Terms & Conditions

Bransparent.com GmbH (hereinafter called: BRANSPARENT) operates a website under the URL http://www.bransparent.com and similar URLs. On this website, BRANSPARENT offers users of the world wide web (WWW), namely you, a shopping portal and information about the companies that offer their goods and other services (hereinafter called: BRANSPARENT-PORTAL). As a MEMBER, you can become a part of this community, and receive much useful information about goods and companies that you do not obtain from the normal marketing of the companies. Later, we shall inform you about the date, you yourself will be able to interact with individual companies and other consumers and in this way take responsibility in terms of consumption.


1. Who can register?
1.1 Contractually capable natural and legal persons or partnerships may register with BRANSPARENT without restrictions. In particular, minors shall not register with BRANSPARENT.
1.2 On registration, please enter the data requested by BRANSPARENT completely and correctly, e.g. name, surname, current address (no box numbers) and telephone number (no premium rate numbers), a valid email address and if appropriate your tax number(s) and data concerning your VAT registration.
1.3. If you register as a legal person, the registration shall only be made by a natural person authorised to represent it, provided his/her name is given.
1.4. Should the above information be changed after registration, you shall be obliged to amend the inputs in your account without delay.
1.5. During the process of registration you choose a user name and a password. The user name shall not infringe against rights of third parties, in particular name or trading rights, and shall not be contrary to accepted principles of morality. BRANSPARENT shall be free to define formal requisitions and limitations of new user names.
1.6. You shall keep your password secret and carefully secure access to your account. If there is evidence that your account has been misused by third parties, you are obliged to inform BRANSPARENT without delay.

2. How does BRANSPARENT provide its service?
2.1. Availability
The usage of BRANSPARENT-PORTAL is only possible within the scope of the current state of technology. To this end, under the contract, BRANSPARENT shall endeavour to ensure that the information provided, the products and, if necessary, your questions or other contents can be called up around the clock by the general public, worldwide on the Internet.

2.2. Maintenance
As with every other Internet offer, BRANSPARENT carries out regular maintenance work on its systems to ensure security, developments and if possible a failure-free operation. For this purpose, BRANSPARENT may stop or limit its services temporar-ily, taking into consideration your interests. BRANSPARENT will carry out such maintenance work, as far as possible, at times when the website is little used. Should the temporary service stops or limitations require longer time, BRANSPARENT shall inform you in advance of the kind, extent and duration of the interference, so far as this is objectively possible, taking into account the circumstances and insofar as the notification would not delay the removal of interruptions already incurred.
2.3. Systems failures and stoppages
You are aware that the present state of technology makes it impossible to keep the PORTAL available completely free from systems failures and stoppages of the Internet. For this reason, the service of BRANSPARENT does not basically cover the inaccessibility of the PORTAL due to technical failures of the communication networks, due to attacks by third parties (e.g. so-called Denial of Service Attacks) or through incomplete and/or not up-dated offers through so-called proxies (intermediate storage), provided that BRANSPARENT shall not be responsible for them.

3. What is the service of BRANSPARENT?
3.1. BRANSPARENT is a portal on which companies offer their products by means of their own online shops or others through their distributors and to which BRANSPARENT adds information regarding the keeping of social and ecological principles in the course of business.
3.2. BRANSPARENT will try to facilitate the exchange of information between companies and users by expanding its functions. This can be done in the form of texts, through questions, answers or comments and in abstract form by means of assessment systems.
3.3. BRANSPARENT advertises the PORTAL and, to this end, makes available to third parties access to the data and information on the products and information offered in order for them to be able to advertise the PORTAL on their own websites, in their software applications, emails or other methods of communication.
3.4. BRANSPARENT offers you the technical possibility of using the PORTAL within the framework of the services offered by BRANSPARENT for your information, to be able to buy from the online shops of the companies or of their distributors and, as soon as this possibility has been made available by BRANSPARENT, if necessary also to publish contents of your own. The contents published by you on the PORTAL are basically unchecked by us regarding their content.

4. Under whose name does the shopping business take place?
If you buy products from the participating companies through the online shops of the companies or distributors for which BRANSPARENT has links, the contract and its performance shall take place in the name and on the account of the participating companies. In this case, BRANSPARENT itself shall not become contractually involved in the contracts made exclusively between you and the companies. Also, fulfilment of these contracts shall remain exclusively a matter between you and the companies.

5. What information do you receive? What does the Community offer you?
5.1. BRANSPARENT makes available a framework for the companies in the form of questions and asked statements, in which the participating companies are able to provide you, the user, with information at their convenience.
5.2. Furthermore, there are contents which have been created by other users, by the BRANSPARENT team or by partners of BRANSPARENT.

