Flokkr Terms of Service

Effective date:

About Flokkr

Flokkr is a social media platform for individuals and organisations surrounding the community of gay and bisexual men, transgender and queer people or those questioning their sexual identity (GBTQ). Our aim is to create a safe, respectful and diverse online platform where adults can freely publish, share and discuss content and make social connections both online and in the real world. At the time of issuance of these Terms the Platform is in a pre-launch state, which basically means that the social media features themselves are not yet publicly available, but interested users may already start to sign up and take part in our crowdfunding campaign.

The Flokkr website flokkr.com together with its services (“Platform” or “Flokkr”) is owned and operated by Flokkr Ltd (“we”, “us”, “our”), a company registered in England under number 9089540 whose registered office address at 82A James Carter Road, Mildenhall, Suffolk, IP28 7DE, United Kingdom.

About this agreement

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) constitute a legally binding agreement between you as user (“you”, “your”) and Flokkr Ltd.

Our Privacy Policy explains how we collect and use your information. By using Flokkr, you’re agreeing to be bound by these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you’re using our Platform for an organisation, you’re agreeing to these Terms on behalf of that organisation.

You should read these Terms in full before using the Platform, because by using the Platform you are going to be legally bound by them. If you do not agree to the Terms you must not use Flokkr.

We may modify or replace these Terms at any time. If we do this then the new Terms will be posted on our website and we will indicate the effective date at the top of the Terms.

If you are a registered user and we have your email address, we may occasionally notify you about changes to the Terms by email or, in some cases, ask you to confirm the acceptance of the latest Terms when you log in, even if you have already agreed to an earlier version of the Terms.

Where you do not agree to the changes, you must request the deletion of your account, if you have one, and stop using the Platform. Your continued use of Flokkr following any change of the Terms constitutes your acceptance and you will be legally bound by the new updated Terms.

Rights to use Flokkr

Flokkr is a platform for adults. You may only use the Platform if your are at least 18 years old or the age of majority in the country in which you reside if that is greater than 18.

You warrant that you have the right, authority and capacity to enter into and be bound by the Terms and that by using Flokkr you will not be violating any law or regulation of the country in which you are resident. You are solely responsible for your compliance with all applicable local laws and regulations.

You further warrant that you have not been convicted of, nor are subject to any court order relating to assault, violence, sexual misconduct or harassment.

We reserve the right to terminate or suspend your license to use all or any portion of our Platform and your other rights under these Terms at any time and for any reason, including, but not limited to, violation of these Terms. Upon such termination, all license and other rights granted to you under these Terms will immediately terminate, but all other provisions of these Terms will survive termination. You will immediately cease all use of the Platform and any associated Flokkr accounts. We may further bar access to the Platform and your accounts and delete any and all information associated with your accounts.

User accounts

In order to access and use most of the Platform features you need a user account. You can create an account if you agree to these Terms and the Privacy Policy. When you register an account, you must make sure that all information provided is true, accurate and complete.

You are responsible for choosing a secure password and keeping it secret and secure. You must never share your account credentials with somebody else or give others access to your account. If you suspect that someone has gained access to your account, you must let us know immediately.

If your email address changes, you must update your account details by contacting us (see section Contact Us below). We will allow you to make such changes yourself in the near future.

Deleting an account

You can request the deletion of your account by contacting us (see section Contact Us below). After confirmation we will deactivate your account as soon as possible. Content and personal data will finally be deleted from our servers about 30 days later. This delay is to restore accounts from accidental or unauthorised deletion requests or in case you change your mind. Exempt from the deletion is data we are required to keep longer by law, for example certain payment transaction data for tax purposes.

Usernames

Before you can access and participate in the main web application of the Platform, which is expected to be launched later in 2019, you must pick a username. Your username will be used to uniquely identify you, your user profile, messages, posts, comments and most other things you do and publish across the Platform.

