Legal Center

1. Who we are

Woltaro (“Woltaro”, “we”, “us”) operates an international software-as-a-service intermediary marketplace that connects diners with independent restaurants and event hosts. We are a technology platform only.

Woltaro is not a food service provider, event venue, caterer, or local business partner. We do not prepare, serve, sell, or warrant any food, beverage, or in-venue experience. Every booking contract is between the diner and the registered Restaurant.

2. Cross-border intermediary & venue safe harbor

Each registered Restaurant is solely responsible, in its own jurisdiction, for:

• food safety, hygiene and HACCP-equivalent compliance;
• liquor licensing, age verification, and responsible service of alcohol;
• fire, occupancy, and local health codes;
• accessibility laws including but not limited to the U.S. Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882);
• local consumer protection, advertising, allergen disclosure, and menu pricing rules;
• collection, reporting, and remittance of VAT, GST, sales tax, tourist tax, and any service charges.

Woltaro disclaims, to the maximum extent permitted by law, any liability arising from the Restaurant's failure to comply with the laws applicable at the venue.

3. Diner commitments

Bookings require a refundable commitment deposit, fully described at checkout. By placing a booking you authorise the charge, accept the cancellation window, and agree to attend at the reserved time with the reserved party size. No-shows forfeit the deposit per the schedule shown at checkout.

4. Restaurant commitments & DSA / KYB verification

In line with the EU Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065) and analogous merchant traceability standards worldwide, every Restaurant must complete Know-Your-Business / Know-Your-Customer (KYB/KYC) verification before going live in our public directory.

• verified legal entity name and business registration number;
• verified physical trading address;
• verified business telephone and operator contact;
• verified payout account through Stripe Connect.

Restaurants that fail, refuse, or revoke verification will be removed from public search and payouts suspended.

5. Acceptable use

You agree not to upload unlawful, infringing, discriminatory or harmful content, not to attempt to probe, scrape, reverse-engineer or disrupt the service, and not to use Woltaro to launder funds or facilitate sanctioned activity.

6. Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Woltaro's aggregate liability to any user in any twelve (12) month period will not exceed the platform service fees actually received from that user during the period giving rise to the claim. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited under applicable mandatory law.

7. Governing law & venue

These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Estonia, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Mandatory consumer protections of the user's country of residence remain unaffected. Disputes are resolved in the competent Estonian courts (Harju County Court / Harju Maakohus, Tallinn), except where local law grants the consumer a non-waivable right to sue at home.

8. Contact

Legal notices: legal@woltaro.com.

1. Controller & scope

Woltaro acts as data controller for account, booking, marketing, and analytics data processed through the platform. Restaurants act as independent controllers for the in-venue handling of guest data after a reservation is delivered to them.

This policy applies globally and is designed to satisfy the EU General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679), the UK GDPR & Data Protection Act 2018, the California Consumer Privacy Act (as amended by the CPRA), CalOPPA, Brazil's LGPD, and comparable state and national privacy acts.

2. What we collect

• Account data — name, email, password hash, role, language.
• Booking data — restaurant, date, party size, special requests, deposit status.
• Payment metadata — Stripe identifiers, last four digits, country of card issuance (no full PAN is stored by us).
• Authentication & security telemetry — IP address, user-agent, login timestamps, failed login counters.
• Geolocation — coarse geolocation derived from IP and, when you grant permission, precise location for nearby-restaurant search.
• Communications — emails, WhatsApp / SMS confirmations, support tickets.

3. Lawful bases

Performance of the booking contract (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR); compliance with legal obligations including tax and DSA traceability (Art. 6(1)(c)); legitimate interests in platform security and abuse prevention (Art. 6(1)(f)); and consent for non-essential cookies and marketing communications (Art. 6(1)(a)).

4. International transfers

To execute a booking we transmit your essential booking parameters — name, party size, date/time, dietary notes, contact channel — to the Restaurant you selected, wherever in the world it operates. Payment is processed by Stripe Payments Europe, Ltd. and its global affiliates.

Where data leaves the EEA / UK, we rely on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses (Decision 2021/914), the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, and, where applicable, the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework. A copy of the SCCs is available on request.

5. Your rights

Subject to local law, you may request access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, objection, and withdrawal of consent. Californian residents may also opt out of “sale” or “sharing” of personal information and request limits on the use of sensitive personal information. Email privacy@woltaro.com — we respond within statutory deadlines.

