Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated

1About this policy

TheShopCritics.com is run by TheShopCritics LLC ("TheShopCritics", "we", "us"). This policy explains what personal information we collect through the website and our review invitations, how we use it, and the choices you have. It's part of our Terms of Use.

2What we collect

WhenWhat
You write a review Your rating and review, name, email address, ZIP code, the date of service, and how you heard about the shop. We also record your IP address and the result of an automated check that you're a person, not a bot.
A shop invites you to review it What the shop's system holds about your visit: your name, email address, mobile number, mailing address, the visit date, the work done, the invoice number, and your vehicle's year, make, model and licence plate.
We email or text you Whether a message was delivered, opened or clicked, a copy of what we sent, and any unsubscribe request.
You search for a shop The name and place you type. Your IP address is held briefly, in memory only, to limit how often a search can run.
A shop owner contacts us or has an account Name, business, email address, phone number and message, and for account holders their login details and activity.
Anyone visits Standard server logs: IP address, browser type, the pages requested, and when.

3How we use it

  • To publish reviews, and to mark the ones that came from a real visit as "Verified Service Visit".
  • To send review invitations, and to fill in the review form for you when you follow one.
  • To spot duplicates, fake reviews and abuse, and to keep the site secure.
  • To contact you about a review you wrote, if we need to.
  • To reply to shop owners and run their accounts.
  • To send marketing on behalf of the shop you visited, as described under Who we share it with.

We don't sell your personal information.

4What's shown publicly

A published review shows your rating and what you wrote, your first name and last initial, your city and state (worked out from your ZIP code), the date of service, and whether it came from an invitation. Your email address, phone number, ZIP code and IP address are never shown. Anything you write in the review itself is public, so please leave out details you'd rather keep private.

5Who we share it with

The shop you reviewed
When you review a shop that invited you, the shop gets an email with your review, name, email address, ZIP code and date of service. It already has your contact details from your visit. Shops don't get your IP address.
KeyMotive
The customer information a shop gives us is also used by KeyMotive, a related company, to send email and text marketing on that shop's behalf, such as service reminders and offers. Every marketing email has an unsubscribe link.
Service providers
Companies that help us run the site and send messages, such as hosting, email and text delivery, Cloudflare's bot check, and the mapping services (HERE, TomTom and Google) that look up a place when you search. They get only what they need to do that job.
When the law requires it
If we must by law, or to protect the rights and safety of our users, the shops, or TheShopCritics. If our business is ever sold or merged, this information may pass to the new owner under this policy.

6Cookies and outside services

We use only the cookies the site needs to work: a security cookie that protects our forms, and a login cookie for shop owners who sign in. We don't use advertising or analytics cookies.

Some pages load things from other services, which then see your IP address: fonts from Google Fonts, page code from the jsDelivr network, the map on a shop's page from OpenStreetMap, and Cloudflare's bot check on our forms. Their own privacy policies apply to that.

7Your choices

  • Stop emails: use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any email we send.
  • Stop texts: follow the opt-out instructions in the message.
  • See, correct or delete your information: email customerservice@theshopcritics.com. That includes asking us to take down a review you wrote. We'll confirm the request comes from you before acting on it.

Depending on where you live, the law may give you other rights over your information. Ask us, and we'll respond as the law requires.

8How long we keep it

We keep a review for as long as it's published, and other information only for as long as we need it for the reasons above, or as long as the law requires. Unsubscribe requests are kept so we can go on honoring them.

9Security

We use reasonable safeguards to protect your information, including encrypted connections to the site. No system is perfectly secure, so we can't guarantee it.

10Children

The site isn't meant for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their information. If you think a child has given us information, contact us and we'll delete it.

11Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we'll update the date at the top of this page. If a change significantly affects how we use information we already hold, we'll say so on the site before it takes effect.

12Contact us

TheShopCritics LLC
40463 Koppernick Rd
Canton, MI 48187
customerservice@theshopcritics.com