General Terms and Conditions for the use of the freelance.jobs platform

1. Scope of application
2. Contractual object
3. Registration and user account
4. Obligations of users
5. Deletion of content, blocking of users, liability of the user
6. Prices and terms of payment
7. Liability
8. Data protection
9. Termination of the contract
10. Final provisions

(Note: In order not to impair the flow of reading, only the masculine form is mentioned here and in the following contract text, but the feminine and other forms are always equally meant).

1. Scope of application

1.1. These terms of use govern the legal relationship between freelance.jobs inc. (hereinafter: "freelance.jobs") as operator of the online platform freelance.jobs and the registered users (hereinafter: "users") of this B2B online platform. These terms of use govern the use of the online platform freelance.jobs, including the use of the freelance.jobs blog, exclusively and irrespective of the end device or operating system used, including the use of the services via the corresponding apps.

1.2. Deviating terms and conditions of the user will only apply if and insofar as they are recognized in writing by freelance.jobs.

2. Contractual object

2.1. freelance.jobs provides an information, service and communication platform that gives users the opportunity to acquire personnel and projects and to present themselves. In addition, the services of freelance.jobs also enable the exchange of electronic messages between user groups and between users and freelance.jobs. In addition, freelance.jobs provides users with a blog for the exchange and factual commenting on posts (freelance.jobs blog).

2.2. The services of freelance.jobs are divided into free memberships and paid memberships.

2.3. The current overview of the services of the various membership types and accounts is available on freelance.jobs. freelance.jobs reserves the right to expand, change, reduce or partially discontinue its range of services for the ongoing development of freelance.jobs, insofar as this does not unreasonably affect the interests of the respective user concerned. Claims of the user for reduction, reimbursement or compensation do not arise from this. However, the user is entitled to terminate his membership extraordinarily for good cause in accordance with clause 9.3, i.e. without observing the period of notice provided for in clause 9.2, if during an agreed minimum term or until the expiry of the period for ordinary termination the range of services selected and ordered by him is reduced or discontinued to a significant extent.

2.4. freelance.jobs grants the user the best possible availability of content and services within the framework of technical possibilities. freelance.jobs is entitled to briefly interrupt access to freelance.jobs for necessary maintenance, security or updating work. No responsibility can be accepted for disruptions to availability that are beyond the control of freelance.jobs.

2.5. Partner offers are, unless expressly described otherwise, only available to groups of users specified by freelance.jobs, which freelance.jobs determines at its own discretion. freelance.jobs is involved in the contracts concluded directly between the users and the partner companies neither as a contractual partner nor as a representative. The general terms & conditions and privacy policies of the respective partner companies apply to these partner offers.

3. Registration and user account

3.1. The use of the services available on freelance.jobs requires registration and login as a user. There is no entitlement to participation as a user. freelance.jobs is entitled to reject user applications without giving reasons.

3.2 The user is only permitted to register and log in if he is of full age and has unlimited legal capacity. Minors are prohibited from registering and logging in. In the case of a legal entity, registration and login must be carried out by a natural person with unlimited legal capacity and power of representation.

3.3. By submitting the registration form, the user makes an offer to conclude a user agreement with freelance.jobs. If freelance.jobs accepts the registration, the user will receive a confirmation e-mail with a personalized activation link. By clicking on this activation link, a contract for the use of freelance.jobs services (hereinafter referred to as "contract of use") is concluded between freelance.jobs and the user. To complete the registration, the user must call up the link provided with the confirmation e-mail. The contract of use shall come into effect before the activation link is activated, insofar as a membership subject to a charge has already been concluded by the user.

3.4 Upon successful registration, a user account is created for the user, which the user can access using his e-mail address and password. The password can be changed by the user at any time in the password-protected user area. It must be kept secret by the user and protected from access by unauthorized third parties. If the user discovers or suspects that his access data is being used by a third party without authorization, he must inform freelance.jobs immediately and change his password without delay.

3.5 Each user may only register once for the respective commercial or freelance use of the services of freelance.jobs. User accounts are not transferable. In the event of infringements, individual or all user accounts can be blocked or deleted by freelance.jobs; in such a case, freelance.jobs also reserves the right to extraordinary termination of individual or all accounts of the affected user. A refund of membership fees already paid shall not be made in this respect; corresponding membership fees shall be retained as lump-sum compensation, whereby the member shall be permitted to prove that no damage or not the corresponding amount of damage has been incurred. If this can be proven, freelance.jobs will refund the corresponding membership fees proportionally as far as these exceed the damage incurred. As far as an actual damage incurred by freelance.jobs exceeds the amount of the retained or withheld membership fees, a further claim for damages is expressly reserved. The retained contributions shall be credited against any further claims for damages.

