Copyright and attribution
Last updated 14 September 2026. Applies to Go Dive Trips (https://godivetrips.com). Operated by Simon Hansen, Thailand. Questions: hello@godivetrips.com.
In short: © 2026 Simon Hansen. Our text, scores and own photos are ours. Stock photos are used under the Pexels and Unsplash licences, operator photos with permission or live from the operator's own Google or Instagram, and we never pass stock photos off as a shop's own. Our ranking and price data is open under CC BY 4.0. If something of yours is here without permission, email us and it comes down within 48 hours.
1. What is ours
All text, guides, ranking methodology, scores, the price index, illustrations, the design system and code of Go Dive Trips and Top Dive Shops are © 2026 Simon Hansen, all rights reserved except as licensed below. Reproducing whole articles, or presenting our scores as your own or as an endorsement, is not allowed without written permission.
2. Photos and how they are credited
Every image on the site falls into one of four categories. The category is recorded in our data for each page, so we can answer any question about a specific photo.
| Category | Source | Licence | Shown as |
|---|---|---|---|
| Own | Photographed by us on a visit | © Simon Hansen | Photo of the operator |
| Operator | Supplied by the operator with written permission | Operator's copyright, used with permission, credited | Photo of the operator |
| Live embed | The operator's own Google Business Profile photos or Instagram / TikTok posts, loaded from the provider after you allow embeds | Provider terms; attribution shown by the embed itself | Photo of the operator, with the provider's attribution |
| Stock | Pexels and Unsplash contributors | Pexels licence, Unsplash licence | Destination or general diving imagery only, never as an operator's own boat, shop or staff |
We do not store or cache photos from Google Places; they are requested by your browser directly from Google when you allow embeds, in line with the Google Maps Platform terms. Photographer credits for stock images are given in the image's caption or alt text where the licence asks for it, and we are happy to add a credit on request.
3. Open data: rankings and price index
The ranking tables (score, sub-scores, dates) and the price index (published prices per product per operator, with the date checked) are released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. You may copy, analyse, republish and build on them, commercially or not, provided you credit "Go Dive Trips (https://godivetrips.com)" and link to the source page. CSV downloads are on each ranking and price-index page. The scoring model itself (weights and formula) is documented at how the ranking works.
4. Operator names and trademarks
Dive operators, PADI, SSI, RAID, DAN, Google, Instagram, TikTok, Stripe, WhatsApp and other names are trademarks of their owners. We use them only to identify the company or service concerned (nominative use). An operator's appearance in a ranking is not an endorsement by that operator of our site, and our score is not the operator's claim.
5. Badges
Ranked operators may display the badge we issue ("Ranked #N in [destination] on Go Dive Trips, [date]") on their own site and social media, unchanged, linking to their page on our site. The badge and the score must not be altered, and must be removed if the operator drops out of the ranking. The badge artwork is © Simon Hansen and licensed for that use only.
6. AI and machine reading
We allow search engines and AI assistants to crawl and cite the site (see /robots.txt and /llms.txt). Citation with a link is welcome. Training a model on our full text to reproduce it without attribution is not licensed. The open data in section 3 is licensed for any use, including training, with attribution.
7. Takedown and correction requests
If you believe content on the site infringes your copyright, trademark or other rights, or shows you without consent, email hello@topdiveshops.com with: the URL, what the content is, why you hold the rights, and how to reach you. We acknowledge within 2 working days and remove or replace the content within 48 hours of a substantiated request. This procedure follows the spirit of the EU Digital Services Act notice-and-action rules and the US DMCA (17 U.S.C. § 512); a counter-notice from the uploader, where there is one, is forwarded to you.