Terms of Usage

EBDN Portal Terms and Conditions of Use

Sec. 1 Scope

The following Terms and Conditions shall apply to use of the EBDN portal of AUCOTEC AG (hereinafter the "Provider").

As the user, you are only permitted to use the portal if you accept these Terms and Conditions.

Sec. 2 Registration, Formation of Contract and Subject-Matter of Contract

1. The prerequisite to granting you permission to use the portal is that you must fully register using the Provider's online form. Following registration via the online form on the portal, you will receive an email confirmation verifying your personal data, which will enable you to confirm your registration by mouse click. The gratuitous licence agreement to use the forum is only formed at such time as the Provider activates your account (formation of contract.
2. The subject-matter of this contract is the user's gratuitous use of the portal's functionalities as an online communication platform. For this purpose, an "account" is provided to you as a user, enabling you to upload postings and topics to the portal.
3. As a basic principle, users have no legal right to access or participate on the portal.
4. Your forum account may only be used by you personally. Similarly, as the account holder, you are responsible for protecting your account from misuse. For this reason, you must protect your account data and safeguard it against being accessed by third parties. You are not permitted to use any words or internet addresses as user names (nicknames) if they are subject to trademark protection.
5. The Provider shall, in its reasonable discretion, offer the services of the portal without interruption so far as possible. However, the Provider shall have no obligation in this regard. The user shall likewise have no claim of right against the Provider that any particular scope or form of the Provider's services should be made available to him. Even though it exercises the greatest of care, the Provider is unable to rule out the possibility that outages may occur during which the Provider's web server cannot be accessed via the internet due to technical faults or other problems lying beyond the Provider's control (third party fault, force majeure, hacker attacks against infrastructure etc.).
6. The Provider reserves the right to terminate, modify or expand the content and structure of the platform and the related user interfaces at any time. The Provider is furthermore entitled to modify or delete postings uploaded by users and to publish them free of charge, or to refer to them in publications or advertising campaigns. Finally, the Provider shall be entitled to terminate the agreement with the user at any time without any need to indicate grounds of termination and without prior notice. Deletion of postings of a user shall, as a basic rule, be deemed the equivalent of termination of this agreement. The objective and purpose of the portal is to provide a "market for opinions" aimed at interested software developers. Thus, the Provider intends that users will cultivate peaceful and respectful dialogue, and that their interactions will neither be hostile nor insulting.

Sec. 3 Duties as a User of the Forum

1. As a user of the forum, you undertake that you shall not publish postings that violate these rules or public policy or otherwise constitute violations of applicable German law or foreign law. In particular, you are prohibited from doing any of the following:
   • publishing content which is punishable as a criminal offense, insulting or untrue, or which is incompatible with and unrelated to the goals and objectives of the portal;
   • use the system to send spam to other users;
   • use content which is subject to legal protections (in particular: copyright and trademark protections) without authorisation;
   • take actions which contravene competition laws;
   • upload your topic to the portal multiple times (prohibition on double posting);
   • publish on the portal press articles or other legally protected third party IP without the consent of the author;
   • carry out advertising on the portal. The foregoing also applies with respect to so-called surreptitious advertising, which includes (in particular) placing links to one's own website with or without accompanying text in the signature line or within postings. Website URLs and address and contact data may only be published on the user's profile on the portal.
     
2. As a user, you undertake that, prior to publishing your postings and topics, you shall review them to verify whether they contain any details you do not wish to publish. Your postings and topics may be captured by search engines and may thus be accessible on a world-wide basis. Users shall have no claim for deletion or correction of any such search engine entries against the Provider.
3. In particular, in cases of violation of the rules set forth in Sec. 3 (1) and (2), the Provider may impose the following sanctions on the user, as well as, and independent from, any notice of termination:
   
   • deletion or modification of content uploaded by the user,
     
   • issuance of a written warning or
     
   • blocking of the user's access to the portal.
     
4. The Provider is also entitled to block your access as a user to the online platform if there are sufficient suspicions that you have violated these Terms and Conditions. You may avert such action if you dispel suspicions by producing suitable evidence at your own expense. Irrespective of the foregoing, the Provider shall retain the right to block the user's access at any time without prior notice and without the need to furnish reasons, and to delete the user's entries if, in its discretion, the Provider considers actions or entries of the user to be a risk to the Provider's interests.
   
5. Where third parties or other users assert claims against the Provider based on potential violations or infringements resulting a) from content you as a user have uploaded and/or b) from your use of the Provider's services, you, as a user, undertake to indemnify and hold the Provider harmless against any and all such claims, including claims for damages, and to compensate the Provider for any costs it may incur as a result of the possible violation or infringement. In particular, you shall indemnify the Provider for the costs of any necessary legal defence. The Provider is entitled to demand an appropriate advance on costs from you as a user. As a user, you are required to support the Provider in good faith in respect of its legal defence against third parties by providing it with information and documents. The foregoing is without prejudice to all of the Provider's further rights and claims for damages.
   

Sec. 4 Assignment of Rights of Use

1. Copyright for your topics and postings (to the extent they are capable of copyright protection) shall, as a general principle, remain vested in you as the user. However, by uploading a topic or posting, and irrespective of any other applicable rules, you grant the Provider the gratuitous right to maintain that topic or posting permanently on its website. In addition, the Provider shall have the right to publish, delete, process, move or close topics and postings uploaded by you.
2. The rights of use referred to above shall remain in effect even if your forum account is terminated. 

Sec. 5 Limitation of Liability

1. The Provider of the portal does not assume any warranty whatsoever for the content uploaded to the portal and, in particular, shall not be liable for the correctness, completeness and timeliness thereof.
   
2. The Provider shall bear liability in cases of intentional acts and gross negligence and in cases in which it breaches a material contract obligation. Material contract obligations are obligations whose performance are essential prerequisites to the proper performance of the contract, with respect to which counterparties may ordinarily rely on compliance by the obligor. The Provider's liability for damages based on slight negligent breach of material contract obligations by the Provider or one of the Provider's legal representatives or vicarious agents is limited to compensating the user for such losses as are foreseeable at the time of contracting and typical for the contract. The Provider shall have no liability for slight negligent breach of ancillary obligations that do not constitute material contract obligations. Liability for losses falling within the protected scope of any warranty or representation given by the Provider, liability for claims based on the German Product Liability Act, and compensation for losses arising from injury to life, limb or health shall remain unaffected by the foregoing.​
   

Sec. 6 Term / Termination of Agreement e portal

1. This agreement is made for an indefinite term.
   
2. Either party may terminate this agreement without the need to comply with any notice period. ​
   
3. Following termination of this licence agreement, the Provider shall be entitled to block the user's access. In cases of termination, the Provider is entitled, but not obliged, to delete the content created by you as a user. You shall have no claim as a user for surrender of the content you have created. ​ 

AUCOTEC AG / August 2016