Why the map shows a circle

Every space carries a circle on the map instead of a pin, and its centre is not the location. That is not a rendering fault but the basis of the whole model.

What is public and what is not

A listing is publicly described in full: title, description, photos, size, fittings, price, use type and the city. Anyone searching can judge whether a space is worth pursuing.

Not public are the exact address and the host's contact details. Both appear once an operator with active access unlocks the space, as described in Unlocking contact details.

Why the circle is offset

A circle centred on the location would undo the masking. You would only have to draw it and you would have the space.

So the area shown is displaced. It tells you reliably which area a space is roughly in, and it does not tell you where exactly. We deliberately give no more detail here, because a description precise enough to reverse would not be masking any more.

Masking happens on the server

This is where plenty of platforms take the easy route: they do not draw the pin, but they still ship the coordinates to the browser.

Here the server decides what somebody gets. Without access you do not get the exact coordinates, neither on the page nor through the JSON endpoint. The same holds for the contact details and for the ability to send a message: that is checked server-side rather than merely hidden in the interface.

What that means for hosts

Your address is needed for the space to be findable at all. A radius search does not work without coordinates. That does not make it public.

Two things still rest with you:

The photos. They are public. If a street sign, a house number or a distinctive neighbouring building is visible in one, the masking does not help much. That need not be a problem, and many hosts do not mind. It is worth knowing.

The description. The same goes for the text. "Directly opposite the town hall" is an address in other words.

What that means for operators

The circle is enough to decide whether a space lies in your catchment. It is not enough to drive there, and that is deliberate: that step is precisely what the access is paid for.

In practice that means saving broadly and unlocking narrowly. The saved list costs nothing; an unlock costs an allowance.

Why at all

Without masking the directory would not exist. Hosts list for free because it brings them enquiries, not so that their address sits openly on the web. Operators pay for access because it gives them something they would not otherwise have.

Remove the masking and both collapse together: hosts would have no reason to leave contact details, and operators none to pay. What Spacement expressly does not do is in What Spacement does not do.