4. Obligations of users

4.1. The user is obliged

4.1.1. to provide only true and non-misleading information on freelance.jobs and in communication with other users and not to use pseudonyms, in particular advertised offers (profiles, projects) must be real, in case of doubt and at the request of freelance.jobs the user must provide proof that the advertised projects are real; the publication of falsified or no longer existing offers (profiles, projects) is prohibited and may result in a temporary or complete blocking of the account, extraordinary termination by freelance.jobs and/or the assertion of claims for damages and/or communicated to other users or made visible to them. freelance.jobs reserves the right to use a bonus/malus system that favors well-maintained and constantly updated profiles and projects in comparison to other profiles and projects in terms of visibility and perceptibility;

4.1.2. to only enter information in data fields for which the respective data field is intended according to its description and not to enter information, in particular contact data, in places other than those intended;

4.1.3. to keep his information on freelance.jobs up-to-date and complete. The project provider is obliged to take his project publication offline immediately as soon as an offer is no longer up to date. The freelancer is obliged to keep his availability information updated. In the event of infringements, freelance.jobs can take appropriate measures, which include in particular the deletion of obviously outdated or no longer existing offers (profiles, projects); in addition, freelance.jobs reserves the right to place outdated profiles or projects of users or those that have not been updated for a period of 2 years offline in accordance with section 3.5;

4.1.4. to publish only such content on freelance.jobs (in particular when creating their own profile or their own project advertisements) and to send only such messages to other users which, within the scope of the purpose of freelance.jobs, serve to initiate a service, work, labor or other employment relationship directly between the users (or in the case of mediation between a user and a client of the mediator) or to comment factually on the posts in the freelance.jobs blog. Extraneous publications and internal messages (e.g. advertising) are not permitted, especially internal messages that are not personalized (e.g. mass or chain mails) or do not have a clear reference to the recipient's profile;

4.1.5. to keep his access data (user name, password) secret and not to pass them on to third parties;

4.1.6. to treat all information and data received from other users in the context of using freelance.jobs as confidential and not to pass it on or make it accessible to third parties, unless it is clearly recognizable that the user is acting as an intermediary; in this case, the intermediary may only pass on the information and data received to his customers or make it accessible to his customers to the extent required by the purpose of the mediation. This obligation shall survive the termination of the contract;

4.1.7. to use his account exclusively himself or through an authorized representative and not to offer or provide third parties with the acquired services without the consent of freelance.jobs, in particular not to provide other users with services from his account for use; it is also the responsibility of the user to ensure that his access to freelance.jobs and the use of the services available on freelance.jobs is carried out exclusively by him or by the person authorized by him. If it is feared that unauthorized third parties have gained or will gain knowledge of his access data, freelance.jobs must be informed immediately; the user is liable for any use and/or other activity carried out under his access data in accordance with the statutory provisions;

4.1.8. in the event of the existence of several accounts (e.g. for own employees) to make each account available to only one person and for the account to be used only by this person. freelance.jobs reserves the right to check compliance with this restriction of use, also by technical means. In the event of infringements, freelance.jobs can levy a contractual penalty per unauthorized use, which freelance.jobs can determine unilaterally at its reasonable discretion in accordance with the respective circumstances of the individual case. Rights of use, in particular for staff employed by the user, can be acquired;

4.1.9. to refrain from any action that could damage or impair the functionality of the technical infrastructure of freelance.jobs and the secure operation of the services of freelance.jobs, impair the availability of the data stored by freelance.jobs or pester other users;

4.1.10. not to publish any illegal content on freelance.jobs, not to publish any logos or images of third parties without their prior consent and not to violate any rights of third parties; in particular not to publish or refer to any insulting, defamatory, pornographic, youth-endangering or otherwise illegal content. This also applies to comments on posts on the freelance.jobs blog.

4.2. The user assures that he is the owner of all rights required for publication with regard to the content he provides and will refrain from posting content that violates copyright, trademark and competition law regulations.

4.3. It is not permitted to commercially process the data obtained via freelance.jobs, to trade with this data or to approach users with advertising if the products or services advertised / offered are in competition with freelance.jobs. In the event of a breach of these provisions, a contractual penalty to be determined by freelance.jobs at its reasonable discretion will be triggered. This can amount to up to 5.000 US $ per violation. Further claims of freelance.jobs remain unaffected. The contractual penalty shall be offset against any further claims for damages.

