APP TERMS OF SERVICE

 

Contents

  1. Welcome to Thingster
  2. Your relationship with us
  3. Information about you and your privacy
  4. Setting up an account
  5. Thingster marketplace
  6. Your right to use the Service
  7. Your content
  8. Rules of Acceptable Use
  9. Notice and takedown policy
  10. Advertisements on the Service
  11. Ending our relationship
  12. Our liability/responsibility to you
  13. Your responsibility to us
  14. Resolving disputes
  15. Changes to the Service
  16. Changes to these Terms of Service
  17. Documents that apply to our relationship with you
  18. Law and general provisions
  19. Contact, feedback and complaints

 

Terms of Service

 

  1. Welcome to Thingster

1.1 Thingster is a platform which promotes sustainable living through second-hand Things exchange. Thingster operates a peer-to-peer marketplace where users can swap their second-hand items using the Thingster application which we make available for download through an app store on your mobile device.

1.2 The Service is operated by Thingster LTD, (incorporated and registered in England and Wales under company number 15169423) whose registered office is at 65, Compton Street, London, EC1V 0BN (we, our or us).

 

  1. Your relationship with us

2.1 This document and any documents referred to within it (collectively, the Terms of Service) set out the terms of your relationship with us. It is important that you read and understand the Terms of Service before using the Service. If there is anything within them that you do not understand, then please contact us at support@thingster.me to discuss what this means for you.

2.2 By setting up an account with us and/or using and accessing the Service, you agree to and accept these Terms of Service in their entirety. If you do not agree to these Terms of Service, you may not use the Service.

 

  1. Information about you and your privacy

Your privacy is important to us. You should read our Privacy Policy to understand how we collect, use and share information about you. You should also read our Cookie Policy to understand how we use cookies within the Service.

 

  1. Setting up an account

4.1 To access our Service, you must register with us and set up an account with a username and password (Account). We encourage you to use “strong” passwords (passwords that use a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols) with your Account.

4.2 You must be at least 18 years of age, and capable in your country of residence of entering into a legally binding agreement to use our Service. Thingster does not knowingly collect or solicit any information from anyone under the age of 18 or knowingly allow such persons to register for the Service. Children under the age of 18 are prohibited from providing any personal information to the Site. In the event that we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 18 without parental consent, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. You may connect to our Service with third-party services approved by us (e.g. Facebook, Instagram or Twitter) and in such circumstances you give us permission to access and use your information from that service as permitted by that service, and to store your log-in token for that service as set out in our Privacy Policy.

4.3 You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login details and any activities that occur under your Account. If you have any concerns that your Account may have been misused, you should contact us at support@thingster.me straight away to let us know.

 

  1. Thingster marketplace

5.1 Our Service allows you to exchange your things in an easy and fun way, using our Thingster App.

5.2 Please note that there is no guarantee that a Thing which you want will become available.

5.3 You can swap your Things through our Service by publishing pictures of the Thing you want to exchange (Swap Thing) and by swiping the other users’ Things’ pictures.

5.4 When another user of the Service swipes the image of your Thing to the right, there is a Swap pre-match and there can be a Swap match. When you see a notification about a Swap pre-match, you can either agree or disagree to make a Swap match.

5.5 To safeguard the interests of our users, you are not permitted to sell or purchase a Swap Thing by making direct arrangements with other users. Please note that selling or purchasing a Swap Thing is a breach of our Rules of Acceptable Use and can result in, among other things, suspension or termination of your access to the Service (see Section 8).

5.6 We want our Service to be a positive experience for our users and we ask that you honour the commitments you make to another user in respect of the swap of a Swap Thing.

5.7 Any agreement for receiving of a Swap Thing is made solely between you and the other user. Complaints, questions, and claims related to a Swap Thing should be directed to the other user. Where users cannot resolve issues relating to a Swap Transaction between themselves, we will attempt to help mediate such disputes through our dispute resolution process. You can find out more about our dispute resolution procedure at section 14 of these Terms of Service.

5.8 As we are not the seller of any Swap Things, we have no control and do not give any commitment relating to the existence, quality, safety, genuineness or legality of Swap Things, the truth or accuracy of any picture or description of the Swap Things or any other content made available by users, and we have no liability in this respect.

 

  1. Your right to use the Service

6.1 The intellectual property rights in all materials and content comprising the Service, including but not limited to images, written content and designs on each page of the Thingster application and website, either belong to us or we have permission from the owner to use them to provide the Service. All such intellectual property is protected by worldwide intellectual property laws, including copyright and design laws. We give you permission to use the materials and content comprising the Service for the sole purpose of using the Service in accordance with these Terms of Service.

