Legal

Privacy Policy

Effective July 29, 2026

CarBluff is built to need as little of your data as possible. This page explains, in plain terms, exactly what happens to a listing link or ad text you paste, what stays on your device, and what a payment involves.

Who this covers

This policy applies to carbluff.com and the CarBluff app for iOS and Android (together, "CarBluff"), operated by Kowski Labs. It does not apply to Facebook, Craigslist, or any marketplace whose listing you paste in. Their own privacy policies govern their sites.

What happens when you scan a listing

If you paste a link, our server (carbluff.com/fetch.php) fetches the public listing page on your behalf, because marketplaces don't allow that request directly from your browser or the app. The page is read once, the listing text is pulled out, and the raw page is discarded. We don't keep a copy of it.

If you paste text yourself, it stays on your device for the scan itself.

Either way, the actual scam analysis (reading the text, checking the price, scoring the listing) runs entirely on your device, in the app or your browser. In normal use we do not receive, log, or store the listing content, the score, or the flags it produced. Two optional features are the exceptions, and only when you choose to use them: the Deal Score price check and reporting a scan (both below).

When you report a scan

If you tap Report this scan and send us a report, we receive what you wrote plus the scan you were looking at: the listing text you pasted (or that we fetched), the listing link if present, and the trust/deal scores and flags. This is sent to our support inbox by email so we can review and improve the scoring. We use it only to investigate your report and fix accuracy problems. Reporting is entirely optional; if you never tap Report, none of this is sent.

When you run a Deal Score price check

The Deal Score is an optional, on-demand check. If you run it, the app sends the car's year, mileage, asking price, and the listing text (used to identify the exact trim) to our server, which queries market pricing data and returns a price comparison. We use these details only to compute that price check.

What's saved on your device (not on our servers)

• Scan history (Unlimited plan only): every report you've run, saved locally so you can reopen it. This never leaves your device; deleting a saved scan or clearing your browser/app storage removes it completely, and we have no copy to delete on our end.
• Your free-scan count and plan status: a small marker so the app knows whether you've used your free scan or are subscribed. Also local-only.

Your Garage account

If you create a Garage account (an optional, passwordless sign-in used to save and sync the cars you're tracking), we store on our server the cars you save: the listing details, your notes, status, and any photos you upload, tied to your email address. This is the only feature where your data is kept on our servers rather than only on your device.

You can delete your account at any time, right inside the app (Garage tab) or on the web dashboard, using the "Delete account" control. Deleting your account permanently removes your account and every car, photo, and note saved to it from our servers. This is a real deletion, not a deactivation, and it cannot be undone.

Payments

On the website, payments are processed by Stripe. We never see or store your card number. Stripe handles that. When you subscribe, we ask Stripe to confirm your subscription is active; that check happens live and isn't logged in a database on our side.

If you use the "Restore plan" feature, the email you enter is sent to our server only to ask Stripe "does this email have an active subscription?" It's used for that one check and not stored afterward.

In the app, purchases go through Apple's App Store or Google Play billing, which are governed by Apple's and Google's own privacy policies. We receive confirmation that you're subscribed, not your payment details.

Permissions the app asks for

The app can read from and write to your clipboard, but only when you tap a button: "Paste" to drop a copied link into the listing field, or "Copy message" to copy one of the Seller Safety Kit templates. It does not access your clipboard at any other time.

Advertising

CarBluff does not currently show ads to Unlimited subscribers, and as of this writing the free tier does not either. If we introduce ads for free-tier users, they'll come from a standard ad network (such as Google AdMob), and we'll update this page before they go live to disclose what that network collects.

Email alerts

Our guide pages have an optional "get scam-pattern alerts by email" signup. If you enter your email there, we store just that email address and the date you signed up, so we can send you occasional updates. It's not connected to your scan activity, plan, or any other data on this page, and every email we send will explain how to stop getting them.

Analytics

We use Google Analytics (GA4) on carbluff.com to understand how visitors use the site: which pages get viewed, and whether a scan or purchase was completed. GA4 never receives the listing link or text you paste, your trust score, or any flags a scan produced. It only receives that a scan happened, and for a purchase, which plan and price. Google's own privacy policy governs how GA4 handles that data. We do not currently run analytics or tracking scripts in the app.

Children's privacy

CarBluff is not directed at children, and we don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 13.

Your choices

Clear your saved scans anytime from the Toolkit tab. Clearing your browser's site data (web) or the app's storage (uninstalling or clearing app data) removes everything CarBluff has stored about your usage on your device. If you created a Garage account, delete it and everything saved to it from our servers anytime with the "Delete account" control in the app or on the web dashboard. Cancel a subscription anytime through Stripe's customer portal (web) or your App Store/Play Store subscription settings (app).

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes in a way that matters (most likely because we add a feature like ads or accounts), we'll update the effective date above and describe what changed.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data: [email protected].