EU/EEA residents may complain to their local supervisory authority; our lead authority is the Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate (Andmekaitse Inspektsioon) at aki.ee.

6. Cookies & similar technologies

We use three categories of cookies and storage:

• Essential — authentication, CSRF protection, language preference. Always on; required for the service to function.
• Functional — remembered search filters, recent restaurants, accessibility preferences.
• Marketing & analytics — aggregated product analytics and conversion attribution.

Our global consent banner lets you accept, reject, or fine-tune the non-essential categories at any time. We do not deploy dark patterns and the “Reject all” path is no harder than “Accept all”.

7. Retention

Booking and tax records are retained for the period required by applicable accounting and tax law (typically 5–10 years). Account data is retained until you delete your account, after which only legally required residual records are kept.

1. Stripe Connect — Connected Account Agreement

All settlement, multi-currency conversion, and cross-border payouts are processed via Stripe Connect. By onboarding as a Restaurant you simultaneously enter into the Stripe Connected Account Agreement applicable to your home country, including the Stripe Services Agreement and the Stripe Payments Terms. You can review the country-specific version at stripe.com/legal/connect-account.

2. Deposit escrow

Diner commitment deposits are captured at the time of booking and held by Stripe pending the outcome of the reservation. The deposit is released, refunded, or forfeited according to the rules visible at checkout (cancellation window, no-show forfeit, restaurant decline, force majeure).

3. Cross-border payout allocation

Any international transaction fees, foreign exchange (FX) conversion costs, Stripe cross-border payout fees, intermediary banking charges, or local payout taxes are automatically netted against the Restaurant's payout balance before disbursement. This protects the platform from margin erosion and ensures the Restaurant receives the true economic amount of the transaction in its settlement currency.

The FX rate applied is the rate offered by Stripe at the time of conversion plus the spread published in the Stripe Connected Account Agreement.

4. Chargebacks & cross-border disputes

If an international cardholder initiates a chargeback or dispute with their issuing bank, the Restaurant's Stripe Connect profile is instantly liable for the disputed funds and all associated dispute, representment, and processing fees. Woltaro will automatically deliver the relevant cryptographic transaction logs (booking timestamp, IP, verification code, accept/decline trail, no-show signals) to Stripe to support representment against friendly fraud, but cannot guarantee the outcome.

Repeated chargebacks may, at Stripe's or Woltaro's discretion, trigger payout holds, rolling reserves, or suspension of the Connected Account.

5. Platform service fee

Woltaro charges a transparent service fee per booking, disclosed at checkout. The service fee is retained by the platform at the moment of capture via Stripe Connect's destination charges and is non-refundable except where required by mandatory consumer law.

6. Anti-money-laundering & sanctions

Restaurants and diners must not use the platform to launder funds, evade sanctions, or process payments for prohibited activities. We cooperate with Stripe's KYC/AML controls and may freeze payouts where required by law.

7. Tax

Each Restaurant is solely responsible for assessing, charging, collecting, reporting, and remitting all applicable VAT, GST, sales tax, tourist tax, and income tax in the jurisdiction where the service is rendered. Woltaro issues a tax invoice for its platform service fee only.

8. Contact

Finance & payout questions: payments@woltaro.com.

1. Global tax isolation — independent merchant of record

Woltaro is purely an intermediation software provider. We are not a “marketplace facilitator” for local sales tax, Value Added Tax (VAT), Goods & Services Tax (GST), tourist tax, service charge, or any other indirect tax on the dining event itself.

The registered Restaurant is the sole merchant of record for the meal and any goods or services consumed at the venue. The Restaurant bears 100% of the responsibility for calculating, charging, collecting, reporting, and remitting all applicable indirect taxes on the commitment deposit and on the final dining bill — including but not limited to EU/UK VAT, US state and local sales tax, Canadian GST/HST/QST, Australian GST, and any digital-services or tourist taxes that apply at the venue.

Diner-facing receipts issued by Woltaro will explicitly state: “Tax processing is managed directly by the Merchant [Restaurant Name]. Woltaro provides software intermediation only.”

Woltaro issues an arm's-length tax invoice only for its own platform service fee, where required by local law.