You are generally free to pick a username you like using your imagination. It doesn’t have to be your real name and we even recommend not to use you real name in order to protect you identity. However, all of the following rules apply to usernames:

  • It must only consist of letters of the English alphabet (A–Z), Arabic numerals (0–9) and the underscore symbol (‘_’).
  • It must not start with the underscore symbol (‘_’).
  • It must be between 1 and 15 characters long.
  • It must comply with our community rules and other parts of these Terms; in short: be nice, don’t try to impersonate somebody else, don’t be hateful and don’t use obvious trademarks that you don’t have the right to use.
  • You can mix lowercase and uppercase letters as you wish; all variations will technically be equal. For example, if you were to choose “ExampleName” as username, nobody else would be able to choose “eXaMpLeNAME”, or if somebody looks for “examplename” they would still find you as “ExampleName”.

Occasionally we will manually and automatically scan usernames and reservations. We reserve the right to delete, change or ask you to change usernames and reservations if we believe they don’t comply with the rules.

Most usernames with a length of 5 to 15 characters will be available for free when the Platform has launched publicly. If you would like to reserve a username ahead of the public launch, you may do so by participating in our crowdfunding campaign, starting with contributions of at least $5 for a non-Premium Name. For details, please refer to the sections Crowdfunding contributions and Crowdfunding rewards.

Some usernames we deem as particularly desirable will be available for a one-time purchase. We call those “Premium Names” and believe that this is a fair and fun way to help finance the Platform. We have defined Premium Name tiers; each tier will have its own price. We set the prices at our own discretion and may change prices and categories at any time. Before you decide on a username you will have the chance to check availability and price. You can also reserve a Premium Name ahead of the public launch as part of our crowdfunding campaign.

If you reserve a username ahead of the public launch as part of our crowdfunding campaign, you will be entitled to use that username for your actual account and profile once the main part of the Platform launches (including the beta version of the Platform) as well as any other username of the same Premium Name tier or lower as long as it still available. If you have successfully reserved a Premium Name, you will, of course, not be charged for it again. Your username reservation will expire at the time of creation of your profile, which means if you indeed choose the reserved name, it will be yours until you decide to change it or delete your account; if you choose a different username during the creation of your user profile, the reserved name becomes available for others to use.

Prohibited uses

Please use our Platform responsibly. You agree not to misuse Flokkr or help anyone else to do so. For example, you must not even try to do any of the following in connection with our Platform:

  • advocate bigotry or hatred against any person or group of people;
  • publish or share materials that are unlawfully pornographic, contain extreme acts of violence, terrorist activity, including terror propaganda, or promote commission of a crime;
  • plan or commit a crime or conceal it after its commission;
  • harass, abuse, stalk, defame, threaten, defraud, violate the privacy or other rights of other users, Flokkr personnel or representatives or agents performing services on behalf of Flokkr;
  • collect, store or disclose the identity, location or other personal information of other users without their permission;
  • send unsolicited communications, promotions, advertisements or spam;
  • impersonate or falsely claim affiliation with another individual or organisation;
  • transfer a user account to somebody else (whether it is being sold or not) or share an account with somebody else, unless specifically authorised to do so;
  • probe, scan or test the vulnerability of any system or network;
  • breach or otherwise circumvent any security, authentication measures or payment systems;
  • reproduce, redistribute, sell, create derivative works from, decompile, reverse engineer or disassemble our services or software;
  • access, tamper with or use non-public areas or parts of the Platform or shared areas of the Platform you haven't been invited to;
  • interfere with or disrupt any user, host or network, for example by sending a virus, overloading, flooding, spamming, or mail-bombing any part of the Platform;
  • access, search or create accounts for the Platform by any means other than our publicly supported interfaces (e.g. “scraping” or creating accounts in bulk);
  • use any kind of automated means (e.g. “bots”, “scripts”, “plugins”) to access or interact with the Platform or other users of the Platform without appropriate authorisation;
  • interact with any part of the Platform’s API other than using our unaltered user interface without appropriate authorisation;
  • send altered, deceptive or false source-identifying information, including “spoofing” or “phishing”;
  • promote or advertise products or services other than your own without appropriate authorisation;
  • abuse referrals or promotions to get more rewards than deserved;
  • violate the law in any way, including storing, publishing or sharing material that is fraudulent, defamatory or misleading;
  • violate the privacy or infringe the rights of others.