5. Deletion of content, blocking of users, liability of the user

5.1. freelance.jobs reserves the right to delete content published by users or not to publish certain content if it is illegal, offends common decency or the rights of third parties, is incompatible with the purpose and form of freelance.jobs, in particular if it is false, if it contradicts these terms of use, or if publication is unreasonable for other reasons. The aforementioned right to delete content published by users or not to publish certain content also exists in cases where the correctness of content published or to be published is in dispute between two or more users until the dispute is finally resolved. In addition, freelance.jobs reserves the right to correct content published by users insofar as it contains spelling mistakes, obvious errors or typing errors (e.g. "typos" or "transposed numbers").

5.2. If the user violates obligations that apply to him according to the provisions of this contract, freelance.jobs is entitled to temporarily block the user account or to extraordinarily terminate the contract with the user for good cause according to clause 9.3. A refund of membership fees already paid will not be made; corresponding membership fees will be retained as lump-sum compensation, whereby the member is permitted to prove that no damage or not the corresponding amount of damage has occurred. If the member can prove this, freelance.jobs will refund the membership fees proportionally as far as they exceed the damage incurred. Further claims remain unaffected whereby the lump-sum compensation will be offset against further claims for compensation.

5.3. As far as a user has been temporarily or permanently excluded from the use of services by freelance.jobs or all associated platforms according to paragraph 5.2. or the existing contract with the user has been terminated, the user is prohibited from using the services offered by freelance.jobs or all associated platforms with other user accounts, including such user accounts which have been created for third parties, or to sign up again for registration on freelance.jobs. In the event of temporary or indefinite blocking, freelance.jobs will block the user access and notify the user of this by e-mail. In the case of a temporary block, freelance.jobs reactivates the access authorization after the blocking period has expired and notifies the user of this by e-mail.

5.4. In the event of an infringement of third party rights by publications of the user on freelance.jobs, the user indemnifies freelance.jobs from all third party claims. The indemnification also includes the necessary administration and legal costs, including all court and lawyer's fees in the amount of the legally stipulated rates. In the event of a claim by a third party, the user is furthermore obliged to provide freelance.jobs, upon request, immediately, truthfully and completely with all information and details that are necessary for the examination of the claims and any necessary defense against the claims.

5.5. freelance.jobs reserves the right, until a binding clarification, to temporarily block data if their accuracy is doubtful or third parties (in particular other users) have comprehensibly claimed their own rights or even an infringement in this context.

6. Prices and terms of payment

6.1. The prices applicable at the time of the respective service provision and/or visible on www.freelance.jobs apply to the fee-based offers of freelance.jobs.

6.2. The fees for receiving services from freelance.jobs are due for payment as follows:

The fees and charges for services provided by freelance.jobs are payable and due immediately upon receipt of the invoice or according to the payment terms stated on the invoice. After the due date, default occurs immediately.
The user agrees that invoices and payment reminders can be sent by e-mail. Invoices are always available in the user's account until it is deleted.

6.3. freelance.jobs reserves the right to adjust the respective applicable prices. Price adjustments as well as adjustments to the scope of services apply immediately to all newly concluded memberships. In the case of existing customers, the price adjustments do not apply retroactively to contractual terms of membership that have already begun, but only with a renewal or a new conclusion of the term of membership.

6.4. Insofar as the user is offered or granted special conditions or reduced fees compared to the respective current prices on the part of freelance.jobs, these special conditions or reduced fees refer exclusively to the individual contract term justified in connection with the special offer. In the event of a subsequent extension or a new conclusion of the term of the membership, the fees to be paid – subject to an express deviating individual regulation – shall be based on the general prices applicable at the time of the respective provision of services and the prices which can be viewed at www.freelance.jobs.

6.5. Withholding of payments or offsetting with counterclaims by the user is only permissible if these counterclaims are bindingly recognized by freelance.jobs or have been legally established.

6.6. Payment by direct debit, credit card and online payment service, e.g. Paypal is made via external contractual partners, who are named on www.freelance.jobs in the membership section. In the event of an unjustified cancellation, claims of freelance.jobs are assigned to the one of the aforementioned contractual partners who carried out the corresponding payment transaction. Further processing shall then take place exclusively in the relationship between the user and the aforementioned contractual partner who executed the corresponding payment transaction.

7. Liability

7.1. freelance.jobs is not liable for the accuracy, completeness or legality of information published by users. The content of users published on freelance.jobs, the participant pages of freelance.jobs in social networks (e.g. Facebook, Xing, LinkedIn) as well as on the freelance.jobs blog does not reflect the opinion of freelance.jobs and is not checked for accuracy, completeness or legality.

7.2. freelance.jobs is only liable for damages, regardless of the legal reason, if freelance.jobs, their legal representatives or vicarious agents have caused the damage through gross negligence or intentionally or if the damage is due to the breach of an essential contractual obligation.

