Terms of Service

1. What Givibes is

The Service is for discovering nightlife events and venues nearby. It consists of the web app at givibes.app and the Givibes app for Android, which is the same app in a native shell. The Android app uses your device's location, camera and microphone only with the permission you grant on your device, and receives notifications through Google Firebase. In these Terms, a "User" is any person who uses the Service. Users can browse upcoming events, follow venues, save events they are interested in, mark themselves as attending, and send questions to venue organizers. Venues and event organizers ("Publishers") join the Service through an application reviewed by our team. Publishers can publish events, respond to questions from Users, and manage their public profile. In these Terms, "Content" means any text, photo, video or other material posted on the Service.

2. Eligibility

2.1 You must be at least 18 years old to use the Service. When you sign up, you confirm this by ticking a separate box, and we record the date of that confirmation. The age limit applies because the Service is built around venues where alcohol is served.

2.2 If we are informed that an Account belongs to a person under 18, whether by a venue, another User or any other person, our staff verifies the report and, if it is well-founded, suspends that Account. The report does not suspend the Account by itself. A suspended Account cannot be used. The holder of a suspended Account is shown a screen that states the reason for the suspension and how to contact us. Suspension does not result in the automatic deletion of the Account. Any further decision is taken by a person, case by case, after the Account holder has had an opportunity to respond.

3. Your account

3.1 You are responsible for the information you provide when you create and use your Account, and for keeping your password confidential. You are responsible for all activity under your Account. If you believe that your Account has been accessed without your permission, notify us at [email protected].

3.2 You may delete your Account at any time from Profile → settings icon → Settings → Access and data → Delete account. Deletion takes effect immediately and cannot be undone. The page how to delete your account sets out what is removed and what is retained. Before deleting your Account, you may download a copy of your data from Profile → settings icon → Settings → Access and data → Download my data. If you no longer have access to your Account, contact [email protected] and we will handle the deletion on your behalf.

4. Acceptable use

4.1 When using the Service, you must not:

• harass, threaten or abuse other Users or Publishers;
• post Content that is illegal, hateful or sexually explicit, or that impersonates another person;
• use the Service to send spam, to scrape it, or to interfere with its normal operation;
• create multiple Accounts to evade a block, limit or other restriction placed on you;
• attempt to access Accounts, data or systems that do not belong to you.

4.2 We apply a zero-tolerance policy to objectionable Content and abusive Users. Content that is hateful, discriminatory, sexually explicit or threatening, or that encourages self-harm, is not allowed on the Service. Conduct that harasses or abuses other people is not allowed on the Service. We remove such Content. After a report, our staff can also suspend the Account that posted it, as set out in section 6.4; the suspension takes effect when it is decided, and you are informed of it as set out in section 6.5. Givibes does not delete Accounts for violations of these Terms. Text that other people can see on the Service, namely names, nicknames, bios, questions to venues and the names of Vibe folders (Vibes are defined in section 5.1), is automatically checked against a list of prohibited words before it is posted. Text that contains a prohibited word is rejected. Where that text is a name supplied by Google or Apple, it is replaced by your nickname instead of being rejected.

4.3 You may block or limit another User at any time from that User's profile, from your Friends page, or from a Vibe, through the option “I just don't like it” in its report sheet. From a Vibe you can do so also when you do not know who took it. If you block in this way, you stop seeing that person's Vibes and the Stories created from them, and that person no longer sees you anywhere on the Service; if you limit in this way, that person no longer sees your presence or your Vibes. If you limit a User whose name you know, the friendship remains, but that User no longer sees your presence, the rest of your profile, your votes in plans or your reactions. You can review and undo blocks and limits in Settings → Blocked and limited.