Crowdfunding contributions

If you would like to support Flokkr financially, you may do so by taking part in our crowdfunding campaign. We have payment facilities on our website flokkr.com where you can make payments through payment processors PayPal and Coinbase Commerce.

All crowdfunding contributions go 100% to Flokkr Ltd with the sole purpose of funding the company in order to pay for any aspects of running and developing the business, including cost related to the fulfilment of the crowdfunding rewards. The main goal is to get the Platform off the ground in its early stage.

Please note that despite our best efforts to make best possible use of all crowdfunding contributions, we cannot guarantee the success of the Platform and that all offered rewards can be fulfilled. Only make a contribution if you can afford to do so. Crowdfunding contributions are not an investment.

Payments must only be made with your own funds and from your own PayPal or bank account, credit or debit card or cryptocurrency wallet and have the right to make a payment with. If you make a payment on behalf of an organisation you must be authorised to do so.

If you require an invoice for your contribution, please contact us. We will be happy to assist.

Crowdfunding contributions are generally non-refundable. If, however, you have made a payment genuinely by mistake, please contact us immediately and we will do our best to sort it out. In case of an unfounded chargeback, you shall reimburse Flokkr for its losses, including the chargeback fees (up to $20 per chargeback).

You must have created a Flokkr account and logged in to access your personal crowdfunding page. All payments you make from there will be linked to your account. This means that you can increase your contribution by making further payments at any time until the crowdfunding campaign closes.

We use United States Dollar (“US Dollar”, “USD” or “$”) as our base currency. You can make payments in many other currencies too, including some cryptocurrencies, but the amount credited to your account will always be the amount in US Dollar after conversion from your payment currency at the exchange rate set by the payment processor at the time of payment. Please also note that some banks may charge a fee if you pay in a foreign currency. If you’re not sure, please check with your bank first.

Amounts/prices displayed on our website in currencies other than US Dollar are for illustrative purposes only since they are rounded and past exchange rates and may not reflect the exchange rate applied by the chosen payment processor.

Crowdfunding rewards

The rewards that will be assigned to your account depend on the amount in US Dollar you have contributed to the crowdfunding campaign through that particular account. If you have more than one account you must claim rewards individually for each account.

We have defined five tiers in a table on our website. That table includes a name of the supporter tier (“Basic”, “Bronze”, “Silver”, “Gold”, “Platinum”), the minimum funding amount to reach a particular tier and the included rewards.

For example, if you contribute less than $5, you will not be in any of the supporter tiers; if you have contributed at least $5 and less than $100 you will be in the Basic tier, and so on.

The time of availability of rewards and the time when you can claim certain rewards will vary. We will notify all supporters about claimable rewards via email. You can also log into your Flokkr account and access your personal crowdfunding dashboard anytime for updates. Your right to claim a particular reward expires 6 months after it becomes available.

The rewards across all supporter tiers are described as follows:

