Privacy Policy
What Australian Arborist Directory collects when you research tree work, what it deliberately never collects, and how any business or property owner can access, correct or remove their information.
Australian Arborist Directory ("we", "our", "us") operates the website at auarborist.directory, an independent listing service for arborists, tree surgeons, tree loppers, stump grinders and vegetation management crews across Australia. This Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal information, and it is written to comply with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles.
It applies to everyone who uses the site: property owners researching a tree job, and tree businesses that appear in or want to appear in our listings. It sits alongside our Terms of Service and Disclaimer.
1. The Short Version
Most privacy policies bury the important part. Ours is this: we are a research tool, not a booking platform. When you find an arborist here, you contact that business directly using the details we publish. Your enquiry does not pass through us.
That single design decision means the details you would normally hand to a lead-generation site never reach us at all. We do not learn your street address, what is wrong with your tree, how close it is to the house, when the crew is coming, or what you paid.
Your enquiry goes to the arborist, not to us
We do not broker quotes, take bookings, or sell your job details as a lead to tree businesses. Nobody pays us to receive your phone number, because we never hold it in the first place. If a website asks for your address and photos of your tree before showing you who is available, that is a lead-generation model, and it is not the one we run.
2. What We Collect and What We Never Collect
The clearest way to describe our data handling is side by side.
What we collect
- What you type into our contact form, and the email address you send it from
- Business details submitted by a tree business for a listing
- Standard web analytics such as pages viewed and time on page
- Technical data your browser sends, including IP address and device type
- Cookie data used for analytics and advertising
What we never collect
- Payment or credit card details, because nothing on the site is for sale to visitors
- Your property address, tree photos or site access notes
- The scope, timing or price of the job you engage an arborist for
- Passwords or login credentials, as public browsing requires no account
- Sensitive information as defined by the Privacy Act, such as health or biometric data
Information you give us directly
If you use our contact page to ask a question, report an error in a cost guide, or request that a listing be corrected or removed, we receive whatever you choose to include in that message. Keep it to what is needed. There is no reason to send us details of your tree job, and we ask that you do not.
Information collected automatically
Like almost every website, our servers and analytics tools record technical information when a page loads.
| What is recorded | Why we have it |
|---|---|
| IP address and approximate region | To serve the site securely, block abuse and scraping, and understand which parts of Australia our suburb pages are actually reaching. |
| Browser, device and screen size | To make sure listings and cost guides render properly on the phone most people are holding when a limb has come down. |
| Pages viewed and time on page | To see which guides answer the question and which ones need rewriting. |
| Referring website and search terms passed to us | To understand how people find the directory and what tree work they were searching for. |
3. How We Use Information
We use what we collect to run and improve the directory, and for nothing else. Specifically, to:
- Publish and maintain listings for tree businesses across Australian suburbs, cities and regions
- Reply to enquiries, correction requests and listing removal requests
- Work out which cost guides, permit explainers and location pages are useful and which are not
- Keep the site fast, available and protected from scraping and abuse
- Serve advertising, which is how a free directory pays for itself
We do not sell your personal information. We do not build marketing profiles of property owners, and we do not pass visitor contact details to tree businesses, either free or for a fee.
4. Cookies, Analytics and Advertising
Analytics
We use Google Analytics to understand traffic in aggregate. It tells us that a page about stump grinding costs was read a certain number of times in a certain region. It does not tell us who you are, and we make no attempt to identify individual visitors from it.
Google AdSense and advertising cookies
We display advertising served by Google AdSense and may use other advertising partners. These services set cookies to serve ads, cap how often you see the same ad, and measure whether an ad worked. Ads may be personalised based on your prior browsing on this and other sites.
Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your previous visits to this website or other websites. You can opt out of personalised advertising through Google My Ad Center, or opt out of third-party vendor cookies at aboutads.info.
Managing cookies yourself
Every major browser lets you block or delete cookies from its settings. Blocking them will not stop you reading listings or guides, though some parts of the site may behave less smoothly. Our Cookie Policy sets out the categories in more detail.
5. Business Listings and Where Their Data Comes From
Listings on this site describe businesses, not private individuals, and the information in them is published so that people searching for tree work in a given area can find and contact the business. It reaches us in two ways.
Submitted by the business
A tree business can send us its name, service areas, services offered, qualifications it chooses to state, description and public contact details. Everything supplied for a listing is intended for publication and will be displayed publicly.
Compiled from public sources
To make the directory useful from day one, some listings are compiled from information the business has already made public, such as its own website, its public business profile or a public register. We publish only business contact details that the business itself already publishes. We do not scrape private customer data, and we do not publish the personal information of sole traders beyond the business contact details they already advertise.
A listing is a record that a business exists and works in an area. It is never an endorsement, and as set out in our Terms of Service we do not verify qualifications, licensing or insurance. Always confirm those with the arborist directly before work starts.
6. Who We Share Information With
We disclose personal information only in the limited circumstances below.
- Service providers who run the site for us: our hosting and content delivery provider, our analytics provider and our advertising partners, each acting on our behalf or under their own published terms
- Where the law requires it: in response to a lawful request from a court, regulator or law enforcement agency
- To protect the site: where disclosure is reasonably necessary to investigate abuse, scraping, fraud or a security incident
We do not disclose information to tree businesses, lead brokers, data brokers or marketers.
Overseas disclosure
Our hosting, analytics and advertising providers are global services and may store or process data on servers outside Australia, including in the United States. By using this website you consent to that handling, on the understanding that those providers operate under their own privacy frameworks and are not always subject to Australian privacy law.
7. Security and How Long We Keep Things
We take reasonable steps to protect the information we hold from misuse, interference, loss, and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. The site is served over HTTPS, administrative access is restricted, and the small amount of personal information we hold limits the damage any incident could do.
No transmission over the internet is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute protection. Where we no longer need information, we take reasonable steps to destroy it or permanently de-identify it. Enquiry emails are kept only as long as needed to resolve the matter and to keep a record of any listing correction or removal request.
8. Your Rights Under the Privacy Act
You may ask us to do any of the following, at no charge.
- Tell you what personal information we hold about you, if any
- Correct information that is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete or misleading
- Claim a listing that describes your tree business, so you control what it says
- Update a listing, including service areas, services and contact details
- Remove a listing entirely, which we action without conditions and without asking you to pay to stay
We may need to verify that you are who you say you are before acting on a request, particularly where it concerns a business listing, so that a competitor cannot alter or delete someone else's entry. If we decline a request, we will tell you why in writing.
9. Third-Party Websites
Our listings link to the websites of tree businesses, and our guides cite councils, state agencies and standards bodies. Once you follow a link away from this site, you are subject to the privacy practices of that operator, not ours. We do not control and are not responsible for how they handle your information, and we encourage you to read their policies before submitting anything to them.
10. Children's Privacy
This website is intended for property owners, tenants, managers and tree businesses, and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
11. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy as the directory develops or as the law changes. Any revision is published on this page with a new revision date at the top, and continued use of the website after that date means you accept the updated policy.
12. Contact and Complaints
For a privacy question, an access or correction request, or to claim, update or remove a listing, reach us through our Contact page. We aim to acknowledge privacy enquiries within a reasonable period and to resolve them promptly.
If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your privacy complaint, you may refer it to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.
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