5. Your content

5.1 You retain ownership of the Content you post, including profile photos, event photos and videos captured live at an event ("Vibes"), stories ("Stories"), messages and questions to organizers. By posting Content, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable license to host, store, reproduce, display and distribute it as needed to operate the Service, for example to show your profile photo to your friends, or your Vibe, if you made it public, on the night's page or as a Story of the venue. This license ends when you delete the Content or your Account, except where a copy has already been shared with another person through normal use of the Service (for example, a friend who has already seen your Vibe).

5.2 You are solely responsible for the Content you post. By posting Content, you confirm that:

• you own it, or hold all the rights and permissions needed to post it;
• if it shows another identifiable person, you have that person's consent to include them and to have their image processed as described in our Privacy Policy;
• it does not infringe any person's copyright, trademark, privacy, image or other rights;
• it complies with the acceptable use rules in section 4 and with applicable law.

5.3 Apart from the automatic word filter described in section 4.2 (Acceptable use), we do not review Content before it is posted, and we have no general obligation to monitor what Users upload. Section 6 (Reports and moderation) sets out how we handle problems once we are made aware of them.

6. Reports and moderation

6.1 We host Content that Users and Publishers upload. We do not create or select that Content. Under the EU Digital Services Act (Article 6) and equivalent rules for hosting providers, we are not liable for Content where we do not have actual knowledge that it is illegal. Once we are made aware of illegal Content or Content that violates these Terms, we review it within 24 hours and, where the report is well-founded, remove it or disable access to it. The measures set out in section 6.2 take effect immediately, before that review.

6.2 From the Service you can report six things: a venue (from its page), a night, a Story, a Vibe, a venue's photo in a night's album, and a person (from that person's profile). The reasons you can choose depend on what you report. The reason “Illegal content” is available for all six and requires a message and a confirmation that the report is made in good faith. The report is sent directly to our team. If you believe that a photo or other Content shows you without your consent, or otherwise violates your rights, you may use the same reporting function. Without an Account, you can report any Content by email, as set out in section 6.3. We review every report within 24 hours. Where a report appears well-founded, we remove the Content or disable access to it. The following measures take effect immediately, before our review: a report for “Someone is in danger” alerts our staff at once; a reported Vibe or venue's photo is hidden at the first report; and a Story is hidden when 3 different people report it for “Nudity or sexual content” within 24 hours, as described in section 12 of our Privacy Policy.

6.3 You do not need an Account to submit a report. The reporting functions inside the app require an Account. Any person, whether or not a User, may notify us of illegal Content or Content that violates these Terms by email, as required by Article 16 of the EU Digital Services Act. The page how to report content without an account explains what to send so that we can identify the Content, and what happens afterwards. We will never require you to create an Account in order to have Content about you removed.

6.4 After reviewing a report, our staff can remove the Content concerned or disable access to it, return a removed night to draft (after which it cannot be published again), remove a venue from the suggestions in Discover, and suspend the Account concerned. Only staff members with moderation permission can suspend an Account, and only after a report. A suspended Account cannot be used; the suspension can be reversed, and it does not remove Content already published. Givibes does not delete Accounts for violations of these Terms: only you can delete your Account (section 3.2).

6.5 When our staff removes Content you posted, or suspends your Account, after a report, you receive the decision in the app and by email, with the reason: the rule of these Terms that was broken or, for Content we consider illegal, a written statement of reasons. A person who reported through the app is told the outcome in the app. You can contest the decision once, within 6 months, from the notice in the app or from the link in the email; our staff answers within 7 days. If your Account is suspended, the email contains a link that lets you contest the decision without signing in, valid for 6 months. For reports sent by email, the procedure on the page how to report content without an account applies. Contesting a decision with us does not affect your right to turn to an out-of-court dispute settlement body or to a court.

7. Publishers and venues

Any person may apply to become a Publisher from Settings. Our team reviews each application before granting access. As a Publisher, you are responsible for the accuracy of the events and information you publish. You are also responsible for ensuring that you are legally permitted to host or promote the events you list, including permits, licenses and age restrictions. These obligations rest with you, not with us. We may remove a listing, reject or revoke Publisher status, or otherwise limit what a Publisher can do on the Service, in particular in response to a report or a clear violation of these Terms.