6. Which general rules shall I observe?
6.1 Upon registration, you will receive a password that allows you access to the PORTAL and participation in the services offered.
6.2 You should keep your password confidential and make it safe against unauthorised access. This shall also apply to family members. You shall give your password only to those persons who are authorised to carry out legal transactions in your name and on your account.
6.3 You shall be responsible for the culpable loss of the password and for the transactions made on your account made by third parties resulting from your own fault. You shall keep BRANSPARENT free from liability from possible occurring failures.
6.4. Should you lose your password, or should you be aware of a misuse of your access, you shall inform BRANSPARENT of it without delay. A new password will then be sent to you.
6.5 You shall be responsible for archiving, on a data storage medium independent of BRANSPARENT, information that can be seen on the PORTAL and that has been saved from BRANSPARENT, which you need for the purposes of documentary evidence, accounting, etc.
6.6 You shall not use addresses, contact details and email addresses, which you have obtained through using the PORTAL, for any purposes other than for contractual and pre-contractual communication. In particular, you are forbidden to resell such data or to use it to create advertisements, unless the respective user has expressly agreed previously to it.

7. What contents are prohibited on BRANSPARENT?
7.1 It is prohibited to post on BRANSPARENT questions or other contents that, by their expression or forwarding, breach legal rules, or any rights of third parties, or offend good manners. You shall be responsible for ensuring that your contents are legal and do not breach the rights of third parties.
7.2 Also, you shall be obliged to observe the laws in force when using the PORTAL and other services from BRANSPARENT.
7.3. In particular, you shall be obliged to give any information in the PORTAL truthfully.


8 Assessment system
8.1 BRANSPARENT gives you, the user, the possibility of assessing answers from companies on critical questions.
8.2. You are not obliged to assess them. Nevertheless, you shall be obliged to provide exclusively truthful data within the context of the assessment.
8.3. BRANSPARENT shall not check the honesty of the assessments. BRANSPARENT shall not be liable for the accuracy and effects of these assessments, provided that BRANSPARENT is not responsible for damage caused intentionally or as a result of gross negligence. Detected or obviously incorrect assessments shall be deleted.
8.4 With reference to the assessment system, you are not entitled to demand certain behaviour, not in keeping with the contractual obligations within the context of the PORTAL. A breach of this shall entitle BRANSPARENT to terminate the participation agreement.
8.5. A placement in this assessment system only takes place, when the respective company generally approves this.

9. Exemption
You shall exempt us from all demands that other users or other third parties assert against us owing to breaches of their rights through contents placed by you in the PORTAL or owing to their use of the PORTAL (including the assessments entered by you). In this connection, you shall bear the whole of the costs of our necessary legal defence including all court costs or legal fees. This shall not apply, if you are not responsible for the legal breach. In the event of a claim by third parties, you shall be obliged to make available all information immediately, truthfully and completely to BRANSPARENT, which shall be required to check the claims and to file a defence.

10. And what does this cost? Or who pays this?
10.1. There are no costs involved for you when visiting the PORTAL and for calling up the information available there.
10.2. BRANSPARENT shall receive a percentage of the sales achieved by the participating online shops and, as the case may be, for the advertisement of a product.
10.3 Any sales contract that you handle through the online shops of the company or of their distributors contains the payments for the goods bought and will be concluded directly between you and the company. For this reason, BRANSPARENT may also not comment as to the payment transactions in this contract.
10.4. BRANSPARENT also retains the right to place on the PORTAL advertisements of third parties or to make this so possible to the participating companies or to make available presentation spaces for them.

11. What happens if I should breach the regulations or rights of third parties?
11.1 BRANSPARENT may take the following measures, if there are concrete pointers to prove that you are breaching legal requirements, or rights of third parties, or if you are breaching General Contractual Terms, or when BRANSPARENT has another justifiable interest, in particular to protect other users against fraudulent activities:
- Delete contents
- Issue a caution
- Restriction or limitation of the use of the PORTAL
- Temporary blockage
- Definitive blockage
When choosing a measure, BRANSPARENT shall take into consideration your justifiable interests, in particular whether there is evidence that you have not caused the breach.
11.2. BRANSPARENT may block you definitively from using the PORTAL (definitive blockage), if you
- have given false contact details, especially a false or invalid email address.
- damage other users or us to a considerable extent, in particular, if you misuse our services.
- or for any other important reason.
11.3 After you have been definitively blocked, there shall be no demand to restore access to the services of BRANSPARENT. As soon as you have been blocked, you are not allowed to use the PORTAL any more, also with other member accounts or to register again.

12. System integrity and failure of the PORTAL
12.1 You shall not use mechanisms, software or other scripts in connection with the use of the PORTAL that may disturb the function of the PORTAL.
12.2 You are not allowed to take any measures that may cause an unreasonable or excessive load on the PORTAL. You shall not block, overwrite, modify or interfere in a troublesome manner in the PORTAL any contents generated by BRANSPARENT.
12.3 The contents deposited on the PORTAL shall not be copied or broadcast, or used in any other way, or duplicated without the previous authorisation of the owner of the rights. This shall also apply to copies made by means of "Robot/Crawler" search engine technologies, or by other automatic mechanisms.

