Privacy Policy

Who we are

Drive Theory LLC, 8017 Dorsey Run RD, Jessup, MD 20794. You can reach us at letstalk@drivetheory.co or +1 410-799-9998.

What we collect

Only what you type into a form on this site. There are two kinds.

The contact form asks for:

• First and last name
• Email address
• Phone number (optional)
• What you're interested in, one of: Car Storage, Social Club Membership, Both Storage & Membership, Car Care Products, Just Learning More, Event Notifications

The email signup forms, for the event list and for The Hunt report, ask for your email address and nothing else. We record which list you signed up to, so we only send you what you asked for.

The valuation request form asks for your name, email, an optional phone number, and details about the car: year, make and model, and optionally a VIN, mileage and whatever you tell us about its spec and history. We use that to research the car and to send you an invoice. A VIN identifies a vehicle rather than a person, and we don't run it against anything other than public recall and specification records.

We never take payment through this website. If you buy a valuation, the invoice comes from our billing provider and is paid there. No card or bank details are entered on this site, sent to it, or stored by it. Please don't email them to us either.

Analytics, and your choice about them

We use four, and we'd rather name them than call them "partners".

• HubSpot analytics, to see which pages people read. It sets a cookie and records the pages you visit on this site.
• Google Analytics, for the same reason, across drivetheory.co, our newsletter site and our store.
• The Meta pixel, which is the advertising one. If we run an advert on Instagram or Facebook, this is what tells us whether anyone who clicked it went on to do anything. It means Meta learns that you visited these pages.
• Google Ads, which comes attached to Google Analytics because our advertising account and our analytics account are linked. It does the same job the Meta pixel does, for adverts on Google rather than Instagram, and it can be used to show you a Drive Theory advert again later.

Counting a visit doesn't need your permission. Identifying you does. So we split them, and here is exactly where the line falls.

Google Analytics runs for everyone. It tells us that a page was read, from roughly where, on what kind of device. It doesn't tell us who you are, and while you haven't accepted, we've explicitly instructed Google not to use anything about your visit for advertising: no advertising cookie, no advertising identifier, and you are not added to any audience for us to advertise at later.

The rest waits for you to press Accept. The Meta pixel, the Google Ads half of the above, and HubSpot. HubSpot is in this group rather than with analytics for a specific reason: it links pages you read to your name once you've sent us a form, which is a different thing from counting visits. Decline, or ignore the banner, and none of those three ever load.

Our other three sites behave differently, and we'd rather say so than let you assume otherwise. They run on platforms whose code we don't control, so the careful split above doesn't apply to them:

• Our store at store.drivetheory.co asks before it tracks you if you're in the EU or UK, and doesn't ask if you're elsewhere. Shopify decides that by your region, not us.
• Our newsletter site at news.drivetheory.co starts counting the moment the page opens. There's no Accept button.
• Our members' area at members.drivetheory.co does the same, and the company that runs it also sets its own advertising cookies on top of ours.

On all three, if you haven't accepted on this site, we may still learn that the visit happened and you may be added to an advertising audience. If that matters to you, a browser that blocks third-party analytics will stop it, and we'd rather you knew than found out.

You can change your mind whenever you like using cookie settings, or by clearing this site's cookies in your browser.

What we still don't do: no session recording, so nothing watches your mouse or replays your visit. We don't sell anything to a data broker, and we don't buy lists. Two of the four above are advertising trackers, which we didn't run until September 2026, and we'd rather write that plainly than leave an old sentence standing that says we run none.

Photos in the Instagram and YouTube sections are copies stored on our own servers rather than loaded from Meta or Google. Browsing those sections tells them nothing about you.

Why we collect it, and for how long

To reply to your enquiry and, if you become a member or storage client, to manage that relationship. If you signed up to the event list or The Hunt report, to send you that and nothing else. We don't sell it, rent it, or share it for anyone else's marketing.

Every email we send has an unsubscribe link. Use it and we stop, without you having to ask us twice.

Enquiries are kept in our CRM while there's a reasonable prospect of doing business, and are reviewed periodically. Ask us to delete yours and we will.

Who else sees it

Three companies are involved in running this site:

• HubSpot. Our CRM. Contact form submissions and email signups are sent here and stored here. This is the only place they go. HubSpot also provides the analytics described above, but only if you accepted them.
• Cloudflare. Hosts the site and provides the anti-spam check on the form. They process technical data such as IP addresses in order to serve pages and block abuse.
• Google Fonts. The site's typefaces load from Google's servers, which means your browser makes a request to Google containing your IP address. No cookie is set and nothing you type is involved.

The contact page embeds a Google Map, and some pages embed a YouTube video. Embedded content can see that your browser loaded it, and is governed by that provider's own privacy policy. Our events calendar is not embedded from anywhere; it's part of this site.

Cookies

• Your cookie choice. We store your Accept or Decline in your browser so we don't ask again. This one isn't a cookie and isn't sent to us, it just sits in your browser's local storage.
• HubSpot analytics. Only if you accepted. Set by HubSpot, used to recognize a returning visitor and count page views.
• Google Analytics. Set whether or not you accepted. Counts visits and pages, and recognizes you across our main site, newsletter site and store as one visit rather than three. Until you accept, it is barred from using any of it for advertising.
• The Meta pixel. Only if you accepted. Lets us see whether our adverts led anywhere, and lets Meta know you were here.
• Google Ads. Only if you accepted. Arrives with Google Analytics because the two accounts are linked, and does the same job for adverts on Google.
• Cloudflare's anti-spam check may set a short-lived cookie to remember that you've already passed it.
• Embedded content, such as a map, may set its own.

Security

The site is served over HTTPS. Form submissions are transmitted to our CRM over an encrypted connection and aren't stored on the website itself, so there's no website database to breach. Access to the CRM is limited to people at Drive Theory who need it.

Your choices

Email letstalk@drivetheory.co to ask what we hold about you, to correct it, or to have it deleted. Tell us which email address you used on the form so we can find the right record. We'll respond within 30 days.

Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights under laws such as the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act, the CCPA, or the GDPR. We'll honor a request under any of them.

Children

This site isn't directed at children under 13 and we don't knowingly collect their information. If you believe a child has sent us details, contact us and we'll delete them.

Changes

If we change what we collect or who we share it with, we'll update this page and the date at the top.