Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 7 August 2026

Ask Max Pty Ltd (Ask Max, we, us, or our) operates an Australian property review and transparency platform. This policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, store, and protect personal information when you use Ask Max.

1. Information we collect

Depending on how you use Ask Max, we may collect:

  • Account and contact information — such as your email address, pseudonym, account identifiers, and authentication records.
  • Contributions — reviews, ratings, tags, recommendations, photo captions, property photos, inspection dates, and related moderation or verification information.
  • Property and location information — addresses you search for or select, property coordinates, suburb and street information, and your approximate or precise location if you choose to use a “near you” feature and grant browser permission.
  • Verification information — information or documents you voluntarily provide to demonstrate a connection to a property.
  • Communications — enquiries, complaints, correction requests, and correspondence with us.
  • Technical and usage information — such as browser and device information, anonymous session data, pages viewed, selected suburbs or properties, engagement time, referral source, timestamps, and security events. Hosting and security providers may process IP addresses to deliver and protect the service, but Ask Max does not store IP addresses in its product analytics tables.

If you submit content about another person, you must have a lawful reason to do so and should avoid including identifying information unless it is necessary and appropriate.

2. How we collect information

We collect information directly from you when you register, search, submit content, verify an email address, contact us, or respond to a moderation request. We also collect some information automatically through the website and receive information from service providers that support authentication, security, maps, email, and hosting.

3. Why we use information

We use personal information to:

  • provide accounts, address search, maps, reviews, photos, and area insights;
  • verify email addresses and, where applicable, a contributor's connection to a property;
  • moderate submissions, calculate trust indicators, investigate complaints, and prevent spam, fraud, misuse, and safety risks;
  • publish approved contributions under a pseudonym or as a guest contribution;
  • send account, verification, password-reset, moderation, and review-publication messages;
  • send newsletters or marketing only where permitted, with an unsubscribe option;
  • maintain, analyse, secure, troubleshoot, and improve Ask Max; and
  • comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Service.

4. What becomes public

Approved reviews, ratings, tags, photos, captions, approximate contribution dates, property addresses, and related street or suburb insights may be displayed publicly. Registered reviews are displayed under a pseudonym rather than your email address or real name. Property addresses are public-facing location information, so do not include information that identifies current occupants or reveals security details.

Public content may be indexed by search engines, shared by other users, or remain in third-party caches after it is changed or removed from Ask Max.

5. Photos and metadata

Photos can contain personal information, including people, possessions, documents, location clues, and embedded metadata. You should remove or obscure sensitive and identifying details before uploading. We may review, restrict, or remove photos for privacy, safety, legal, or quality reasons.

6. Disclosure and service providers

We do not sell personal information. We may disclose information to providers that help us operate Ask Max, including:

  • Supabase — database, file storage, and authentication;
  • Vercel — website hosting, delivery, performance, and anonymous web analytics;
  • Mapbox — address search, geocoding, and map services;
  • hCaptcha — bot and abuse prevention;
  • Resend — transactional and, if enabled, newsletter email delivery; and
  • Google Maps — embedded Street View where available.

We may also disclose information to professional advisers, regulators, law-enforcement bodies, courts, or other parties where authorised or required by law; to address a safety or legal issue; or as part of a business restructure or transfer, subject to appropriate protections.

7. Overseas processing

Some service providers may process or store information outside Australia, including in the United States and other countries where they or their infrastructure operate. Those countries may have different privacy laws. We take reasonable steps appropriate to the circumstances when engaging service providers, but we cannot guarantee that all information remains in Australia.

8. Analytics, cookies, and local storage

Ask Max uses privacy-minimised first-party analytics and Vercel Web Analytics to understand audience size, active engagement, popular pages, contribution funnels, and aggregate demand and review coverage by suburb. These measurements help us improve the service and prepare de-identified market-level reports.

Our product analytics use a random identifier stored for the current browser tab. We do not place names, email addresses, review text, photographs, exact raw address searches, or IP addresses into our analytics event tables. When a visitor selects a recognised property, we may record its internal property identifier, suburb, and state. We respect a browser's enabled “Do Not Track” signal for Ask Max product events.

Ask Max also uses cookies or similar browser storage needed for sign-in, security, preferences, and core functionality. We do not currently use cross-site advertising pixels or sell personal information. Before introducing non-essential advertising or materially different tracking technology, we will update this policy and provide any choices required by law.

9. Retention

We retain information only for as long as reasonably needed for the purposes described in this policy, including operating accounts and public contributions, moderation, security, backups, dispute resolution, and legal obligations. Retention periods vary by data type. Raw first-party analytics events are intended to be retained for no more than 13 months, while de-identified daily and suburb-level aggregates may be kept longer to measure long-term platform and housing trends. Verification material is access-restricted and kept only while reasonably required for verification, integrity, complaints, or legal purposes, then deleted or de-identified where practicable.

Deleting an account does not necessarily remove an approved contribution immediately. We may de-identify it, remove it after review, or retain limited records where reasonably required for platform integrity, legal claims, fraud prevention, or compliance.

10. Security and data incidents

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures designed to protect information, but no online service can guarantee absolute security. If an eligible data breach occurs, we will assess and respond to it in accordance with applicable Australian notification requirements.

11. Access, correction, and privacy choices

You may ask to access or correct personal information we hold about you, close your account, request review or removal of content, withdraw consent where processing depends on consent, or unsubscribe from marketing. Some requests may be limited where an exception applies or information must be retained. We may need to verify your identity before acting.

12. Privacy complaints

Email privacy@askmaxproperty.com.au with “Privacy complaint” in the subject line and explain your concern. We will acknowledge and investigate complaints within a reasonable period. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may be able to complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.

13. Children

Ask Max is intended for adults aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly invite children to create accounts or submit reviews or photos. Contact us if you believe a child has provided personal information.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as Ask Max changes. We will post the revised policy here, update the date above, and take reasonable steps to notify users of material changes.

15. Contact and business details

Ask Max Pty Ltd
ABN: 24 697 585 336
ACN: 697 585 336
Privacy enquiries and requests: privacy@askmaxproperty.com.au

Terms of Service
Read the rules that apply when using Ask Max.