Terms of Service

Visibility Group Limited · Version 1.0

1. About these Terms

1. Acclaimedly (acclaimedly.com, its API, badges and emails) is run by Visibility Group Limited, a company incorporated in Hong Kong [TBC: company number], of Unit 2904, 29/F, Universal Trade Centre, 3 Arbuthnot Road, Central, Hong Kong ("we", "us").
2. These Terms, the Acceptable Use Policy, the Messaging Policy, the Notice and Takedown Procedure and, if you buy a plan, the plan details at /pricing make up the agreement between you and us. Our Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy and Biometric Information Notice explain how we handle personal information. They are not contract terms.
3. You accept these Terms by creating an account, or by using Acclaimedly without one (for example reading profiles). If you use Acclaimedly for a business, you accept them for that business too, and you confirm you are entitled to.

2. What Acclaimedly is

1. Acclaimedly lets professionals and businesses publish a profile, and lets people who have dealt with them publish recommendations under their own names. We compute scores and rankings from those recommendations and from verified profile details, by a published method.
2. We host what members write; we do not write, check or endorse it. A recommendation is the opinion of the person who wrote it. Before a profile, recommendation, offer or message appears, we check some things: that the account is a verified person, that a claimed credential has proof, that images meet our rules. We do not check that what a member says is true, and passing those checks is not our endorsement.
3. How recommendations are handled (EU Directive 2005/29/EC Annex I points 23b and 23c, and the UK DMCC Act 2024 Sch. 20):
   • Only identity-verified accounts can write recommendations.
   • Writers must confirm they genuinely dealt with the person or business.
   • Acclaimedly accepts recommendations, not ratings or complaints, so what you see on a profile is every recommendation that was published and not later removed for breaching our rules.
   • Recommendations are never paid for, and they cannot be bought, edited or reordered by the profile owner.

3. Your account

1. You must be 18 or over, and able to make a binding contract.
2. You sign in with Google and verify that you are a real person, by face check or photo ID (see the Biometric Information Notice). You must give accurate information and keep it up to date.
3. One person may hold one account (Acceptable Use Policy section 2). You are responsible for what is done through your account. Tell us at once if you think someone else has used it.
4. Acclaimedly is not offered in, and you may not use it from, the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Nepal or any African country other than South Africa, or any country or region under comprehensive sanctions in Hong Kong, the US, UK or EU. You may not use it if you are a sanctioned person.

4. Profiles and claims

1. You may create or claim a profile for yourself, or for a business you are entitled to represent. We may ask for proof, and we may refuse, suspend or reverse a claim that we reasonably believe is not genuine.
2. If two people claim the same business, we decide on the evidence. Our decision on who manages a profile is final as far as Acclaimedly goes. It does not decide any dispute between you.
3. A business may list staff on its profile only with each staff member's agreement. Staff who are members confirm the link from their own account.

5. Your content

1. "Your content" is everything you put on Acclaimedly: profile details, recommendations, images, products, offers, messages and links.
2. You keep ownership of it. You give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, display, adapt (for example resize or format), publish and distribute it, and to sub-license those rights to our service providers. The licence covers operating, showing and promoting Acclaimedly: on the profile it belongs to, in listings, search, badges and embeds, in structured data, in the API, and in material that describes Acclaimedly. It ends when your content is deleted, except:
   • copies in backups, until they expire (see Privacy Policy section 7)
   • content already shared through the API or embedded by others before deletion, which we cannot recall
   • recommendations you wrote about another member, which stay on their profile only if you have agreed to that when closing your account
3. We do not edit what you write. We may hide, remove or refuse content under section 9, but we do not change its words. The exception is a correction of formatting or a removal of personal contact details posted in error, and we tell you when we do that.
4. Moral rights: to the extent the law allows, you agree not to assert moral rights against the uses in 5.2.

6. Recommendations and messages

1. A recommendation is published under your name and verified identity, and attributed to you. You are its author and publisher. We are its host.
2. Contact messages are passed to the recipient by email. The sender is responsible for what they say, and the recipient sees the sender's name and email so they can reply directly. Acclaimedly is not a party to the conversation.
3. Acclaimedly does not take part in, and is not responsible for, any deal, job, engagement or dispute between members, or between a member and someone they met through Acclaimedly.

7. Your promises about your content (warranties)

Each time you publish content or send a message, you promise us that:

1. it is your own genuine opinion or, so far as it states facts, true and not misleading;
2. for a recommendation, you genuinely dealt with the person or business, as you said, and you were not paid, rewarded or promised anything for writing it;
3. you have every right needed to publish it and to grant the licence in section 5, including the consent of anyone identifiable in an image you upload;
4. it does not defame anyone, invade anyone's privacy, infringe anyone's rights, or break any law or our Acceptable Use Policy;
5. it does not include another person's personal information beyond what is needed for the recommendation, such as their name and role.

8. Your responsibility to us (indemnity)

1. If someone brings a claim against us, or a regulator takes action against us, because of your content or your breach of these Terms, you will cover:
   • the reasonable costs we incur in dealing with it, including reasonable legal fees
   • any amount we have to pay under a judgment, order or settlement you have agreed to, which you may not unreasonably refuse
2. This does not apply to the extent the claim arises from our own breach of these Terms, our negligence or our wilful misconduct.
3. We will tell you promptly about the claim, let you take part in defending it at your own cost, and not settle it in a way that admits fault on your behalf without your agreement.
4. If you use Acclaimedly as a consumer (for purposes outside your trade, business or profession), this section applies only so far as the law where you live allows. Where it does not, you are still responsible to us for loss you cause by breaching these Terms, in the ordinary way.