6.2 Your right to use the Service is personal to you and you are not allowed to give this right to another person or to sell, gift or transfer your Account to another person. Your right to use the Service does not stop us from giving other people the right to use the Service.

6.3 Other than as allowed in these Terms of Service or by us in writing, you are not given the right to use the “Thingster” name, or any of the “Thingster” trademarks, logos, domain names and other distinctive brand features, all of which are intellectual property rights that belong to Thingster.

6.4 These Terms of Service do not grant you any rights to, or in, any such intellectual property rights or any other rights or licenses in respect of Thingster’s materials and content, the Service, Thingster name and/or trademarks, other than as set out in these Terms of Service.

 

  1. Your content

7.1 You confirm that images, sounds, text or information that you submit or create (User Content) whilst using the Service will meet the Rules of Acceptable Use (Clause 8).

7.2 You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable and perpetual license to use, copy, reproduce, distribute, adapt, re-format, modify, publish, translate, license, sub-license, assign, transfer and exploit the User Content (including any intellectual property rights therein) anywhere and in any form for the purposes of providing our Service or for any purpose in connection with the operation of our business.

7.3 Our right to use your User Content does not in any way affect your privacy rights and we will only use information that identifies you as set out in our Privacy Policy.

7.4 We do not check or moderate any User Content before it is added to the Service by users. We may later check, moderate, reject, refuse or delete any User Content if we think that it breaks any of the Rules of Acceptable Use, if we receive what we believe is a bona fide complaint from a third party, or we believe it is against the ethos of Thingster.

7.5 User Content removed from the Service may continue to be stored by us, including, without limitation, in order to comply with certain legal obligations, but we are not under any obligation to you to do so. Therefore we encourage you to maintain your own backup of your User Content and you agree that you will not rely on the Service for the purposes of User Content backup or storage. To the extent permitted by applicable law, we shall have no liability for any loss of User Content.

 

  1. Rules of Acceptable Use

8.1 In addition to the other requirements within these Terms of Service, this section 8 describes specific rules that apply to your use of the Service (Rules of Acceptable Use).

8.2 You must make sure the email address you provide in your Account details remains active and is checked by you on a regular basis.

8.3 The Service is for private use only, and cannot be used for the purpose of any business or trade.

8.4 When using the Service you must not:

8.4.1 create more than one Account on the Service (however, you may connect all your social networks or other services accounts, that we support, to your Account on the Service) unless we agree otherwise;

8.4.2 give any false or misleading information in your Account details;

8.4.3 permit another person to use the Service under your name or on your behalf;

8.4.4 use the Service if we have suspended or banned you from using it;

8.4.5 send junk, spam or repetitive messages;

8.4.6 engage in any illegal or unlawful conduct including selling any fake or counterfeit Things or any Thing that otherwise breaches another person’s rights, and must comply with applicable legal requirements relating to the exchange of Swap Things (including but not limited to import and export rules and illegal products, the listing of any age restrictions, distance selling and cooling off rights which may apply to a Swap Thing where the user is a business);

8.4.7 modify, interfere, intercept, disrupt or hack the Service;

8.4.8 misuse the Service by knowingly introducing viruses, Trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material which would harm the Service or any user of the Service’s own equipment;

8.4.9 collect any data from the Service other than in accordance with these Terms of Service;

8.4.10 submit or contribute any User Content (including comments and descriptions relating to Swap Things) that contains unlawful content, nudity or violence, is abusive, bullying, threatening, harassing, obscene, misleading, untrue, offensive, defamatory, derogatory or uses bad or rude language, as Thingster may decide in its absolute discretion;

8.4.11 unfairly or unlawfully interfere or manipulate any ratings system or user feedback system;

8.4.12 submit or contribute any User Content without the permission of the content owner, or otherwise infringe the copyright, trademark or other rights of third parties (which includes using hashtags for protected brands, in connection with your listing, that are irrelevant to such listing);

8.4.13 purchase or sell a Swap Thing by making direct arrangements with the other user;

8.4.14 submit or contribute any information or commentary about another person without that person’s permission, or post private or confidential information via the Service, including, without limitation, your or any other person’s credit card information, social security or alternate national identity numbers, non-public phone numbers or non-public email addresses;

8.4.15 mine data, screen scrape or crawl any part of the Service;

8.4.16 disassemble, decompile or reverse engineer any part of the Service;

8.4.17 adapt, copy, vary, edit, distribute or commercialize any content in the Service without the prior written consent of Thingster; or

8.4.18 circumvent any technical measures implemented to protect or provide the Service.