7.3. In the case of liability for the breach of an essential contractual obligation, without freelance.jobs being guilty of gross negligence or intent, as well as in the case of liability for gross negligence or intent on the part of employees who are not managing directors or executive employees of freelance.jobs, the liability of freelance.jobs is limited to the typically foreseeable damage, which as a rule does not exceed an annual usage fee.

7.4. Liability in the event of injury to life, body or health as well as liability for an assumed guarantee shall remain unaffected by the above provisions.

7.5. freelance.jobs hereby expressly distances itself from all content of all pages linked or referred to from the freelance.jobs website. This applies to all links and references set within the own Internet offer as well as to external entries in guest books, discussion forums and mailing lists. The respective provider of the linked site is solely responsible for illegal, incorrect or incomplete content and in particular for damages arising from the use or non-use of such information provided and not freelance.jobs as the party that merely refers to the respective publication via links.

8. Data protection

8.1. freelance.jobs collects, processes and uses user data within the framework of the applicable data protection laws.

8.2. Reference is made to the privacy policy (click here).

9. Termination of the contract

9.1. The contract for free membership may be terminated by the contracting parties at any time without giving reasons.

9.2. The contract for a paid membership shall initially run for the minimum period of use booked by the user, but for a maximum period of one year. If the user or freelance.jobs does not terminate the contract in time, the paid membership will be extended by renewal periods of the same duration. The contract for a paid membership can be terminated with a notice period of 7 days before the end of the minimum contract period.

9.3. The right to extraordinary termination for good cause remains unaffected. An important reason exists in particular if the user violates legal regulations, breaches essential obligations according to this contract or significantly endangers the good reputation of freelance.jobs.

9.4. After termination of the contract, freelance.jobs is entitled to delete all content published by the user on freelance.jobs.

10. Final provisions

10.1. Amendments or supplements to this contract must be made in writing. This also applies to the written form clause. Verbal collateral agreements have not been made.

10.2. The assignment of claims of any kind against freelance.jobs to third parties is excluded.

10.3. freelance.jobs reserves the right to change these general terms and conditions of use. freelance.jobs will inform the user of the new terms and conditions of use in good time before the planned entry into force of the changes. In this case, the user has the right to terminate the contractual relationship within 4 weeks of receiving this information. After expiration of this period, the change is considered approved by the user. freelance.jobs will inform the user when the new terms of use come into effect when notifying the user of the new terms of use.

10.4. By using this website, each user accepts that any claim, litigation or dispute that any user may have against freelance.jobs resulting from, concerning or relating in any way to this contract and this website must be settled exclusively in the following way:

10.4.1. Through mediation; in the absence of an agreement;

10.4.2. The parties agree that any claim arising from the aforementioned Contract that is the subject of a dispute or any disagreement concerning the execution or interpretation of said clauses and provisions, excluding a claim qualifying as a “small claim” by virtue of the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure (hereafter known as the “legal dispute”), can, at the discretion of the party having a legal dispute to assert and without the possibility of contesting by the other party, be subject to arbitration, excluding resort to ordinary courts, in accordance with the following procedure.

The hearing of the parties participating in the legal dispute shall be conducted within sixty (60) days following the receipt of the notice of arbitration, in a location within the judicial district of [Insert Relevant Florida Judicial District]. The arbitrator's decision must be rendered in writing to the parties no later than twenty (20) days after the hearing of the parties. Any decision so delivered is final and binding and, once confirmed by the court, enforceable against the parties to this agreement. Arbitration costs shall be borne by the unsuccessful party, unless the arbitrator decides otherwise.

The parties hereby agree that the provisions currently in effect under the Florida Arbitration Code, as provided in Sections 682.01 to 682.21 of the Florida Statutes, shall serve as supplementary provisions for any arbitration conducted under the provisions of this section. In the event of any conflict between the provisions contained in this section and the aforementioned provisions of the Florida Arbitration Code, the provisions set forth in this section shall take precedence.

For the purposes of this arbitration, as stipulated in this section of the contract, the sole arbitrator shall possess all powers vested in a general court, except those that are exclusively limited to this type of tribunal, including the powers described in the Florida Arbitration Code, regardless of whether the legal entity involved in the matter falls under state or federal jurisdiction.

10.5. Should any provision of the contract be invalid in whole or in part, this shall not affect the validity of the remaining clauses and the remaining parts of such clauses. The contracting parties are obliged to immediately replace ineffective parts of a clause by way of supplementary agreement with such an agreement that comes closest to the economic result of the ineffective provision. In case of doubt, the invalid provision shall be deemed replaced by such an agreement.

Update: October 2023