Privacy Policy

Overview

PetrolPulse is operated by Mark Schreuder Pty Ltd (ACN: 695 591 630) as a free Australian petrol price forecasting tool. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect when you use petrolpulse.com.au, how we use it, and who we share it with. We aim to collect as little as possible — there are no accounts, no sign-ups, and no user profiles.

This policy is governed by the Australian Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and is intended to give you a clear picture of how your information is handled.

Information we collect

We collect four kinds of information when you use the site or the app:

• Usage analytics. We use Google Analytics 4 to understand how pages are used in aggregate — which pages are visited, how long people stay, which cities or suburbs are searched for. This data is collected with anonymised IP addresses and is not linked to any identifiable person by PetrolPulse.
• Location, if you choose. If you tap "Find stations near me", your browser will ask for permission to share your GPS location. If granted, your approximate coordinates are used to query nearby petrol stations. Coordinates are rounded to ~1km before being sent to our servers and are not shared with third parties. For an ordinary search they are used to return results and are not retained against any identifier; the one exception is price and outage alerts, which by their nature have to remember where to look — see the next point. You can deny or revoke this permission at any time through your browser or device settings.
• Alert subscriptions, if you turn them on. If you enable price or fuel-outage notifications, we store what is needed to send them: the push endpoint your browser or device issues us (a unique address for delivering notifications to that one browser or app install), the coordinates and label of the location you chose, your alert radius, and your fuel type. The push endpoint is a persistent identifier, so this is the one place where a location is stored against an identifier. It is never shared, never used for advertising, and is deleted immediately when you turn alerts off — see "Your rights" below.
• Preferences stored locally. To remember your last searched suburb and fuel type between visits, we store that information in your browser's localStorage. This stays on your device, is not transmitted to our servers, and can be cleared at any time by clearing your browser data.

We do not collect your name, email address, phone number, payment details, or any other directly identifying information. PetrolPulse has no user accounts.

Cookies and similar technologies

PetrolPulse uses a small number of cookies and similar browser storage:

• Analytics cookies set by Google Analytics 4 to measure aggregate traffic patterns.
• Functional localStorage used to remember your location and fuel-type preference between visits, and to cache station results briefly to reduce repeated server calls.
• Advertising cookies may be set by third-party ad networks (see below) when you interact with advertisements. These networks may use cookies to deliver ads they consider relevant to your interests.

You can block or delete cookies through your browser settings without affecting the core forecasting features of the site. Some personalised ad or analytics features may not work without cookies.

Third-party services

We rely on a small number of third-party providers to run the site:

• Google Analytics 4 (Google LLC) for aggregate usage measurement. Data is governed by Google's privacy policy.
• Vercel for hosting the website. Vercel may log request metadata (IP, user agent, URL) for security and performance purposes.
• Supabase for the backend database of fuel prices and stations. Apart from alert subscriptions (described above), this database holds no personal user information.
• Apple Push Notification service (Apple Inc.) and the browser vendors' push services deliver alert notifications. They receive the push endpoint or device token and the notification text, nothing else.
• Google AdSense (Google LLC) to display advertisements. It may set its own cookies and use device identifiers to show personalised ads. The current network is also disclosed in the ads.txt file served at the site root. Where applicable, you can opt out of personalised advertising at youronlinechoices.com.au.
• State government price feeds (NSW FuelCheck, WA FuelWatch, QLD Fuel Price Reporting, SA SAFPIS, VIC Servo Saver, TAS FuelCheck, MyFuelNT) supply the underlying station and price data. No user information is sent to these feeds.

How we use information

Information collected is used for the following purposes only:

• Operating and maintaining the forecasting service
• Measuring aggregate site usage to improve features and content
• Returning nearby station results when you request them
• Sending the price and fuel-outage notifications you have subscribed to
• Serving advertisements where applicable
• Preventing abuse, fraud, and security incidents

We do not sell personal information. We do not share information with third parties beyond the providers listed above.

Your rights

Because PetrolPulse has no user accounts, most data access and deletion requests can be fulfilled by clearing your browser data (cookies and localStorage) for petrolpulse.com.au.

Deleting an alert subscription. Alerts are the only thing we store on our servers that relates to you. Turning notifications off on the alerts page cancels the push subscription in your browser and deletes the stored record — the endpoint, coordinates, label, radius and fuel type — outright. There is no archived copy. If you no longer have access to the device you subscribed on, email us and we will delete it for you.

If you believe we hold personal information about you and would like to access, correct, or delete it, please contact us using the details below. We will respond within 30 days and in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles.

Children

PetrolPulse is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect information from children.

Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we'll revise the "Last updated" date at the top of the page. Material changes will be communicated on the homepage where appropriate.

Contact

Questions about this policy or about privacy in general can be sent to mark@petrolpulse.com.au.

If you are not satisfied with our response to a privacy complaint, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.