Privacy notice

Modern Giraffe Lda. is the controller for this site.

Tax number (NIPC): 515914495.

For anything about your data, write to [email protected]. Emails are read by the person who runs the site — there's no department behind this.

AlgarvePros lists businesses that offer services in the Algarve: plumbers, electricians, pool cleaners, builders, cleaners and so on. Each listing shows the business name, what it does, roughly where it works, and how often and how recently people have recommended it.

This is business data, not consumer profiles. We don't build profiles of the people who search here, and we don't collect information about who hires whom.

Every listing traces back to something public or to something a business owner sent us:

Google Maps and other public listings — name, category, town, website, phone number and the aggregate rating shown on the listing.

Business websites, adverts and public forums — what a business says about itself, and what people say about it on the open web. From open forums we may show a short excerpt, with any personal names removed.

Community groups (for example Facebook groups) — when someone asks for a recommendation in a local group and others name a business, we count that as a recommendation. From these groups we keep only the fact of the recommendation, the month, and the group it appeared in: no quotes, no names, no links to the post.

Business owners themselves — via the Add your business form. Those listings are marked as self-added.

We only ever publish counts: the names of the people who recommend a business never appear on the site and aren't part of the public dataset.

A listing shows the business name, the kind of work, the town or area, recommendation counts and dates, whether it's on Google Maps, and — where we have them — a phone number, WhatsApp number and website.

Contact details are never part of the page's code. They only appear after you tap Show contact, and each tap is logged and rate-limited. That keeps the phone numbers out of the hands of scrapers and spammers, and it's how we notice abuse.

We never publish the names of the people who recommend a business, never publish accusations or negative text about a business, and don't republish Google reviews — just the aggregate rating. If our sources contained a warning about a business, we show a neutral mixed feedback badge — never the text of the accusation.

Many of the businesses listed here are sole traders, so a listing can count as personal data about a person. We process it on the basis of legitimate interest (GDPR Article 6(1)(f)): our and our visitors' interest in finding a reliable tradesperson, and a business's interest in being found by the people who need it.

We've weighed that against the interests of the people listed. In short: the data is what a business already puts out to win customers (name, trade, area, contact); recommendations are counted, not quoted; contact details sit behind a click; nothing sensitive is involved; and any business can have its listing corrected or removed within days, without having to give a reason. A business that advertises its services can reasonably expect to be found — and to be recommended.

Data about visitors (below) is processed on the same basis: keeping the site working and free of abuse.

If your business is listed and you'd rather it wasn't, or something is wrong: use the removal form or email [email protected]. Tell us which listing and what you want done.

We'll confirm with you and act within 7 days. Removals don't need a reason and are permanent — the business goes on our block list so it doesn't come back with the next data refresh. Corrections are applied by hand.

This is also how to exercise your right to object under the GDPR. If you'd rather we restrict what we show instead of removing the listing (for example, hide the phone number but keep the rest), say so — that works too.

You don't need an account for anything here, and we don't want one. Here's what the site does record:

A hashed version of your IP address when you tap Show contact, give feedback on a business, or send a form. We salt and hash the address before storing it, so what's stored can't be turned back into your IP. It's there to rate-limit and to spot abuse.

An anonymous visitor ID — a random string our server signs and your browser keeps in its local storage. It isn't tied to your name, email or anything else about you; it lets us count one feedback answer per business per visitor. Alongside it, your browser keeps the last few businesses whose contact you revealed (so we know which ones to ask you about), a marker for each business you've already answered on, and a random ID for the current tab session. All of that lives only in your browser and never reaches us as a list; clearing your browser storage deletes it.

Actions on the site — contact reveals, shares, Google Maps clicks and arrivals through a shared link — as an event log with the timestamp and the hashed IP. Contact reveals also record the visitor ID, so we can tell which businesses to ask you about later. A link shared from this site can end in a short source tag (such as /s/s); arriving through one is recorded the same way, and your browser keeps that tag for seven days so a contact you reveal in that time can be counted for the share.

What you type into a form — a Tell us what you were looking for request, an Add your business submission, a removal request, or a feedback answer. Leaving a contact is optional when you tell us what you were looking for; a removal request needs one so we can confirm it with you. We use those contacts only to get back to you about that request. What you send through Add your business is different: it's meant for publication — the phone number and website you give become that listing's contact details, behind the same Show contact step as everything else.

Cookies: we don't set any for visitors. No advertising cookies, no tracking pixels, no third-party analytics scripts. The only cookie this site ever sets is the login cookie for our own admin area, which you won't get as a visitor.

When you follow a link to Google Maps, WhatsApp or a business's website, you leave this site and those services' own privacy policies apply. The map view loads its map tiles from OpenFreeMap — only when you open it — and that request carries your IP address to their servers like any web request; nothing else about you goes with it.

Keeping the site honest and free of abuse — rate-limiting contact reveals and forms, spotting scrapers and spam, and making sure one visitor can't stuff the feedback counts.

Understanding how the site is used — aggregate numbers: reveals per day, which listings get shared, how often people go on to Google Maps. We look at totals, not at individuals.

Moderation — reviewing the submissions, removal requests and feedback people send us, and following up when you've given us a way to.

We don't sell data, don't share it with advertisers, and don't use it to profile you.

Event log and feedback: after 12 months we erase the hashed IP addresses and visitor IDs. The counts themselves (how many reveals, how many thumbs-up) stay, but with nothing left that could point to a person.

Forms you send us (requests, submissions, removal requests): kept until the request is handled, then for 12 months so we can refer back if there's a follow-up, then deleted. Approved removals stay on the block list for good — that's the point of them.

Business data: kept while the business appears to be active. Listings whose newest evidence is more than five years old are marked as such and ranked down; removed listings stay removed.

The infrastructure providers that host the site and its database act as our processors: they store and transmit data on our instructions, under a data processing agreement, and can't use it for their own purposes.

Nobody else. We don't sell data, we don't pass it to advertisers or data brokers, and we don't hand it over unless the law obliges us to.

Whether you're listed as a business or you've used the site, the GDPR gives you these rights over your data — write to [email protected] to use any of them:

Access — ask what we hold about you and get a copy.

Rectification — have wrong or incomplete data corrected.

Erasure — have it deleted (for a listing, that's the removal form).

Restriction — have us stop using it while a question is being sorted out.

Objection — object to processing based on legitimate interest. For a listing, we simply remove it.

Portability — get the data you gave us in a machine-readable format.

We'll reply within a month, usually much sooner. To act on a request we may need to check that you're the person or business concerned — that's why the removal form asks for a contact.

If you think we've got something wrong, you can complain to the Portuguese data protection authority, the CNPD: www.cnpd.pt. We'd rather you talk to us first, but that's your call.

This site is aimed at adults looking for a tradesperson. It isn't meant for anyone under 16 and we don't knowingly collect data from children.

If you think a child has sent us something through a form, email us and we'll delete it.

If we change how the site handles data — for example by adding analytics or a new kind of form — we'll update this page and the date at the top before the change goes live.

There's no mailing list to notify — we don't keep one — so check back here now and then if it matters to you.