Privacy Policy

Last updated: 17 October 2026

In short

Your name, star rating and review text are public. We do not publish your email address or IP address.
The business you review can see your email address in its portal, so it can recognise you as a customer.
We use your email address and IP address to prevent fake reviews.
We do not sell your data and do not use it for third-party advertising.
You can always edit or remove your review and exercise your GDPR rights through the contact form.

1. Introduction

This privacy policy explains which personal data StellarOpinion processes when you use stellaropinion.com and its related services (the "Platform"), why we do so, on which legal basis, how long we keep the data and what rights you have. We process personal data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Dutch Telecommunications Act.

StellarOpinion is free to use for consumers and businesses, so we do not process any payment data.

This policy applies together with our terms and conditions.

2. Who is the controller

The controller for the processing described in this policy is StellarOpinion, the operator of stellaropinion.com.

Email: support@stellaropinion.com
Contact form: stellaropinion.com/Contact

We have not appointed a data protection officer; this is not required for our processing activities. You can send privacy questions and requests through the channels above.

If a business uses our invitation feature to approach its own customers, that business is the controller for the customer data it uses for that purpose. In that case we act as its processor.

3. What personal data we process

a. When you write a review

the name you provide;
your email address;
your star rating and review text, including anything you mention in it yourself;
the business you write about and the language of your review;
your IP address at the time of posting;
timestamps of posting and editing, the verification status and a unique reference (GUID) that lets you confirm or edit your own review;
data relating to the captcha you solved.

b. When you use the Platform as a business

business name, address, postal code, city, country, phone number, website and description;
the public email address of the business;
the name and email address of the contact person;
your sign-in details for the business portal;
the IP address used to create or change the account;
your notification and email preferences and a record of the emails we have sent you;
responses you post to reviews and reports you submit about reviews.

Data about a business as a legal entity is not personal data, but data about a contact person, a sole trader or an address that identifies an individual is.

c. When you use the contact form

your email address, the subject and the content of your message;
data relating to the captcha and your IP address.

d. When a business invites you to write a review

the contact details the business uses to send you the invitation.

e. Automatically, on every visit

your IP address, browser and device information and the pages you visit;
the date and time of your visit and the referring page;
cookie identifiers (see section 7);
technical logs and error reports, including an IP address, recorded when something goes wrong.

4. Where we get your data

from you, when you post a review, register or contact us;
from a business, when it invites you to write a review;
from public sources: business profiles may be created by us from publicly available business information, such as the company website;
automatically, through your browser and through cookies.

5. Purposes and legal bases

Purpose	Legal basis (Art. 6 GDPR)
Publishing and displaying your review on the Platform, in search results and in widgets	Performance of the agreement you enter into with us by posting your review (Art. 6(1)(b)) and our legitimate interest in an open, informative review platform (Art. 6(1)(f))
Email verification, captcha, duplicate detection and recording your IP address	Legitimate interest: preventing fake reviews, spam and abuse (Art. 6(1)(f))
Letting you view, edit or remove your own review	Performance of the agreement (Art. 6(1)(b))
Providing the business portal: account, profile management, responses, reports, widgets	Performance of the agreement with the business (Art. 6(1)(b))
Notification emails to businesses about new reviews	Legitimate interest; you can switch these off in the portal (Art. 6(1)(f))
Answering your question sent through the contact form	Performance of the agreement or legitimate interest in good service (Art. 6(1)(b) and (f))
Sending review invitations on behalf of a business	The business is the controller and determines the legal basis; we act as processor
Statistics and analysis of how the website is used	Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)); see section 7
Security, debugging, logging and preventing abuse	Legitimate interest in a safe and working Platform (Art. 6(1)(f))
Complying with legal obligations and handling complaints and legal claims	Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)) and legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f))

We do not use your data for automated decision-making or profiling with legal effects. We do use automated checks (captcha, duplicate detection) to prevent abuse; if a review is refused as a result, you can always ask us to have a person look at it.

6. What is public

Public: the name you provide with your review, your star rating, your review text and the date. This is visible to everyone, is indexed by search engines and may be shown through widgets on business websites.
Not public: your email address and your IP address. We never publish these on the Platform.
Visible to the reviewed business: in the business portal, the business you write about can see your name, your review and your email address. This is based on our and the business's legitimate interest in recognising the customer, investigating the experience and being able to respond substantively. If you do not want this, do not post a review or contact us.
If you prefer not to be identifiable by your full name, use for example your first name with an initial. Do not include details in your review text that you would rather not make public.
After a review has been removed, search engines or third parties may still hold a cached copy for some time. We have no control over that.

