Last updated: August 7, 2026 | Effective immediately upon account creation
Five Star Defense manages Google reviews on behalf of automotive dealerships. To do that, we access review data from your Google Business Profile, store it, and process it using AI. This policy explains exactly what we collect, what we do with it, and how to get it deleted. By using Five Star Defense, you agree to the practices described here.
Five Star Defense is a software service that manages Google reviews for automotive dealerships. We draft replies to reviews, analyze review content against Google's published removal policies, and prepare dispute submissions for reviews that appear to violate those policies. The service is operated by Five Star Defense and accessible at fivestardefense.ai.
This policy covers the data of our customers — dealerships and their staff — and the review data we process on their behalf.
Account information:
Google review data. With your authorization, we access and store the following from your Google Business Profile:
Technical information:
Five Star Defense accesses your Google Business Profile review data on your behalf and at your direction. You grant this access during onboarding, either by authorizing our application against your Google account or by adding us as a manager on your Business Profile.
We use that access only to read reviews, post replies you have approved, and support dispute submissions. We do not use it to modify your business information, hours, photos, posts, or any other part of your profile.
You can revoke our access at any time through your Google account settings or by removing us as a manager on your Business Profile. Revoking access stops all further data collection immediately. It does not by itself delete data we have already stored — see Data Retention and Deletion for that.
Our use of Google APIs is subject to Google's own terms and policies, including the Google API Services User Data Policy. Google's privacy policy is available at policies.google.com/privacy.
We use the information we collect to:
Five Star Defense uses Anthropic's Claude API to generate reply drafts and to analyze review content against Google's removal policies. When a review is processed, the review text, star rating, publicly visible reviewer name, and relevant context about your dealership are transmitted to Anthropic's API for processing. By using Five Star Defense, you acknowledge and consent to this transmission.
Anthropic's handling of data submitted through their API is governed by Anthropic's own privacy policy and terms of service, available at anthropic.com. We do not sell or share your data with Anthropic for any purpose beyond generating replies and analyzing reviews on your behalf.
We also rely on the following service providers to operate the platform:
We do not sell, rent, or trade your data. We do not share it with third parties for their own purposes, and we do not use one dealership's data to benefit another.
Your data is disclosed only in these circumstances:
Where your account covers multiple rooftops under common ownership, review and dispute data may be analyzed across those rooftops to identify accounts reviewing more than one of your locations. This analysis stays within your account and is never shared outside it.
Reviews are public. The reviewer names and profile information we store are the same details Google already displays publicly alongside each review on your Business Profile. We do not attempt to identify reviewers beyond what Google shows, and we do not purchase or append third-party data about them.
Where a dispute depends on whether a reviewer was ever a customer, that determination is made by checking the reviewer's publicly displayed name against records you provide from your own systems. You remain the controller of those records and are responsible for the lawful basis on which you hold and share them with us.
If a reviewer contacts us directly about data we hold, we will direct them to the dealership whose profile the review appears on, and we will assist that dealership in responding.
Your data is stored on secure servers located in the United States. We implement industry-standard security measures including:
While we take security seriously and implement reasonable protections, no method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is completely secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security of your data.
We retain your account and review data for as long as your subscription is active. Upon cancellation:
You may request deletion of your data at any time, whether or not your subscription is active, by emailing [email protected]. We will confirm the request and delete the data within 30 days.
Two limits apply. First, we may retain records we are required to keep by law, such as billing and tax records. Second, replies already published to Google and disputes already submitted to Google exist on Google's systems and are outside our control — deleting our copy does not retract them. To remove a published reply, use your Google Business Profile directly.
The Five Star Defense platform uses browser storage to keep you signed in during a session. We do not use advertising cookies or cross-site tracking, and we do not run third-party analytics that follow you to other websites.
You have the following rights regarding your data:
To exercise any of these rights, contact [email protected].
Five Star Defense is a business-to-business service intended for automotive dealership professionals. We do not knowingly collect personal information from individuals under the age of 18. If we become aware that we have collected data from a minor, we will delete it promptly.
If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act gives you the right to know what personal information we collect, the right to delete it, and the right to opt out of its sale. Five Star Defense does not sell personal information. To exercise your California privacy rights, contact [email protected].
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify active customers of material changes by email or through the platform at least 14 days before they take effect. Continued use of Five Star Defense after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.
Questions, concerns, or requests about this Privacy Policy or our data practices: