Terms and conditions

1. Who are we?

uithoorn.online is run as a private initiative from Uithoorn. Contact: sam@uithoorn.online or the contact form at uithoorn.online/en/contact.

uithoorn.online is a private initiative. It is not a website of the municipality of Uithoorn and has no connection with it.

2. What does uithoorn.online do?

uithoorn.online connects residents of Uithoorn and De Kwakel with local businesses. Residents can find businesses and post jobs; businesses can present themselves and respond to jobs.

We are not a party to agreements between a resident and a business. The business is responsible for the work, the price, the quality and any guarantee.

3. Account

You must be at least 16 to create an account. Give correct details and keep your password secret. You are responsible for what happens through your account.

You can delete your account at any time under Account settings.

4. Rules of use

No unlawful, misleading, offensive or discriminatory content, no spam, and no advertising unrelated to a job or listing. Don’t post other people’s details without their permission.

Reviews must be about a real experience and be honest. Don’t review your own business or write reviews for payment.

We may hide or remove jobs, messages, reviews and listings, and block accounts, when these rules are broken or the law requires it. Where possible we tell you why.

5. Additional terms for businesses

We review businesses that sign up or claim a listing before their profile goes public. Claimed profiles show a check mark. Listings labelled “Not claimed” come from public sources and have not been completed or checked by the business itself. The check mark is not a quality mark for the work.

You are responsible for keeping your profile accurate and for following the law in your work, including consumer law and tax and licensing rules.

uithoorn.online is currently free for all businesses: no fees, and unlimited leads. A lead is a job sent to your business. If we introduce paid plans later, we will tell you in advance.

You process residents’ personal data that you receive through the platform as an independent controller, and use it only to respond to the job and do the work.

6. Ranking, labels and advertising

This is how we order the business directory and Compare (default order “relevance”), from most to least weight: (1) businesses in Uithoorn and De Kwakel first, then businesses nearby, closest first; (2) registered businesses with an account we approved before public listings that have not been claimed yet; (3) how well the business matches your search words and the chosen category; (4) the “Featured” label, the “Verified” label and the average rating (which only counts fully from three ratings). You can also sort A-Z, newest or verified first yourself.

Featured: a higher position given by the site’s operator. Businesses do not pay for it at the moment. If we ever offer placement for payment, it will say so here and those businesses will carry the label “Sponsored”.

Ad: for food searches SpiceIndia is always shown first, and a SpiceIndia pop-up sometimes appears on the site. SpiceIndia is the own business of the operator of uithoorn.online, so both are marked as an ad.

Labels: “Verified” means the operator reviewed and approved the business profile by hand. “Claimed” means the business has an account and manages the listing itself. “Not claimed” means the details come from public sources and were not completed by the business itself. None of these labels is a quality mark for the work.

Requests: your request goes to registered businesses in the chosen category. Businesses that said themselves they are available today get it first; we do not check that. If nobody replies in time, we email the request to all matching businesses, including listings without an account (only at their general business address).

7. Reviews

Only a resident who posted a request on uithoorn.online and chatted with the business can review that business: once per request, in the chat after a completed job or through a personal link by email. That is why we call them “verified reviews”: they come from a real requester. We do not check whether or how the job was done.

We show all reviews, positive and negative. We only remove a review if it breaks the rules in section 4 or after a justified report (section 9). Businesses cannot pay for reviews or to have them removed.

8. Prices and comparing

On Compare we show prices of building and garden materials as they appeared on the suppliers’ public websites on the date shown, with the source. These are indications: prices, stock and delivery costs may have changed since. The supplier’s own price and terms apply. You always buy from the supplier, not from us, and we receive no fee for a purchase.

Rates a business enters itself are shown as “provided by the business” with the date. The business is responsible for their accuracy. We only mention a saving if we calculated it from real prices on the page.

9. Reporting content

See something on uithoorn.online that you think is illegal or breaks our rules, such as a review, listing, request, photo or message? Report it with the “Report” link or at uithoorn.online/en/contact?melden=1. Say where it is (the link), why you think it is not allowed, and give your name and email address, and confirm that your report is accurate and made in good faith.

We look at every report carefully and tell you what we decided. If we hide or remove something, we tell the person it belongs to what and why. If you disagree with a decision, reply to our email and we will look at it again. You can always go to court as well.

Point of contact for users and authorities (Digital Services Act): sam@uithoorn.online, in Dutch or English. Want a listing of your own business removed? Use the “Remove my listing” button on the business page.

10. Sources, names and images

Public listings contain data from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License, see openstreetmap.org/copyright) and from the business’s own website. The source and date are on the business page. On request we provide the OpenStreetMap data as we adapted it under the same licence.

Business names and trademarks belong to their owners. We only use them to identify the business; a listing does not mean the business works with us. We only show a business’s logos and photos with that business’s permission. Something wrong, or want something removed? Email us or use “Report”.

11. Availability

We do our best to keep the platform running well and safely, but cannot guarantee it is always available and error-free. We may change or stop features.

12. Liability

We are not liable for the work, products or conduct of businesses or residents, or for damage arising from agreements between them.

Our liability is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the damage, or €100 if you paid nothing. This limit does not apply in case of intent or gross negligence, or where mandatory consumer law does not allow it.

13. Complaints

Have a complaint about the platform? Email sam@uithoorn.online or use the contact form at uithoorn.online/en/contact. We reply within 14 days. A complaint about a business’s work should first be raised with that business.

14. Changes

We may change these terms. We email you about important changes at least 30 days in advance. If you keep using the platform after that, the new terms apply.

15. Governing law

Dutch law applies. Disputes go to the competent court in the Amsterdam district (which covers Uithoorn), unless you as a consumer may choose another competent court.