2. Algorithmic ranking transparency (EU P2B Regulation 2019/1150)

In compliance with Article 5 of the EU Platform-to-Business Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2019/1150) and equivalent merchant fairness standards worldwide, this section discloses the main parameters that determine how restaurants are ranked in our search, map, and discovery surfaces, and their relative importance.

Main ranking parameters, in order of weight:

1. Geographic proximity to the diner — distance from the diner's chosen search location is the dominant signal.
2. Aggregate diner rating — weighted average of verified post-visit reviews. Newer reviews count more than older ones.
3. Operational availability — whether the restaurant is currently open, accepting bookings, and has tables for the requested party size and time.
4. Reliability signals — historical confirmation rate, response time to booking requests, and no-show counter-claim rate.
5. Profile completeness — photos, menu, opening hours, and verified contact details.
6. Manual editorial “Featured” flag — applied transparently by the Woltaro team for editorial reasons (new openings, seasonal highlights). Featured placements are visually labelled in the UI.

What does NOT influence ranking: there are no hidden pay-to-rank schemes, no undisclosed paid placement, no preferential treatment based on commission paid, and no demotion based on competitors or affiliates. The “Featured” flag is the only manual override and it is always visually disclosed.

3. 15-day grace period for changes to these Merchant Terms

Per Article 3 of the EU P2B Regulation, if Woltaro modifies these Merchant Terms in a way that affects a registered Restaurant, we will deliver an automated email notification at least fifteen (15) days before the revised terms become binding on that Restaurant.

During the 15-day window the Restaurant may either (a) continue using the platform on the new terms, or (b) close its account without penalty. Continued use after the 15-day window constitutes acceptance.

Shorter notice periods are allowed only where required to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation, to address an unforeseen and imminent security or fraud risk, or where the Restaurant has waived the notice period in writing.

4. Account termination due process — the 30-day rule

Suspensions, restrictions, and terminations of a Restaurant's account follow the due-process framework set by the EU P2B Regulation, the EU Digital Services Act, and analogous merchant-protection standards worldwide.

• Statement of reasons. Every administrative action (suspend, restrict, terminate) is logged with a specific, machine-readable reason chosen from a fixed taxonomy: fraudulent behaviour, payment chain-back pattern, systemic user complaints, KYC/KYB failure, sanctions hit, repeated terms violation, voluntary closure, other.
• 30-day notice for full termination. Total termination of the relationship is preceded by at least thirty (30) days' written notice, delivered to the Restaurant's registered email and visible in the Restaurant dashboard. The notice contains the statement of reasons, the effective date, the appeal channel, and instructions for data export.
• Immediate action exceptions. The 30-day notice does not apply where (i) a legal obligation requires immediate action, (ii) severe financial fraud, money-laundering, or sanctions evasion is detected, (iii) ongoing harm to diners, other restaurants, or third parties cannot be otherwise prevented. In these cases the action is immediate but the statement of reasons and appeal channel remain available.
• Internal complaint-handling. Restaurants may appeal any administrative action by replying to the notice email or contacting appeals@woltaro.com. We aim to respond within ten (10) business days.

5. Intellectual property & indemnification

By uploading photographs, menus, brand logos, descriptions, videos, or any other content to a venue dashboard, the Restaurant warrants and represents that it owns the copyright, trademark, and any other intellectual property rights in that content, or has obtained a valid licence sufficient to grant Woltaro the rights described below.

The Restaurant grants Woltaro a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sub-licensable licence to host, reproduce, resize, transcode, display, and distribute the uploaded content solely for the purpose of operating, promoting, and improving the Woltaro marketplace and its diner communications.

The Restaurant agrees to fully defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Woltaro, its officers, employees, contractors, affiliates and agents from and against any and all third-party claims, demands, lawsuits, damages, settlements, liabilities, costs and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or relating to:

• any allegation that the Restaurant's uploaded content infringes a copyright, trademark, design, right of publicity, or other intellectual-property right;
• any allegation that the Restaurant's uploaded content is defamatory, misleading, or non-compliant with local advertising or consumer-protection law;
• the Restaurant's failure to comply with its tax-collection or licensing obligations described in these terms.

Woltaro may, at its sole discretion, take reasonable control of the defence and settlement of any covered claim, in which case the Restaurant agrees to cooperate reasonably with that defence.

6. Contact

Merchant compliance & appeals: appeals@woltaro.com.