Privacy Policy

Sputnik Automotive Group 

General Privacy Policy                                             

Use of this website signifies your acknowledgment and consent to this privacy policy ("Privacy Policy"). Please read this carefully before using this website.

Hello! Thank you for visiting Sputnik Automotive Group website. Providing Online Experiences and Services to everyday people who visit us daily. We hope that you find our Online Experiences and Services to be a useful part of your dealer license and car buying experience. Our Privacy Notice describes the types of personal information we collect from consumers through our Online Experiences and Services and in connection with our products and services, including when you visit our brick and mortar location. This notice also describes how we use the information, with whom we may share it, the choices available to you regarding our use of the information, the measures we take to protect the security of the information, and how you can contact us about our privacy practices.

By using this site, you acknowledge that you have read and agree to be bound by this Privacy Policy and agree and acknowledge that you are subject to this Website's governing terms of service.

Please be aware that our Privacy Notice describes our overall privacy practices for our Online Experiences and Services that link to this notice. This Privacy Notice also applies to information about consumers collected at our brick and mortar location.  

Information We Obtain 

Sputnik Automotive Group obtains information from and about you through content you  provide to us through our Online Experiences and Services, surveys, phone calls, emails, and other correspondence from the information you provided when you subscribed for an account, when you inquired about a car on our Site, bought a car from Sputnik Automotive Group ("Wholesale Only"), sold a vehicle to Sputnik Automotive Group ("Wholesale Only"), from our social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Threads etc. and other data provided through third-party features (such as apps, tools, payment services, widgets, and plug-ins).

The types of personal information we may obtain directly from you include:

• Identifiers: such as name, username and password, phone number, fax number, email, address, Social Security Number, driver’s license number, and social media handle.
• Sensitive Personal Information: including your government identification number, such as social security number, login credentials, race, ethnic origin, marital status, payment information, and precise geolocation.
• Commercial information: such as information about the transactions you conduct with us either online or in our stores (e.g., vehicle purchases, appraisals, and services), information about the vehicles that you have searched for or otherwise expressed or indicated an interest in, and payment information.
• Professional information: such as information about your job and employer, salary information, and prior work history.
• Demographics: such as military service, age, gender, marital status, date of birth, and other characteristics you provide to us via the Online Experiences and Services or in our stores.
• Records: of your interactions with our call center representatives or digital customer support services, such as audio recordings or chat communications.
• Internet or other electronic activities: such as internet session information.
• Preferences: such as preferred store and communications preferences.
• Inferences: drawn from the categories of personal information described above.
• Audio and Visual Information: such as your videos and photographs. 

Automated Collection Of Data

When you visit our Online Experiences and Services or open our emails, we may obtain certain information by automated means. Sputnik Automotive Group may use a variety of technologies to collect this information, such as browser cookies, flash cookies, web beacons, mobile device identifiers, server logs, and other technologies. A browser “cookie” is a text file that websites send to a visitor’s computer or other Internet-connected device to uniquely identify the visitor’s browser or to store information or settings in the browser. A “web beacon,” also known as an Internet tag, pixel tag, or clear GIF, links web pages to web servers and their cookies and may be used to transmit information collected through cookies back to a web server. These technologies help us (1) remember your information so you will not have to re-enter it. (2) track and understand how you use and interact with our Online Services and third-party digital services. (3) tailor our Online Services around your preferences. (4) measure the usability of our Online Services. (5) understand the effectiveness of our communications. (6) identify, diagnose, and resolve technical issues. 

The information we obtain in this manner may include:

• Identifiers: such as your device IP address and identifiers associated with your devices.
• Online activities: such as dates and times of website visits, content viewed, your search terms, operating system and browser used, mouse clicks, and how you accessed the Online Experiences and Services
• Geolocation data: When you use our Online Experiences and Services, we may infer your location via your IP address or other information regarding your network connection. In addition, with your consent, our mobile device-ready website may collect precise information about the geographic location of your device. If your device is equipped with GPS or can connect with wireless access points or hot spots, or if your device is also a phone that communicates with cell towers or satellites, then your device is able to use these features to determine its precise geographic location. If you have consented using your device’s user interface, the geographic location of your device will be transmitted to our servers in real time. You may at any time opt out from allowing us to have access to your device’s location information by accessing our websites location settings on your device and setting your device not to share its location with us. This Website is hosted on servers located in the United States. As such, your connection will be through and to servers located in the U.S. Any Personal Information you provide during your visit will be processed and maintained on our Web server and other internal systems located within the U.S. 

