Before the Lot

Last updated October 14, 2026

Privacy Policy

Before the Lot is a free planner for buying a car. It is built and operated by Volocent Labs LLC, a Pennsylvania limited liability company ("Volocent Labs", "we", "us"). This policy covers BeforeTheLot.com and explains what the site collects, where it is kept, and what you can do about it.

The short version: you can use all of Before the Lot without an account. We never ask for your name, email, address, income history, account numbers or credit. Your deal lives in your browser unless you choose to save or share it. We don't sell data, show ads or use tracking cookies.

What stays in your browser

These are kept in your browser's own storage on your device and are never sent to us:

• Your take-home pay and other monthly debts, used to work out what you can afford.
• VINs you enter for the car or your trade-in. A VIN is sent to our server only to decode it through NHTSA (see Vehicle lookups below) and is never stored there.
• The secret part of your private link, if you make one, so this browser can keep saving to it.
• Small preferences, such as whether you've dismissed a tip or loaded the sample deal.

Your deal (the car, trade-in offers, financing, down payment, dealer quotes and payoff plan) is also kept in your browser, and leaves it only if you make a share link or a private link.

What reaches our server, and when

• Share links. When you tap Share, a copy of your deal's numbers (without the payoff planner) is stored under a random 12-character ID so anyone you send the link to can view it, for 13 months. The copy can't hold a name, email, phone number or income field: our server rejects them, and text that looks like contact details is removed before it's sent.
• Private links. When you make a private link, your whole deal, payoff planner included, is stored under a random ID. It opens only with the secret part of your link, which never reaches our server in a web address and which we keep only as a one-way fingerprint we can't turn back into the link. Changes you make save to it automatically. Anyone you give the link to can open and change the deal; a deal saved to an account can only be deleted by that account.
• Your optional account. See Signing in with Google below.
• Feedback. If you send feedback, we keep your message, an optional rating, the page you sent it from and the kind of device (phone, tablet or desktop). If you leave an email address for a reply, it's stored only with that message, used only to reply, and deleted after a year. Phone numbers and email addresses typed into the message itself are removed.
• Vehicle lookups. When you pick a car or enter a VIN, our server asks NHTSA (the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) for model lists, VIN details, recalls, crash-test ratings and complaint counts, and asks fueleconomy.gov (the U.S. EPA and Department of Energy) for mileage and fuel costs. We send them only the year, make and model, or (to NHTSA) the VIN. We keep the model lists, safety results and mileage to answer the next person faster; they aren't linked to you, and VINs aren't kept.
• Anonymous usage counts. To see which features help, the site records events such as a page visit, a deal started, a box locked, a quote added or a sign-in. Each event carries a random ID your browser makes up and keeps, plus the kind of device (phone, tablet or desktop) and the country. The ID isn't a cookie and isn't linked to your name, email, account, IP address or deal numbers. If your browser sends Global Privacy Control, events are counted without the ID. A sign-in is counted by our server without the ID, noting only whether the account is new.
• Technical data. Cloudflare, which hosts the site, processes your IP address and request details to deliver pages and protect the site from abuse, for example to limit how fast one address can send feedback or make links. We don't store IP addresses with anything you save, and our server doesn't keep request logs.

Signing in with Google

Signing in is optional. It keeps a list of the deals you've saved, so you can open them on any device.

• What we access. When you sign in, we ask Google only for the "openid" permission. Google tells us a unique ID for your Google account. We do not receive your name, email address, profile photo, contacts or any other Google data, and we never see your Google password.
• How we use it. Only to recognize you when you sign in again and to show you the deals saved to your account.
• What we store. An account record with our own random account ID, your Google account ID, and when the account was created and last used; and the deals you save to it.
• Sharing. We don't sell it, share it, or use it for advertising. It is never transferred to anyone else.
• Deleting it. Delete a single saved deal, or use "Delete my account", in the Save dialog. Deleting the account deletes every deal saved to it. You can also remove Before the Lot's access at myaccount.google.com/permissions.

Before the Lot's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Cookies and storage on your device

The site sets cookies only when you sign in:

• btl_s keeps you signed in, for up to six months. It is sent only to our own server's API. "Sign out everywhere", in the Save dialog, ends it on every device at once.
• btl_oauth lasts ten minutes and is used only while you sign in with Google, to keep that sign-in secure.

Cloudflare may also set a short-lived security cookie to tell people from automated traffic. The deal, preferences and anonymous ID described above live in your browser's storage, not in cookies. None of it is used for advertising or to follow you to other sites, and the site loads no third-party scripts.

Who else handles data

A few services process data for us, only to run Before the Lot:

• Cloudflare hosts the site and its database and protects it from abuse.
• Google handles sign-in, if you choose to sign in.
• NHTSA and fueleconomy.gov answer vehicle lookups. They receive a year, make and model, or (NHTSA only) a VIN, and nothing about you.

Before the Lot links to other sites, such as lenders, dealers, CarMax, Carvana, Kelley Blue Book, CARFAX, J.D. Power and Consumer Reports. We send them nothing; their own privacy policies apply once you follow a link.

How long we keep things

• Your deal in your browser: until you start over or clear this site's data.
• Share links: 13 months after they're made, or sooner if you ask us to remove one.
• Private links: until you stop saving online or start over in that browser, or 13 months after the last change.
• Your account and the deals saved to it: until you delete them. A deal saved to your account doesn't expire.
• Anonymous usage counts: about 13 months.
• Feedback: messages are kept; reply email addresses are deleted after a year.
• Server request logs: none are kept.

Your choices

• Use everything without an account, a private link or a share link.
• Start over clears the deal and everything else this site saved in your browser.
• Stop saving online, in the Save dialog, deletes your private link's copy.
• Delete my account, in the Save dialog, deletes your account and its deals.
• Turn on Global Privacy Control in your browser to have visits counted without the anonymous ID.
• Email us to remove a share link or feedback, or with any question about your data.

We don't sell or share personal information as those terms are used in state privacy laws such as California's.

Security

Everything travels over encrypted connections (HTTPS). Private links use a long random secret that we store only as a fingerprint, sign-in cookies are signed and can't be read by scripts on the page, and the site loads no code from other companies. No system is perfectly secure, so keep your private link the way you'd keep a password.

Children

Before the Lot is for adults shopping for a car. It isn't directed at children, and we don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 13.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes in a meaningful way, we'll update it here and change the date at the top.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data: contact@volocent.com.

Volocent Labs LLC, Pennsylvania

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