GM Benjamin Bok

Privacy

This page explains, in plain words, what this website does with information about you. There are no accounts, no advertising, no analytics and no tracking cookies.

Who is responsible

Grandmaster Benjamin Bok, who lives in the Netherlands, runs this website and decides what happens to the information it collects. Under the GDPR, the European data protection law, he is the controller.

YB IT, an Australian business, builds and runs the site for him. It handles the information only to run the site for Benjamin. Under the GDPR, it is the processor.

The contact and coaching forms

You give your first and last name, your email address, a topic (or, on the coaching page, a preferred coach if you pick one) and your message. They are sent to Benjamin as one email, together with the page the form was on, so he can reply to you.

Neither the website nor YB IT's server stores your message. The email is sent through YB IT's email provider, Zoho, and a copy stays in YB IT's sent mail there. That copy and the one in Benjamin's inbox have no automatic time limit: they are kept until they are deleted.

Reviews

You give your name, whether to show only your initials, what you had (a lesson or a course), a rating and your review, and you tick a box to confirm the review is your own. We do not ask for your email address.

Until it is checked, your review is kept in YB IT's database. Benjamin and YB IT see your full name when they check it. Benjamin also gets an email, at most once a day and only when new reviews came in, listing each one waiting with the full name, what they had, the rating and the start of the review; a copy of that email stays in YB IT's sent mail at Zoho.

If your review is approved, it appears on this site's home and reviews pages with your name (or only your initials, if you chose that), what you had, your rating, your review and the month and year. If you chose initials, your full name is never added to the website.

Once your review is approved or deleted, it is removed from the database straight away. A review that is neither approved nor deleted within 90 days is deleted automatically. A published review stays on the site until you ask for it to be removed.

Spam protection

The forms use Cloudflare Turnstile, which checks that a person, not a bot, is sending them. It loads only when you start using a form, and Cloudflare processes the information that check needs; see the Turnstile Privacy Addendum. When you send a form, your internet address goes to Cloudflare with the check, and it is also used for one minute to limit how many messages one connection can send. It is passed on to YB IT's server with the form, which uses it only to limit how many messages one connection can send in an hour: it is held in that server's memory and never written to its database or logs.

Hosting and logs

The site runs on Cloudflare's network, which, like any web host, uses your internet address to send you the pages. The site keeps no log of the pages you read.

When you send a form, Cloudflare's logs for the site record technical details of that request, such as your internet address, your browser and your rough location, with a short note of what happened (passed on, refused or failed). They never contain your name, email address, message or review. Cloudflare keeps these logs for up to 7 days.

Where your information is kept

  • YB IT's server and database: Microsoft Azure, in Sydney, Australia.
  • Email: Zoho's Australian service.
  • The website, the forms and the spam check: Cloudflare's worldwide network.
  • Published reviews are part of the website's own files, which YB IT keeps in a private repository on GitHub.

This means your information is handled outside the European Union, mainly in Australia.

YB IT backs up its database every night. The backup copies are kept by Microsoft Azure in Australia and by Cloudflare, and are deleted automatically after at most about four months. A deleted review can stay in these backups for up to that long.

Why it is used

  • Your contact message: to answer it, because you asked.
  • Your review: because you chose to share it. You can withdraw that choice at any time.
  • The spam check, the message limit and the logs: to keep the site and its forms safe from abuse.

Cookies and storage in your browser

The site sets no cookies. If you switch to the theme your device does not use, that choice is saved in your browser. If you switch the courses page to its list view, that is remembered in your browser until you close the tab. Neither is sent anywhere.

Videos

Videos come from YouTube. Until you press play you see a still picture from this site, and nothing is loaded from YouTube. When you press play, YouTube's privacy-enhanced player (youtube-nocookie.com) loads, and YouTube's own privacy policy applies from then on.

Fonts and pictures

The fonts and pictures come from this site itself, not from Google or any other outside service.

Links to other sites

The site links to other sites, such as Chessable for the courses, chess.com, YouTube, Twitch, Kick, Instagram, X and TikTok, and to news articles. When you follow a link, that site's own privacy policy applies. It is told only that you came from this website, not which page.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you can ask to see the information held about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to limit how it is used, to object to its use, and to withdraw a choice you made, such as having your review shown. To do any of this, use the contact form.

You can also complain to the Dutch data protection authority, the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens.

Last updated October 23, 2026.