Third-Party Sources

We collect information from third parties, such as social media platforms, government agencies including the DMV, credit reporting agencies, reputation and identity verification services, vehicle history services, insurance companies, skip trace vendors, marketing vendors, data analytics companies and data suppliers. The categories of information that we collect about you from such sources are:

• Identifiers
• Financial, medical, or health insurance information
• Demographics
• Commercial information
• Biometric information
• Online activities
• Geolocation data
• Professional information
• Education information
• Preferences and
• Sensitive information, such as precise geolocation, government identifiers, and race or ethnic origin. 

How We Use The Information We Obtain

We collect and use your personal information for the following business purposes:

• Providing and operating our Online Experiences and Services, products and services, such as to provide you with the results of your searches.
• Processing, evaluating, and responding to requests, inquiries, and claims we receive in connection with our Online Experiences and Services, products, and services.
• Entering into and finalizing our transactions with you, including vehicle purchases, vehicle sales, dealer licenses, & dealer tags.
• Creating, managing, and administering your subscriber account including identifying and authenticating you so you may access your account or use certain features of our Online Experiences and Services.
• Providing customer and technical support.
• Providing you with marketing materials, such as to send you information about newly available vehicles and special offers and telling you about new features, classes, or updates.
• Providing you with information, notices, offers, brochures, and advertising on our websites by email and text.
• Communicating with you about and administering your participation in surveys, special events, and other offers and promotions.
• Performing data analytics, market research, and other processing (including analyzing our customer base, Online Experiences and Services, products and services).
• Create marketing content, including displaying customer reviews and content that you have created and allowed us to display on our website and on our social media platforms.
• Operating, evaluating, and improving our business and Online Experiences and Services (such as developing new and enhancing existing products and services (including developing, training, and deploying AI and machine learning models).
• Managing our communications, including measuring the effectiveness of our sales, advertising, communications, and marketing.
• Performing accounting, auditing, and other internal functions.
• Personalizing and enhancing your experience on our Online Experiences and Services, such as to connect your interactions with our Customer Service Specialists, our website, and our brick and mortar locations to enable you to progress in your car shopping, selling, classes, dealer services, and dealer tags as efficiently as possible).
• Protecting against, identifying, and preventing fraud and other criminal activity, claims, and other liabilities.
• Complying with applicable regulatory and legal requirements, relevant industry standards, and our policies, including this Privacy Notice and our Terms and Conditions.
• Responding to legal, court, or regulatory investigations or requests for information.

We also may use the information we obtain about you in other ways for which we provide specific notice and obtain your consent if required by applicable law.

In addition, we may combine information that we obtain about you. For example, we may combine:

• Information that we have obtained offline, including in-person at our brick and mortar location or over the phone, with information we obtain through our Online Experiences and Services.
• Information we obtain through automated means with information you submit to us.
• Information about our transactions and experiences with you with other information we have collected from you. 

Third-Party Web Analytics Services

We use third-party online analytics services on our Online Experiences and Services, including “Google Analytics” and Google reCAPTCHA to collect information about use of our Online Services. Learn more here how Google uses information from sites or apps that use Google Analytics.  

Online Tracking And Interest-Based Advertising

We collect information about your online activities over time and across different websites and devices, including from third-party websites and apps. We also work with third-parties, such as ad networks and other service providers, which collect information about your online activities in this way. To do this, we (including the third-parties) may use browser cookies, web beacons, flash cookies, unique identifiers associated with your devices and apps, and other technologies. The information collected via these technologies is described in the Automated Collection of Data section above.

We and certain third parties display interest-based advertising using information gathered about you over time and across devices and third-party websites, apps and platforms. Interest-based advertising or “online behavioral advertising” includes ads served to you after you leave our website, encouraging you to return. They also include ads we think are relevant based on your shopping habits or online activities. These ads might be served on websites or on mobile apps. They might also be served in emails or other ways. We might serve these ads, or third parties may serve ads. They might be about our products or other companies’ products.

Third parties who place advertisements on this Website, and other third-party service providers may collect and use information about your visits to and use of this Website through the use of cookies, web beacons, and other similar technologies. For example, we may work with companies that collect statistical information regarding site usage and provide related analytical services. We may work with third-party advertising companies that use cookies and web beacons to serve advertisements when you come to the site and to generate statistics and metrics related to the delivery of such advertisements. We also may work with third-party advertising platforms and networks that use cookies, web beacons, and other technologies to collect Non Information about your visits to and interactions with this Website and other websites in order to provide targeted communications and other advertisements.

