Privacy Policy

World Wide Wheels respects the privacy of visitors to our site. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully so that you understand our privacy practices. If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at csr-chicago@autotrader.com.

Children should always get permission from their parents before sending any information about themselves (such as their names, email addresses, and phone numbers) over the Internet, to us or to anyone else. We won't knowingly allow anyone under 13 to provide us any personally identifying information.

The information gathered by WWWheels.com falls into two categories: (1) information supplied by visitors to the site when they register or initiate transactions, and (2) tracking information gathered as visitors navigate through the WWWheels.com site. Third party providers featured on or linked to by our web site, such as vendors of products and services offered through our site, may be gathering the same kinds of information.

To make use of certain features on our site, visitors need to provide limited information about themselves so that we can tailor the information we provide to fit their needs. For example, to help you find the car you want close to home, we might ask for your name, address, zip code, what kind of car you're looking for and at what price. We ask you this to help you locate the vehicle you want when you request a new car quote.

To help us tailor our site to the needs and interests of our visitors, we keep track of the pages visited by our users by placing a small entry in text file, called a cookie, on your hard drive. The cookie contains an ID number that allows us to track the pages you've visited. We aggregate this data with data on the pages visited by other users to track overall visitor traffic patterns. We use this information to improve our site by making it more responsive to the needs of our users. We also use cookies to make sure you don't see the same ad repeatedly when you visit our site. Cookies don't reveal personal information; the only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. Cookies can't read unrelated data off your hard drive. The help function on most browsers contains information on how to set your browser to notify you before accepting a cookie or to disable cookies entirely. However, if you don't accept cookies, you won't be able to take advantage of various features on our site that are available to other visitors.

Our web server automatically collects some information about you when you request pages from our server, including your IP address. Your IP address is a number that is used by computers connected to the Internet to identify your computer so that data (such as the web pages you request) can be sent to you. Your IP address does not tell us who you are.

WWWheels.com uses the services of third parties to serve advertisements that you see on the pages of our site, to target those ads, to serve and target promotions or other marketing messages on this and other sites, and to collect anonymous tracking information called "clickstream" data from this and other web sites that can be aggregated and used for marketing research and similar purposes. These third parties use cookies much as we do, and they collect information directly from our users. If you would like to know more about their information gathering practices and "opt-out" procedures, please see their privacy statements on the DoubleClick (http://www.privacychoices.org) and Engage (http://www.engage.com/privacy) web sites.

When we present information to our advertisers -- to help them understand our audience and confirm the value of advertising on our web site -- it is usually in the form of aggregated statistics on traffic to various pages within our site. From time to time, WWWheels.com may share more particularized information on visitors to the site with marketers of auto-related products and services that we believe may be of interest to you.

To make our site more valuable to our visitors, we offer some features in conjunction with other providers. Our finance, insurance and inspection services, for example, are made available through cooperative arrangements with providers that specialize in operating such services. We share with these third parties such information as is necessary to provide the products or services. Of course, our site includes links to other web sites, and provides access to products and services offered by third parties, whose privacy policies we don't control. When you access another web site or purchase products or services or conduct other transactions through our web site, use of any information you provide is governed by the privacy policy of the operator of the site you're visiting or the provider of such products or services. When you provide information in the course of obtaining products or services through our site, use of any information you provide may be governed by the privacy policy of the provider of those products or services, even if it appears that you're on World Wide Wheels pages throughout the transaction. The provider's privacy policy may differ from ours. If you can't find the privacy policy of any of our provider partners via a link either from the site's homepage or from the pages on which the products or services are offered, you should contact the provider directly for more information.

We may occasionally release information about our visitors when release is appropriate to comply with law, to enforce our Visitor Agreement, or to protect the rights, property or safety of visitors to our site, the public or WWWheels.com. As our business grows, we may buy or sell various assets. In the unlikely event that World Wide Wheels or AutoTrader.com LLC or substantially all of its assets are acquired by another company, information on our visitors would be among the transferred assets. We also may license other parties to conduct automated searches of certain of our databases (such as the database of vehicle listings) for collection, aggregation or analysis of information for our or their business purposes, which may include certain personally identifiable information (such as contact information for sellers of particular vehicles), but only such information that is otherwise publicly available on the WWWheels.com site.

Information gathered by WWWheels.com on the WWWheels.com web site is stored within WWWheels.com-controlled databases on servers maintained in protected environments. However, no physical or electronic security system is impenetrable. We cannot guarantee the security of our servers or databases, nor can we guarantee that information you supply won't be intercepted while being transmitted to us over the Internet. And, of course, any information you include in a message you post to any public posting area is available to anyone with Internet access. If you don't want people to know your email address, for example, don't include it in any message you post publicly.

The Web is an evolving medium. If we need to change our privacy policy at some point in the future, we'll post the changes before they take effect. By visiting WWWheels.com, you agree that your visit, and any dispute over privacy, is governed by this Privacy Policy and our Visitor Agreement.