  • Username reservation: Depending on your particular supporter tier, you may choose and reserve a username for the Flokkr platform, subject to availability. Please refer to the Usernames section for particulars about usernames. You can use the username availability search box on our website to find out if a particular name is still available and what supporter tier is required to reserve it. You can change your reservation as often as you like until the end of the crowdfunding campaign or until you actually create a user profile on the Platform, whichever comes first. If you do change you reservation, please be aware that your previous reservation will be cancelled and that username becomes available to other users.
  • Premium membership: Although not finally decided, it is likely that, at some point in the future, Flokkr will partly be funded through optional premium membership subscriptions. Crowdfunding supporters will receive a free premium membership for the period specified, which is in addition any trial period that may be offered to anyone anyway. For example, if regular users would be offered a 14 days free trial, a Basic supporter could claim the 14 days like anybody else as well as one additional month. “Free for life” for Gold and Platinum supporters means until your account is closed and deleted.
  • Invitation stage: Although not finally decided, it is likely that we will open our Platform in a less finished earlier version (“Beta”) to a closed group of users ahead of the public launch. This version may contain more bugs and is mostly intended for early adopters, users who enjoy trying new things and like to give us feedback to help us.
  • Flokkr T-shirt: Starting from tier Bronze you will be able to claim a promotional T-shirt for free. Although the available design or designs are not yet finally decided, it is likely that we will offer to choose from at least two different designs of a standard male or unisex T-shirt in different sizes with a Flokkr logo print. Free shipping is included to all reasonable locations worldwide. We expect to start shipping T-shirts in September 2019, but depending on demand and user feedback, this might also be sooner or later.
  • Flokkr swag pack: Although the available items are not finally decided, it is likely the swag pack consists of a few promotional items. It’s nothing of great monetary value, but since you give us a lot of your support, we thought you might be interested to see our promotional items.
  • Founder-signed certificate: To thank you and to honour your significant contribution to help start something big, we will send you a personalised, high-quality printed certificate, hand-signed by the founder of Flokkr.
  • Gold sponsorship: We will feature your name or logo in a section marked “Gold sponsors” (or similar) for at least one year on the flokkr.com website. Your sponsorship graphic must have a subtle look and not look like an advert. The exact details such as size of the graphic and position on the website will be decided by us, depending on the final number of Gold and Platinum supporters and taking the feedback of all eligible sponsors into account. For example, if there is only one sponsor, then that sponsor’s logo can be placed more prominently; however, if there is a larger number of sponsors we could decide to show several logos side by side, rotate logos randomly etc. The Gold sponsorship will last for at least one year.
  • Platinum sponsorship: In its basics it is the same as Gold sponsorship, but your logo will be featured more prominently on the flokkr.com website. Additionally, your logo will be linked in the footer of automated transactional emails we send to users (e.g. email confirmation or password reset instructions) and newsletters, marked with an annotation “Platinum sponsor” or similar. The exact details such as size of the graphic and position on the website and in the email footer will be decided by us, depending on the final number of Platinum supporters and taking the feedback of all eligible sponsors into account. For example, if there is only one sponsor, then that sponsor’s logo can be placed more prominently; however, if there is a larger number of sponsors we could decide to show several logos side by side, rotate logos randomly etc. The Platinum sponsorship will last for at least two years.

Content

These Terms differentiate between three types of content on Flokkr:

  • content provided by you and other users of Flokkr (“User Generated Content”, “UGC”);
  • content provided by advertisers (“Advertiser Content”);
  • content that we provide (“Our Content”).

Limitation of liability

Nothing in the Terms limits or excludes our liability for: (a) death or personal injury caused by our proven negligence; (b) fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; or, (c) any liability which cannot be limited or excluded by law.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we expressly exclude:

  • all conditions, representations, warranties and other terms which might otherwise be implied by statute, common law or the law of equity;
  • any liability arising from use of Flokkr, its services or these Terms; and
  • any liability arising from communicating or meeting with other users on and outside of the Platform;
  • any liability arising from communicating or meeting with other users on or through Flokkr, the transmission of any disabling device that may infect your equipment, failure of mechanical or electrical equipment or communication lines, telephone or other interconnect problems (e.g. you cannot access your internet service provider), unauthorised access, theft, bodily injury, property damage, operator errors, strikes or other labour problems or any other act or omission by a third party outside our control, including without limitation for any claims, charges, demands, damages, liabilities, losses or expenses of whatever nature and howsoever caused including direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, punitive or consequential damages (however arising including negligence), loss of use, loss of data, loss caused by a computer or electronic virus, loss of income or profit, loss of or damage to property, wasted management or office time, breach of contract or claims of third parties or other losses of any kind or character, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages or losses, arising out of or in connection with the use of Flokkr.