13. In what way can BRANSPARENT be liable?
13.1 BRANSPARENT shall be liable for damage arising out of breach of warranty.
13.2 Furthermore, BRANSPARENT shall be unconditionally liable only for intention and gross negligence, also from its legal representatives and managing employees as well as its vicarious agents.
13.3 BRANSPARENT shall only be liable for slight negligence, insofar as BRANSPARENT breaches an obligation the observance of which is of crucial importance for the achievement of the purpose of the contract (cardinal duty). This liability shall be limited to damage such as might be reasonably foreseeable in the context of your contract.
13.4 In any case, BRANSPARENT shall be liable for damage arising from loss of life, or injury to body or health. Liability under the Product Liability Act shall likewise remain unaffected.

14. What right and which jurisdiction are applicable to this Contract?
14.1. Should you not have your residence in Germany, these General Contractual Terms shall be ruled by the material law of the Federal Republic of Germany excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG).
14.2. If you are a trader, as defined in the German Commercial Code, a special fund under public law, or a legal person governed by public law, Berlin shall have exclusive jurisdiction over all disputes arising out these General Contractual Terms and the individual contracts based on them.

15. What happens to my personal data?
15.1 Data and information that BRANSPARENT receives from you help BRANSPARENT to customise your shopping experience with BRANSPARENT and to improve it continuously. BRANSPARENT shall only use this information for the processing of the information display.
15.2 Provided that you agree hereby with the following regulations in the data protection notice, BRANSPARENT will also use your information to communicate with you regarding orders, products or marketing offers, or to send you a newsletter. It will also use it to update records and to maintain and look after your customer accounts with BRANSPARENT, as well as to illustrate contents, such as checklists or shopping basket contents, and, provided you agree, to recommend to you additional products or services that may interest you.
15.3 We use your information also to improve our offer, to prevent or to discover a misuse of the PORTAL, or to allow third parties to carry out technical and logistic services or other services on our behalf.

16. What steps can Bransparent take to amend these terms and conditions?
BRANSPARENT reserves the right to change these General Contractual Terms at any time and without specifying reasons. The amendments to the conditions will be sent to you by email no later than two weeks before they come into force. If you do not object to the validity of the new General Contractual Terms within two weeks after receiving the email, the General Contractual Terms shall apply as if they had been specifically accepted by you. BRANSPARENT shall inform you separately about the two-week notice, in the email that contains the amended Conditions.

17. Duration of this Contract
17.1. You may terminate this participation contract at any time. Your access and password will be deactivated without delay. Such termination will not have any influence on any business already started by you with companies, in their online shops or the online shop of their distributors.
17.2 BRANSPARENT shall be entitled at any time to terminate this participation contract without specifying reasons by giving 5 working days notice.
17.3. In any case, a termination without notice owing to important reasons shall be reserved to both parties in accordance with the legal regulations.
17.4 Terminations may also take place by email.

Data Protection Notice
I expressly agree and consent to the processing and use of all of my personal data (inventory data, for example name and address, and usage data, such as member name, code word, and IP address) according to the following regulations:

Personal Data
I expressly agree and consent to BRANSPARENT’s using the data arising from the previously adjusted functions out of the PORTAL (e.g. registration, assessment of the answers of companies...) for the operation of the PORTAL.
I expressly agree and consent to BRANSPARENT’s processing and using my personal data to send emails with general information or of an advertising nature (newsletter). I take notice of the fact that it is possible for me to unsubscribe to this information at any time and that I am able to use the following option exclusively for this purpose: to deselect the required tick boxes in the corresponding fields in the "My Bransparent" section, to deactivate the service.
I hereby agree that BRANSPARENT also processes and uses my personal data to send me offers from the offer selection from BRANSPARENT suited to my personal interests.


Data Safety
The data made available by you to BRANSPARENT shall be protected by suitable technical and organisational means. The objective is to secure your data against coincidental or intentional manipulation, loss, damage, access of unauthorised persons or illegal disclosure to third parties. For this purpose, our safety measures are being continuously controlled and improved according to the technological developments and organisational possibilities.

Forwarding to Third Parties
BRANSPARENT shall not forward your data to third parties, unless this is made within the context of the handling of purchases, which is done by you with our partners through the BRANSPARENT-PORTAL.

Right to Information
On written request, we shall inform you what personal data we have saved about you (e.g. name, address).

Anonymous Data
All general information will be saved automatically, with each access to the PORTAL (e.g. time of visit and number of call ups to the site). This data will be saved anonymously, namely not related to the person. It will be used exclusively for statistical purposes and to optimise our Internet offer.


Cookies
Cookies are small files with information that we set on your computer while you are visiting our Internet sites. A cookie does not contain personal data, but it serves exclusively for our server to recognise you automatically when you are visiting our sites the next time. In this way, the usage of our service is more comfortable and simple.

Deleting Cookies
The current browsers offer you the possibility of deleting cookies. For assistance, please consult your browser’s support

Contact
For further information regarding data protection, please contact BRANSPARENT on tel. +49 30 69 203 103 or via email: berlin(at)bransparent.com