Privacy Policy

1. Information TowGauge processes

You can use the core TowGauge experience without providing your name, email address or phone number. The service processes the information needed to generate the requested result, which may include:

• Vehicle year, make, model, engine and configuration selections.
• Trailer weight, passenger weight, cargo weight, estimated tongue-weight percentage, door-label carrying capacity and loaded vehicle weight when you choose to enter them.
• A VIN when you voluntarily use VIN lookup.
• Ordinary technical request information generated when a browser communicates with the website, such as IP address, browser information, timestamps and requested URLs, to the extent collected by hosting or network providers.
• Privacy-minimized usage information described in section 5, such as anonymous session identifiers, page paths, traffic-source hostnames and outbound affiliate-link clicks.

TowGauge does not require optional load details for a quick trailer-rating check. Missing vehicle-specific values remain unresolved rather than being inferred.

2. VIN lookup

When you submit a VIN, TowGauge sends it through a TowGauge server endpoint to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's vPIC service to decode manufacturer-submitted vehicle identity information. TowGauge uses that result as an identity layer and then checks whether the decoded year, make and model exist in the live TowGauge Canadian towing database.

TowGauge does not intentionally save submitted VINs in the analytics database. Standard infrastructure or proxy logs may temporarily contain request metadata, and NHTSA operates vPIC under its own policies. VIN decoding is not used by TowGauge as a substitute for manufacturer towing tables, axle/tow-package confirmation or vehicle-specific payload information.

3. Shared TowGauge reports

If you use the Share Report feature, TowGauge creates a URL containing the selected TowGauge vehicle-profile identifier and the load values needed to reopen the same report. Those values can include trailer weight and, when you entered them, passenger weight, cargo weight, tongue-weight percentage, door-label payload and loaded vehicle weight.

The shared report is reconstructed from the URL. Anyone who receives that URL can see the values encoded in it, so do not put information into a shared report that you do not want the recipient to see. TowGauge does not include the VIN itself in the shared-report URL.

4. Technical logs and service providers

TowGauge relies on infrastructure providers to operate the website. These providers may process ordinary network and diagnostic information required to serve requests, maintain security and troubleshoot failures.

Current primary services

• Railway hosts the TowGauge production application and its first-party PostgreSQL analytics database and may process normal infrastructure/request logs.
• NHTSA vPIC receives VIN lookup requests when you choose to decode a VIN.
• Cloudflare provides domain/DNS and may provide network-layer services depending on the active domain configuration.
• Google Analytics may be used as a secondary analytics service if TowGauge enables a GA4 measurement ID. The TowGauge administrator area is excluded from analytics tracking.

TowGauge does not sell personal information to advertisers.

5. Analytics, browser storage and affiliate links

TowGauge uses first-party analytics to understand whether people can find and use the service effectively. A random anonymous session identifier is stored in your browser's session storage and normally disappears when the browser session ends. TowGauge records events such as page views, calculator starts, report generation, VIN-workflow starts and outbound affiliate clicks.

The first-party analytics record may include the anonymous session identifier, requested page path, external referring hostname, broad device class, campaign tags in the URL, an affiliate offer identifier and a country code when the network provides one. TowGauge does not intentionally put your name, email address, VIN, trailer weight, payload values or full IP address into this analytics table.

When TowGauge displays an approved affiliate recommendation, the outbound product link may contain a referral or affiliate identifier. TowGauge records that the outbound link was clicked so the administrator can measure click-through performance. If you choose to follow the link, the destination retailer or affiliate network may receive ordinary referral and browser information and may use its own cookies or tracking technologies under its own privacy policy. TowGauge does not intentionally append your VIN, trailer weight, payload values or other calculator inputs to affiliate URLs.

6. Retention

Calculator state is primarily held in the browser while you use the tool. Shared reports are represented by URL parameters rather than a TowGauge user-account record. TowGauge does not currently maintain a customer-account database for saved vehicles or reports.

First-party analytics events are automatically limited to a maximum retention window of approximately 400 days. The anonymous browser session identifier itself is stored in session storage and normally ends with the browser session. Infrastructure providers may retain technical logs according to their own operational and security practices.

7. Disclosure

TowGauge may disclose information to service providers when necessary to operate the requested feature, such as sending a VIN to vPIC or hosting anonymous usage events on Railway. Information may also be disclosed when required by law, to protect the service against abuse or security threats, or in connection with a legitimate business reorganization subject to applicable obligations.

TowGauge does not currently operate an installer-lead marketplace and does not submit your vehicle, towing inputs or contact information to installers or towing-product sellers. Choosing an external affiliate link is a separate navigation to the third party you selected.

8. Security

TowGauge uses production hosting, HTTPS and application-level safeguards appropriate to the current service. No internet service can promise absolute security. Avoid entering sensitive personal information into free-text fields or URLs; the current TowGauge calculator does not need that information.

9. Children

TowGauge is an automotive information service intended for people making vehicle and towing decisions. It is not directed to children, and TowGauge does not knowingly operate features intended to collect personal information from children.

10. Changes to this policy

TowGauge may update this policy as the service changes. The effective date at the top of the page will be updated when material changes are published. If public accounts, persistent saved customer data, lead forms, payments, direct ecommerce or materially different tracking technologies are added later, the policy will be expanded before those features are treated as part of the live service.