Clear rules for good collaboration

§ 1 Scope and Contracting Party

1. These Terms of Use govern the use of the Ocean Spotter platform (hereinafter the "Platform" or "Service"), available at https://ocean-spotter.com.
2. The provider and contracting party towards users is hanki vs. HANKI GmbH, Oberfeldring 11, 37083 Göttingen, Germany (hereinafter the "Provider").
3. By registering a user account or, where possible without an account, by actively using the Platform, users accept these Terms of Use.
4. Any deviating or supplementary terms of users shall not become part of the contract unless the Provider expressly agrees to their application in writing.
5. For contractual relationships with organisations, activity providers or other commercial customers, the General Terms and Conditions of hanki vs. HANKI GmbH at hanki.com/en/general_terms apply in addition.

§ 2 Description of Services

1. Ocean Spotter is a platform for recording, managing and displaying observations of marine and other wildlife as well as related activities and providers.
2. The Provider continuously develops the Platform and may add, modify or discontinue features insofar as this is reasonable for users.
3. Use of the Platform's basic functions is free of charge for private users. Paid features will be marked as such prior to conclusion of the relevant contract.

§ 3 Registration and User Account

1. The use of certain features requires the creation of a personal user account. Registration is only permitted to natural persons who have reached the age of 16.
2. Information provided during registration must be complete and accurate. Changes must be updated in the user profile without undue delay.
3. Only one account per person is permitted. Users may not share their access credentials with third parties and must protect their credentials from unauthorised access.
4. Users must inform the Provider without undue delay of any concrete suspicion of misuse of their account.

§ 4 User Obligations

1. The Platform may only be used in compliance with applicable law and these Terms.
2. The following activities are prohibited in particular:
   • posting unlawful, defamatory, discriminatory, harmful to minors, or content that violates the personality rights of third parties;
   • harassing or threatening other users;
   • automated retrieval or bulk download of content (scraping, bots) without the express written consent of the Provider;
   • circumventing, disabling or otherwise interfering with security features or access restrictions;
   • knowingly submitting false or misleading observation data;
   • commercial use of the Platform without a separate agreement with the Provider.
3. The Community Rules available at /ugc apply in addition.

§ 5 User-Generated Content

1. Users may publish their own content (e.g. observation texts, photos, videos, location data) on the Platform ("User Content").
2. Users retain all rights to their User Content. They grant the Provider a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual and royalty-free licence allowing the Provider to
   • store, display, reproduce, technically adapt, convert to other formats or resolutions and make publicly available the content for the purposes of operating, marketing and further developing the Platform,
   • use the content in the Provider's own marketing and communications materials (e.g. newsletters, press releases, trade fair appearances, app stores, social media channels, printed promotional materials), provided the connection to the Ocean Spotter platform remains identifiable, and
   • sublicence the content to technical service providers (e.g. hosting, content delivery networks, print shops for promotional materials) to the extent required for the provision of those services.
3. No transfer of usage rights to third parties for their own platform-unrelated purposes is granted under these Terms. If users wish to make their content available for reuse by third parties as well, they may, when uploading, additionally select a Creative Commons licence (CC BY 4.0, CC BY-NC 4.0 or CC0 1.0). Such content is marked on the Platform with the corresponding licence notice. The default selection at upload is "All rights reserved" — in which case only the licence under paragraph 2 applies.
4. Users warrant that they hold all necessary rights to the content they submit and that no rights of third parties are infringed (in particular copyright, trademark, personality or data protection rights). Users shall indemnify the Provider against any justified third-party claims arising from a breach of these obligations.
5. Detailed information on the available licences is provided on the licence page at /licence.

§ 6 Moderation and Removal of Content

1. The Provider reserves the right to review, restrict, hide or remove content without prior notice if there is concrete evidence of a breach of these Terms, the Community Rules or applicable law.
2. Notices regarding unlawful content may be submitted at any time using the contact details in the imprint or via the reporting channels provided in the Platform. The Provider responds to substantiated notices in accordance with statutory requirements.
3. In the case of repeated or serious violations, the Provider may temporarily suspend or permanently close the user account.

§ 7 Availability and Changes

1. The Provider strives to ensure the highest possible availability of the Platform. There is no entitlement to a specific level of availability or uninterrupted access.
2. Maintenance work, technical malfunctions, force majeure or third-party interference may lead to temporary restrictions of the Platform.
3. The Provider is entitled to modify or discontinue features of the Platform. Material changes will be announced to users in an appropriate manner.

§ 8 Liability

1. The Provider is liable without limitation for damages resulting from injury to life, body or health caused by an intentional or negligent breach of duty by the Provider or any of its legal representatives or vicarious agents, as well as for other damages caused by intentional or grossly negligent breach of duty.
2. In the event of a breach of essential contractual obligations ("cardinal obligations"), the Provider is also liable for ordinary negligence, but limited in amount to the typical foreseeable damage.
3. Any further liability of the Provider is excluded. Liability under the German Product Liability Act remains unaffected.
4. The Provider is liable for content submitted by users only within the framework of statutory provisions, in particular the German Telemedia Act and the Digital Services Act.
5. Observation, activity and provider data displayed on the Platform is for informational purposes. The Provider does not warrant that such data is current, complete or accurate.

§ 9 Term and Termination

1. The user agreement is concluded for an indefinite period and may be terminated by users at any time and without giving reasons by deleting their user account.
2. The Provider may terminate the user agreement with a notice period of 14 days to the end of the calendar month. The right to terminate without notice for cause, in particular in the event of a serious violation of these Terms, remains unaffected.
3. Upon termination of the user agreement, the user account and the related personal data will be deleted in accordance with the privacy policy. Content already published may remain on the Platform in anonymised form to the extent necessary for the functioning of the Platform and provided no overriding legitimate interests of the user oppose this.

§ 10 Amendments to the Terms of Use

1. The Provider reserves the right to amend these Terms insofar as this is necessary for legal, technical or organisational reasons and provided users are not unreasonably disadvantaged thereby.
2. Amendments will be communicated to users in an appropriate manner and shall be deemed accepted unless objected to within four weeks of notification. The Provider will draw users' attention to the deadline and the consequences of an objection in the notification.

§ 11 Data Protection

The processing of personal data takes place exclusively on the basis of the privacy policy available at /privacy.

§ 12 Applicable Law and Place of Jurisdiction

1. The laws of the Federal Republic of Germany apply, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.
2. If the user is a merchant, a legal entity under public law or a special fund under public law, the exclusive place of jurisdiction for all disputes arising from or in connection with these Terms shall be Göttingen.
3. Consumers domiciled in the European Union are referred to the European Commission's online dispute resolution platform at https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr. The Provider is neither obliged nor willing to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.

§ 13 Final Provisions

1. Should any individual provisions of these Terms be or become wholly or partially invalid, this shall not affect the validity of the remaining provisions.
2. Amendments and supplements to these Terms must be made in text form. This also applies to any waiver of this text form requirement.

Last updated: Göttingen, 26 April 2026