Third-party service providers may also collect information from your devices and may combine personal and non-personal information about you with information from other sources including your visits to this and other websites, mobile websites, and/or mobile applications across your various devices.

If you would like to obtain more information about the practices of some of these parties, or if you would like to make choices about their use of your information, please click here:

https://www.aboutads.info/choices/

More information and additional consumer choice options may be found at this link: https://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp

Choices you make may be browser-specific and device-specific. In addition, your mobile device settings may allow you to limit your device from sharing certain information for advertising purposes. Learn more information on these types of settings by exploring Google Play Help - Advertising ID and limiting my Apple ad tracking. Additional information about opting out of targeted advertising is included in the Your Rights section below. 

Information Sharing

We may share your personal information with third parties for the business purposes described above in accordance with applicable law:

• We may share information within the Sputnik Automotive Group family.
• We may share information with third parties who perform services for us or on our behalf. For example, we share information with vendors who send emails for us. We may also share information with companies that operate our websites or run a promotion. The information we share may include location information. We do not authorize our service providers to use or disclose the information except as necessary to perform services for us or on our behalf or to comply with legal requirements.
• We may share information with our business partners. For example, we will share information with third parties who cosponsor a promotion. These partners may send you information about events and products by mail or email.
• We may share information if we think we are required to do so or believe that we have to do so in order to protect ourselves. For example, we may share information to respond to a court order or subpoena. We may share it in response to requests by a government agency or investigatory body. We may share information to establish, exercise, or defend our legal rights or when we are investigating suspected or actual illegal activity or fraud.
• We may share information with any successor to all or part of our business. We reserve the right to transfer any information we have about you in the event we sell or transfer all or a portion of our business or assets(including in the event of a merger, acquisition, joint venture, reorganization, divestiture, dissolution or liquidation).
• We may share information for other reasons we may describe to you.
• We may share information with any other third party with your prior consent.

We disclose the following categories of personal information for business and operational purposes, such as auditing transactions, data security, debugging and product improvement, customer service, fulfillment, marketing, advertising, analytics, processing transactions, and servicing and maintaining accounts:

• Identifiers
• Commercial information
• Online activities
• Professional information
• Geolocation data
• Education information
• Records of your interactions with us
• Demographics
• Preferences

If you are a California or Nevada resident, state law may provide you with additional rights regarding our use of your Personal Information. This information is intended to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, the California Privacy Rights Act of 2023 and Nevada Senate Bill 220 (an Act relating to Internet privacy) and other state privacy laws (all such laws are collectively referred to for purposes of this Privacy Policy as the "CCPA"). Any terms defined in the CCPA have the same meaning when used in this Privacy Policy.

All the above information sharing practices exclude text messaging, originator opt-in data, and consent; this information will not be shared with any third parties, excluding aggregators and providers of the text message services or as otherwise requested or required by court order, legal proceeding, investigative demand or any governmental agency or regulatory authority. 

Choices

The CCPA provides consumers with specific rights regarding their Personal Information. This section describes your CCPA rights and explains how to exercise those rights.

Access to Specific Information and Data Portability Rights

You have the right to request that we limit the use and disclosure of certain Personal Information, opt-out of the use of certain Personal Information, as well as disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your Personal Information over the past 12 months. You may request that we:

• Disclose to you the categories of Personal Information we collected about you.
• Disclose to you the categories of sources for the Personal Information we collected about you.
• Disclose to you our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that Personal Information.
• Disclose to you the categories of third parties with whom we share that Personal Information.
• Disclose to you the specific pieces of Personal Information we collected about you (also called a data portability request).
• Disclose to you if we sold, shared, or otherwise disclosed your Personal Information for a business purpose, separately disclosing:
  • Sales, identifying the Personal Information categories that each category of recipient purchased
  • Sharing, identifying the Personal Information categories that we shared with each category of recipient.
  • Disclosures for a business purpose, identifying the Personal Information categories that each category of recipient obtained.
• Disclose to you if we used automated decision-making technology to evaluate or create a profile of you and provide information about the logic involved in such decision-making processes, including descriptions of the likely outcome.
• Stop using automated decision-making technology to evaluate you, create a profile of you, and make predictions about your future behavior.
• Limit the use and disclosure of your "sensitive personal information," as that term is defined in the CCPA. At your request, we will use "sensitive personal information" only for purposes necessary to provide the Services.