8.5 Failure to comply with the Rules of Acceptable Use constitutes a serious breach of these Terms of Service, and may result in our taking all or any of the following actions (with or without notice, and entirely at our discretion):

8.5.1 immediate, temporary or permanent withdrawal of your right to use our Service;

8.5.2 immediate, temporary or permanent removal of any User Content (including the removal of Swap Things listed on the Service);

8.5.3 issuing of a warning to you;

8.5.4 legal action against you including proceedings for reimbursement of all costs (including, but not limited to, reasonable administrative and legal costs) resulting from the breach;

8.5.5 disclosure of such information to law enforcement authorities as we reasonably feel is necessary.

8.6 We may investigate any suspected breach of the Rules of Acceptable Use. During such investigation we may temporarily withdraw your right to use our Service or remove User Content (including the removal of Swap Things listed on the Service) without notice to you.

8.7 The responses described in section 8.5 are not limited, and we may take any other action we reasonably deem appropriate.

 

  1. Notice and takedown policy

9.1 Any person may contact us by sending us an “Infringement Notice” if they consider that any content available through our Service infringes their rights or fails to comply with our Rules of Acceptable Use. The Infringement Notice should be sent either by post to 65, Compton Street, London, EC1V 0BN or by email to support@thingster.me. Please provide the information described below in the Infringement Notice:

9.1.1 your name, contact details and account username;

9.1.2 a statement explaining in sufficient detail why you consider that the content available through our Service infringes your rights or fails to comply with our Rules of Acceptable Use; and

9.1.3 a link to or such other means of identifying the problematic content.

9.2 We will take the action that we believe is appropriate depending on the nature of the Infringement Notice and will aim to respond to you within a reasonable period of time on the action we propose to take.

 

  1. Advertisements on the Service

10.1 We and our selected business partners may provide advertising to you through the Service [or by other methods such as email]. This advertising may be based on your User Content or other information available through the Service. When delivering advertising we will only use information that identifies you as set out in our Privacy Policy.

 

  1. Ending our relationship

11.1 If at any time you decide you can no longer agree to these Terms of Service or any changes made to the Terms of Service or the Service, you must immediately stop using the Service.

11.2 If you wish to end your use of the Service, please contact us at support@thingster.me from the email address linked to your account and ask us to deactivate your Account. Where such request comes from someone who is not the account holder, we may ask you to provide proof of who you are and your relationship to the User in question, and any other documents we may reasonably require.

11.3 We may immediately end your use of the Service if you break the Rules of Acceptable Use, any other important rule(s), or terms and conditions we set for accessing and using the Service including these Terms of Service.

11.4 We may also withdraw the Service for any reason, without notice, at any time and without any liability to you.

11.5 If you or we end your use of the Service or we withdraw the Service as described in this clause, we may delete or modify your User Content, Account or any other information we hold about you. You will also lose any rights you have to use the Service or access our content or your User Content. We will not offer you compensation for any losses. You should note that even if your Account is deactivated, some of your data may persist and appear within the Service, for example where your User Content has been re-shared by others.

 

  1. Our liability/responsibility to you

12.1 You alone decide whether to proceed with the exchange of a Swap Thing. As such, we make no commitments regarding the Swap Things including the quality or delivery of the Swap Things, or for honouring (or causing any user to honour) any erroneous information regarding the quality, description and availability of, or any information relating to any Swap Things promoted or available through our Service, or the ability of the user to complete any exchange of the Swap Things.

12.2 Although it is our intention that the Service is available as much as possible, there may be occasions when the Service may be interrupted, including for scheduled maintenance, upgrades and emergency repairs, or due to failure of telecommunication links and/or equipment. The Service and any content contained therein (including User Content) is provided on an “as available” and “as is” basis. This means that we are unable to promise that your use of the Service will be uninterrupted, without delays, error-free or meet your expectations and we do not give any commitment relating to the performance or availability of the Service in these Terms of Service and, to the extent we are able to do so, we exclude any commitments that may be implied by, or be expressed by, applicable law. You accept that the internet may be subject to breaches of security and that the submission of User Content or other information may not be secure.

12.3 Thingster is not responsible or liable for any loss or harm caused by viruses, worms or other programs designed to impair the Service.

12.4 You may be able to access third party links/websites/products via the Service. Thingster is not responsible or liable for any third party links/websites/products which may be accessed by you at your sole option. Your access to and use of such third party links/websites/products and services shall be solely at your own risk and subject to your acceptance and compliance with the separate terms and conditions of such third party.

12.6 For all claims arising out of the provision of the Service (including without limitation any dispute between users, in relation to any content you access via the Service, or any other user you interact with), we do not accept any responsibility whatsoever (whether arising in contract, tort otherwise), except where we cannot disclaim, exclude or limit responsibility by law (such as death and/or personal injury caused by our negligence).

12.7 We will never be responsible for any loss or damage that is not reasonably foreseeable and we will never be responsible for indirect losses and/or financial and business loss, or loss of goodwill or reputation.