7. Cookies and similar technologies

Necessary cookies – required for the Platform to work:

a web server session cookie that keeps the steps of a form together;
LanguagePreference, which remembers whether you want the site in Dutch, English or French (kept for 365 days);
StellarCookieConsent, which remembers your analytics-cookie choice for 365 days.

Analytics and statistics cookies – these help us improve the Platform:

Google Analytics (Google Ireland Limited): measures visitor numbers, pages visited and where visitors come from.
Microsoft Clarity (Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited): records anonymised usage statistics, click and scroll behaviour so we can see where visitors get stuck.

Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity are only loaded after you allow analytics cookies. You can change your choice below at any time. You can also delete cookies through your browser settings. Refusing analytics cookies does not affect your use of the Platform; necessary cookies cannot be switched off.

8. Who we share data with

The reviewed business: your name, review and email address, as described in section 6.
Our hosting and email provider: to run the website and send verification and notification emails. We have data processing agreements in place with these parties.
Google and Microsoft: for the statistics described in section 7.
Advisers and authorities: where we are legally required to do so or where it is necessary to defend our rights, for example following a court order or a complaint about a review.
A legal successor: in the event of a merger or acquisition data may transfer; we will inform you beforehand.

We do not sell your personal data and do not rent it out to advertisers.

9. Transfers outside the EEA

Our website and database run within the European Economic Area. Google and Microsoft may process data on servers outside the EEA, including in the United States. Those transfers take place on the basis of the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and/or the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, supplemented with appropriate additional measures.

10. How long we keep data

Published reviews: for as long as the business profile exists and you do not ask us to remove your review. After a removal request the review is deleted or anonymised.
Unverified reviews and open verifications: up to 12 months, after which we delete them.
Business accounts and profile data: for as long as the account exists, and then up to 12 months after your deletion request for administration and to prevent abuse.
Messages sent through the contact form: up to 24 months.
Technical logs and error reports containing an IP address: up to 12 months.
Reports about reviews and how they were handled: up to 3 years, so that we can assess repeat reports and account for our decisions.
Data we are legally required to keep: for the statutory period.

After deletion, data may still appear in backups for a short time. Those backups are overwritten within three months and are not used for any other purpose in the meantime.

11. Your rights under the GDPR

Access: ask which personal data we process about you and receive a copy.
Rectification: have inaccurate data corrected or completed.
Erasure: have your data and your review deleted.
Restriction: have processing temporarily paused, for example while a dispute about the accuracy of data is ongoing.
Objection: object to processing based on a legitimate interest, and object to direct marketing at any time.
Portability: receive the data you provided yourself in a common, machine-readable format.
Withdraw consent: where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time. This does not affect the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal.

Submit a request through the contact form or by email to support@stellaropinion.com. We respond within one month; for complex requests we may extend that period by two months and will tell you if we do. To prevent abuse we may ask you to make your identity plausible, for example by sending the request from the email address you used to post the review. Requests are free of charge unless they are manifestly unfounded or excessive.

The right to erasure is not absolute. For a review we weigh your request against the right to freedom of expression and information and against the interests of other users (Art. 17(3) GDPR). We will always explain it if we cannot grant a request, or cannot grant it in full.

12. Complaints

If you disagree with how we handle your data, please tell us first through the contact form. You also always have the right to lodge a complaint with the Dutch Data Protection Authority, Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl), or with the supervisory authority in the EU country where you live or work.

13. Security

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your data against loss and unlawful processing, including encrypted connections (HTTPS), restricted access to the database, error logging and recording IP addresses to detect abuse. No security is ever complete; if you find a vulnerability, please report it through the contact form. In the event of a data breach posing a risk to your rights and freedoms, we will notify the Dutch Data Protection Authority and, where required, you.

14. Children

The Platform is not aimed at children under 16. We do not knowingly collect data from children. If you believe we hold data about a child, please contact us and we will delete it.

15. Changes to this privacy policy

We may amend this privacy policy, for example because of new functionality or changed regulation. The current version is always on this page, with the date of the last change at the top. For significant changes we will notify registered business users by email.

16. Contact

Questions about this privacy policy or about your data? Use the contact form or email support@stellaropinion.com.