, your device requests safety ratings and recalls for that year, make, and model directly from the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's public website. If you enter a VIN in the phone app or the website dashboard, your device sends it directly to NHTSA's free VIN decoder to identify the vehicle. The VIN is not sent to or stored by GradeMyCar. No account information is sent to NHTSA.
• Stripe — Processes payments on our behalf.
• Legal compliance — We may disclose information if required by law or to protect the safety of our users.

5. Data Retention

We retain your account data for as long as your account is active. To delete your account, use More → Delete Account in the phone app or email support@grademycar.com from the email address on your account. We will remove your personal data within 30 days, except where retention is required by law (for example, payment records).

6. Security

We use industry-standard security measures including HTTPS/TLS encryption and Firebase's security infrastructure. No system is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

7. Children's Privacy

GradeMyCar is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe we have done so inadvertently, please contact us and we will promptly delete it.

8. Your Rights

Depending on your location, you may have the right to access, correct, or delete your personal data, or to opt out of non-essential communications. To exercise any of these rights, contact us at support@grademycar.com.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy periodically. When we do, we will update the effective date at the top of this page. Continued use of the extension constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

10. Chrome Extension Permissions

GradeMyCar requests the following browser permissions to function:

• Access to car listing websites (activeTab and host permissions) — Used to read vehicle data displayed on the page (make, model, year, mileage, price). No data from these pages is sent to our servers; all analysis runs locally in your browser.
• Local storage (storage) — Used to cache your credit balance and authentication state so the extension works without a network round-trip on every page load. This data stays on your device.

We do not use these permissions to track your browsing history or collect any information unrelated to grading a vehicle listing.

11. Contact Us