The foregoing shall apply even if we were advised of the possibility of damages arising. Our total liability to you in respect of losses arising under or in connection with the Terms, whether in contract, tort (including negligence, breach of statutory duty, or otherwise), shall in no circumstances exceed ÂŁ10.

We do not warrant that the services and features of the Flokkr Platform will be uninterrupted, free of errors or work an all devices equally. We may change features, compatibility with devices and availability of all our services at any time.

We have taken reasonable steps to ensure the currency, availability, correctness and completeness of the information contained on Flokkr and provide that information on an “as is”, “as available” basis. We do not give or make any warranty or representation of any kind about the information contained on Flokkr, whether express or implied, including but not limited to fitness for a particular purpose, title or non-infringement. Use of Flokkr and the materials available on it is at your sole risk and we do not warrant that Our Content, User Generated Content or Advertiser Content is correct, accurate or reliable. We cannot be held responsible for any loss arising from the transmission or use of data, or for inaccurate content posted by users or advertisers. You are responsible for taking all necessary precautions to ensure that any material you may obtain from Flokkr is free of viruses or other harmful components. You accept that Flokkr will not be provided uninterrupted or error-free, that defects may not be corrected and that Flokkr, or the server that makes it available, are free of viruses or bugs, spyware, Trojan horses or any similar malicious software. We are not responsible for any damage to your computer hardware, computer software, or other equipment or technology including, but without limitation, damage from any security breach or from any virus, bugs, tampering, fraud, error, omission, interruption, defect, delay in operation or transmission, network failure or any other technical or other malfunction.

All the actions you make and information you post on Flokkr remain your responsibility. Therefore, you agree to indemnify, defend, release, and hold us, and our partners, licensors, affiliates, contractors, officers, directors, employees, representatives and agents, harmless, from and against any third party claims, damages (actual or consequential), actions, proceedings, demands, losses, liabilities, costs and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) suffered or reasonably incurred by us arising as a result of, or in connection with:

  • any negligent acts, omissions or wilful misconduct by you;
  • your access to and use of Flokkr;
  • the uploading or submission of content to Flokkr by you;
  • any breach of these Terms by you; and/or
  • your violation of any law or of any rights of any third party.

We retain the exclusive right to settle, compromise and pay any and all claims or causes of action which are brought against us without your prior consent. If we ask, you will co-operate fully and reasonably as required by us in the defence of any relevant claim.

By accessing Flokkr or agreeing to receive messages or notifications from Flokkr through your mobile phone or any other connected device, you accept that you may incur charges from your internet or mobile service provider. We shall not under any circumstances be liable for such charges.

Miscellaneous

The Terms and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with it or its subject matter (including non-contractual disputes or claims) shall be are governed by and construed in accordance with English law.

If, for any reason, any of the Terms are declared to be illegal, invalid or otherwise unenforceable by a court of a competent jurisdiction, then to the extent that term is illegal, invalid or unenforceable, it shall be severed and deleted from the Terms and the remainder of the Terms shall survive, remain in full force and effect and continue to be binding and enforceable.

The Terms set out the entire agreement and understanding between us and you in relation to your use of the Platform and supersede all previous agreements, representations and arrangements between us (either oral or written). Nothing in this clause shall limit or exclude any liability for fraudulent misrepresentation.

No failure or delay by us in exercising any right, power or privilege under the Terms shall operate as a waiver of such right or acceptance of any variation of the Terms and nor shall any single or partial exercise by either party of any right, power or privilege preclude any further exercise of that right or the exercise of any other right, power or privilege.

Nothing in the Terms shall confer or purport to confer on any other third party, any benefit or the right to enforce any term of the Terms and the “Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999” which shall not apply to these Terms.

Contact us

If you have a support request, question or complaint, please contact us by submitting a request at https://flokkr.com/help/contact.