8. Alcohol and responsible promotion

8.1 Most events listed on the Service take place in bars, clubs and other venues where alcohol is served. Givibes does not sell, serve or deliver alcohol, and you cannot buy a drink through the Service. What Publishers say about alcohol on the Service is subject to the rules in this section.

8.2 If you publish on the Service, you agree that your events, descriptions, photos and Stories will not:

• encourage excessive, rapid or competitive drinking, or present being drunk as the purpose of the night;
• advertise offers that reward drinking more for less, including "all you can drink", open bar sold by volume, unlimited-drink entry, free rounds for finishing first, drinking games or contests;
• be directed at people below the legal drinking age where the event takes place, or use imagery, language or performers whose main audience is minors;
• suggest that alcohol is required to take part, improves your performance, or solves personal problems;
• omit an age restriction that applies to your event by law.

8.3 You are responsible for holding the licences and permits your event requires, as set out in section 7 (Publishers and venues), and for complying with the alcohol advertising rules of the country in which you operate. These rules differ significantly across the EU. Content that breaks the rules in section 8.2 is removed when our staff, after a report, finds that it breaks them, under section 6 (Reports and moderation); the measures concerning Publisher status are set out in section 7.

8.4 If you use the Service to find a night out, you should drink responsibly, respect the legal drinking age where you are, and never drive after drinking.

9. No payments through Givibes

Givibes does not process payments or sell tickets. Where an event has a cost, any purchase takes place on an external site, through a link provided by the organizer. We are not a party to that transaction and are not responsible for it. Any issue with a purchase, refund or ticket is a matter between you and the organizer or the organizer's payment provider.

10. Intellectual property

The Givibes name, the logo and the app itself (excluding Content posted by you or by other Users) belong to us. You may not use them without our permission, except as necessary to use the Service normally.

11. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify and hold us harmless, including our founder, from any claim, liability, damage, loss or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or connected to: Content you post; your violation of these Terms; or your violation of any right of a third party (including a person's image, privacy or intellectual property rights). Accordingly, if a third party brings a claim against us because of Content you posted or anything you did on the Service, you are responsible for the resulting costs. This does not limit any right you have to dispute the underlying claim.

12. Disclaimer

The Service is provided "as is," without warranties of any kind. We do not guarantee that the Service will always be available, error-free or secure. We do not guarantee the accuracy of event or venue information posted by Publishers. You should always verify details that matter to you (for example, opening hours, age restrictions and entry requirements) directly with the venue.

13. Limitation of liability

13.1 To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising from your use of the Service, or for anything that happens at an event or venue listed on the Service. The Service is a discovery platform. We are not the organizer of any event or the operator of any venue. We are also not liable for Content, conduct or interactions between Users or between a User and a Publisher, including Content posted by other Users of which we have not been made aware (see section 6, Reports and moderation).

13.2 Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited by law, for example liability for intent or gross negligence, or statutory rights you have as a consumer under the mandatory law of your country of residence, which these Terms cannot override.

14. Termination

You may stop using the Service at any time. After a report, our staff can suspend your Account if you violate these Terms, including by posting objectionable Content or abusing other Users, to which the zero-tolerance policy in section 4.2 applies, as set out in section 6.4. Givibes does not delete Accounts for violations of these Terms; your Account is deleted only when you delete it (section 3.2).

15. Changes to these Terms

When we update these Terms, the version and date at the top of this page change. When a change is substantial, we notify every User through a notice in the app; this notice is not sent by email or as a notification on your phone. If you continue to use the Service after a change, you accept the updated Terms.

16. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Netherlands, without regard to its conflict-of-law provisions. Any dispute arising from these Terms or your use of the Service is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the Netherlands.

17. Contact

Questions about these Terms may be sent to [email protected]. For matters concerning your personal data, contact [email protected] instead, as described in our Privacy Policy.