 

  1. Your responsibility to us

If Thingster is sued due to an action or inaction by you (including a breach of these Terms of Service) then we have the right, at our discretion, to request that you indemnify us (i.e. cover all our costs including legal fees) and hold us harmless from any legal claim or demand for expenses or costs that arises as a result. Where we decide to conduct the defense of such claim, you agree to assist us as reasonably requested.

 

  1. Resolving disputes

Disputes with us

14.1 If you have a dispute with us relating to the Service, in the first instance please contact us at support@thingster.me and attempt to resolve the dispute with us informally.

Disputes with other users relating to a Swap Transaction

General

14.2 If there is a dispute between participants on Thingster, or between users and any third party, you understand and agree that Thingster is under no obligation to become involved. In the event that you have a dispute with one or more other users, you hereby release Thingster, its officers, employees, volunteers, agents and successors in rights from claims, demands and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind or nature, known or unknown, suspected and unsuspected, disclosed and undisclosed, arising out of or in any way related to such disputes and / or our service.

14.3 All exchanges made outside of Thingster are against our Terms of Service and are not covered by this clause.

14.4 Should you decide to appeal any decision Thingster has made under this section of the terms, then please contact us. Be aware that we will only consider appeals where you can supply new evidence to support your case.

 

 

  1. Changes to the Service

15.1 We are constantly updating and improving the Service to try and find ways to provide you with new and innovative features and services. Improvements and updates are also made to reflect changing technologies, tastes, behaviours and the way people use the Internet and our Service.

15.2 In order to do this, we may need to update, reset, stop offering and/or supporting a particular part of the Service, or feature relating to the Service “changes to the Service”. These changes to the Service may affect your past activities on the Service, features that you use and your User Content “Service Elements”. Any changes to the Service could involve Service Elements being deleted or reset.

15.3 You agree that a key characteristic of our Service is that changes to the Service will take place over time and this is an important basis on which we grant you access to the Service. Once we have made changes to the Service, your continued use of the Service will show that you have accepted any changes to the Service. You are always free to stop using the Service or deactivate your Account by contacting us at support@thingster.me from the email address linked to your account.

 

  1. Changes to these Terms of Service

16.1 We may revise these Terms of Service from time to time and any changes will take effect after three days of any notification email sent to you notifying you of any changes, or at the time the revised Terms of Service are posted (whichever is the earlier) and your continued use of the Service shall constitute acceptance of such revised Terms of Service.

16.2 Changes will usually occur because of new features being added to the Service, changes in the law or where we need to clarify our position on something.

16.3 We will try, where possible and reasonable, to contact you to let you know about any significant changes to any of the documents referred to in these Terms of Service. We may contact you through the Service (for example by asking you to accept the changes before you continue to use the Service) or via a separate email.

16.4 Normally, we will try to give you some warning before the new terms become effective. However, sometimes changes will need to be made immediately and if this happens we will not give you any notice.

 

  1. Documents that apply to our relationship with you

17.1 The current version of the Terms of Service contains the only terms and conditions that apply to our relationship with you. Older versions of the Terms of Service will no longer apply to our relationship and will be completely replaced by the current version.

17.2 We intend to rely on these Terms of Service as setting out the written terms of our agreement with you for the provision of the Service. If part of the Terms of Service cannot be enforced then the remainder of the Terms of Service will still apply to our relationship.

17.3 If you do not comply with these Terms of Service and we do not take action immediately, this does not mean we have given up any right we have and we may still take action in the future.

 

  1. Law and general provisions

18.1 These Terms of Service and any dispute or claim (including non-contractual disputes or claims) arising out of or in connection with it or its subject matter or formation, shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales.

18.2 We may assign any of our rights and obligations under these Terms of Service.

18.3 These Terms of Service do not create an agency, partnership, employment or joint venture relationship between you and Thingster.

18.4 Thingster will not be liable for any delay in performing or failure to perform its obligations caused by any force majeure event. In those circumstances Thingster will be granted a reasonable extension of time for the performance of its obligations, the reasonableness of that extension to be assessed in the context of these Terms of Service and Thingster’s other commitments.

18.5 No third party or (except, where applicable, the permitted assign of Thingster) is entitled to the benefit of these Terms of Service under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 or otherwise.

 

  1. Contact, feedback and complaints

19.1 If you need to contact us in relation to these Terms of Service or any other document mentioned in them, please email us at support@thingster.me with the subject line ‘Terms of Service’.

19.2 We value hearing from our users, and are always interested in learning about ways we can improve the Service. By providing your feedback you agree that you are giving up any rights you have in your feedback so that we may use and allow others to use it without any restriction and without any payment to you.