To update your preferences or limit the communications you receive from us, please contact us as specified in the How to contact us section of this Privacy Notice. 

Your Rights

Residents of certain states, such as California and Nevada, may have rights to submit certain requests regarding our processing of their information. Depending on where you reside, you may have some of the following rights with respect to your personal information, subject to applicable exceptions:

• Right to Access or Know: You may have the right to confirm that we have collected personal information about you and know what personal information we have collected about you, including, as applicable, the categories of personal information we have collected, the sources from which we collected that personal information, the business or commercial purposes for which we collected, sold, and shared that personal information, the categories of personal information that we sold, shared, or disclosed to third parties for business purposes and the categories or list of specific third parties to whom we sold, shared, or disclosed personal information.
• Right to Correct: You may request that we correct personal information that we hold about you.
• Right to Deletion: You may be entitled to request that we delete the personal information that we have collected from you, though we may be permitted or required to retain personal information for certain purposes.
• Right to Opt-Out of Sales and Sharing of Personal Information for Targeted Advertising: You may be entitled to opt out of sales of your personal information to third parties and to opt out of the disclosure or processing of your personal information for certain targeted advertising.
• Right to Appeal: You may appeal any decision we make with respect to your rights requests.
• Third-Parties Making Requests on Behalf of Others: Should you desire to have an authorized agent submit requests on your behalf, the authorized agent will need to provide certain information about them and you and provide documentation showing they are authorized to make such requests.
• Right to Limit the Processing of Sensitive Personal Information: We only use and disclose sensitive Personal Information for the purposes expressly permitted under California law.
• Right to Non-Discrimination: You have the right not to receive discriminatory treatment if you exercise the rights conferred to you by applicable privacy law.

We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights. Unless permitted by the CCPA, we will not:

• Deny you goods or services.
• Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties.
• Provide you a different level or quality of goods or services.
• Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services. 

You can exercise your rights by email or by calling us at (888) 511-0929. 

Other Online Services and Third-Party Features

Our Online Experiences and Services may transfer you or provide links to other online services, including websites, for your convenience and information, and may include third-party features such as apps, tools, payment services, widgets and plug-ins. These online services and third-party features may operate independently from us. The privacy practices of the relevant third parties, including details on the information they may collect about you, is subject to the privacy statements of these parties, which we strongly suggest you review. To the extent any linked online services or third-party features are not owned or controlled by us. Sputnik Automotive Group is not responsible for these third parties’ information practices. 

We maintain presence on several social networking and blogging platforms, such as TikTok and Instagram, and we also incorporate some third-party social networking features into our Online Experiences and Services. Through these platforms and features, we may receive information about you, and this Privacy Notice applies to that information as well. In addition, third-party social networking platforms and blogging platforms have their own privacy policies which explain how the third parties that provide them will use and protect your information. 

How We Protect Personal Information   

We maintain administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information against accidental, unlawful or unauthorized destruction, loss, alteration, access, disclosure or use.

Children's Privacy

The Online Experiences and Services are not directed to children under the age of thirteen, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of thirteen through our Services. We encourage parents and legal guardians to help enforce our Privacy Notice by instructing children under the age of thirteen not to download or use the Online Experiences and Services.

How Long We Keep Your Information 

We retain the personal information we collect for as long as reasonably necessary to achieve the purposes disclosed at the point of collection or in this Privacy Notice, unless a shorter retention period is required by law. The length of retention may vary depending upon factors such as:

• The existence of an ongoing relationship between you and us.
• Record keeping or legal compliance requirements.
• The need to resolve inquiries or complaints.

Updates To Our Privacy Notice

From time to time, we may change our privacy practices. This Privacy Notice may be updated periodically and without prior notice to you to reflect changes in our personal information practices. We will post an updated copy on our website and indicate at the top of the Privacy Notice when it was most recently updated. Please check our site periodically for updates. If we make a material change to our Privacy Notice, we will take reasonable steps to notify you, such as sending an email or posting notice on the Online Experiences and Services.

How To Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice, our privacy practices, or if you would like us to limit the communications from us you may contact us by e-mail at support@sputnikautomotivegroup.com, or write to us at: Sputnik Automotive Group 2213 N. Reynolds Road., Ste.10, Bryant, AR. 72022.