9. Moderation: what we may do and how

1. We may hide, remove, refuse or restrict content, or suspend or close an account, where:
   • we reasonably believe it breaks these Terms, the Acceptable Use Policy or the law
   • we have received a valid notice under the Notice and Takedown Procedure
   • we are required to by a court, regulator or law
2. We will tell the person affected which rule, or which notice or order, the action rests on; what we did; whether automated means were involved; and how to ask for it to be reviewed. This is our statement of reasons under DSA Art. 17. We do not have to do this where the law forbids it or where it would help someone commit a crime or evade detection.
3. We are not obliged to monitor content, and do not undertake to. Choosing to review some content, such as uploaded images, does not mean we have reviewed or approved any other content.
4. Ranking parameters (EU Regulation 2019/1150 and DSA Art. 27): the main parameters that decide where a profile appears are set out on how rankings work. Position in a ranking is never for sale. Paid plans change the features a profile has, not where it ranks.

10. Paid plans

1. Paid plans and their prices are shown at /pricing before you buy. Prices are in [TBC: currency]. Taxes are shown at checkout where they apply.
2. Payment is taken by Stripe on a Stripe-hosted page. We never see or store your card details.
3. Plans renew automatically at the end of each period, at the price shown when you bought, unless:
   • you cancel before the renewal date
   • we gave you at least 30 days' notice of a new price, in which case the new price applies from the next renewal and you may cancel before it does

   We remind you before an annual plan renews.

4. Cancelling: at any time, online, in Dashboard › Plan, in as few steps as it took to subscribe. Your plan continues to the end of the period you have paid for, then moves to the free plan. We do not refund part-periods, except as below.
5. If you are a consumer in the EU, EEA or UK, you may withdraw within 14 days of buying a plan. By starting to use the paid features straight away, you ask us to begin the service during that period. If you then withdraw, we refund the price less a proportionate amount for the days used.
6. Australia: our services come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law. Nothing in these Terms limits them.
7. If a payment fails, we may move the account to the free plan after telling you and giving you at least 7 days to fix it.

11. Our service

1. We provide Acclaimedly with reasonable care and skill. We do not promise it will always be available, error-free, or that it will produce any number of enquiries, recommendations, citations by answer engines or any business result.
2. We may change, add or remove features. If a change materially reduces what a paid plan includes, we will tell you at least 30 days before. You may then cancel and receive a pro-rata refund of the unused period.
3. Scores, rankings, badges and summaries are our own assessment from the data and method we publish. They are our opinion, not a statement of fact about anyone's quality, and they are not advice.

12. Limits on our liability

1. Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability that cannot lawfully be limited. That includes:
   • liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence
   • liability for fraud
   • liability for gross negligence or wilful misconduct, where the law does not allow it to be limited
   • consumers' statutory rights, including the Australian Consumer Law guarantees and the UK Consumer Rights Act 2015
2. Subject to 12.1, we are not liable for:
   • content posted, or messages sent, by anyone other than us
   • anything a member does or fails to do
   • loss of profit, revenue, business, goodwill or opportunity, or indirect or consequential loss, where you use Acclaimedly for business
3. Subject to 12.1, our total liability to you for all claims in any 12-month period is limited to the greater of:
   • the amount you paid us in that period
   • HK$800 (or the equivalent in your currency)
4. If you are a consumer, we are responsible for loss you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breach of these Terms or our failure to use reasonable care and skill. We are not responsible for loss that was not foreseeable.

13. Suspension and closure

1. You may close your account at any time in Account › Close account. You are offered a 30-day pause first, or you can choose to have it done at once.
2. We may suspend or close an account under section 9. Where we close an account for a reason other than a breach, we will give you at least 30 days' notice and refund any prepaid period you will not receive.
3. What is deleted and when is set out in Privacy Policy section 7.

14. Complaints and disputes

1. Talk to us first. Write to [support@acclaimedly.com TBC]. We aim to answer within 10 working days.
2. Governing law. These Terms are governed by Hong Kong law. If you are a consumer, you also keep the protection of the mandatory laws of the country where you live, and you may bring proceedings in its courts (Rome I Art. 6; Brussels I bis Art. 18).
3. United States: binding individual arbitration. This applies if you live in the United States or use Acclaimedly from there.
   • Any dispute with us is resolved by binding individual arbitration, administered by [the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, or National Arbitration and Mediation], and seated in [TBC: US state].
   • Either party may instead bring an individual claim in small claims court.
   • You and we each give up the right to a jury trial and to take part in a class action, class arbitration or representative action.
   • Where 25 or more similar demands are filed by or with the help of the same law firm or organisation, they are handled in batches under the administrator's mass-arbitration rules.
   • You may opt out of this section within 30 days of first accepting these Terms, by writing to [legal@acclaimedly.com TBC].
   • If the class-action waiver is found unenforceable for a claim, that claim (and only that claim) goes to court, and is paused until the individual arbitration has finished.
   • This section is governed by the US Federal Arbitration Act.
4. Business users outside the US (not consumers): disputes go to arbitration administered by the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre under its Administered Arbitration Rules. There is one arbitrator, the seat is Hong Kong, and the proceedings are in English.
5. Consumers outside the US: the courts of Hong Kong, or of the country where you live, at your choice. EU consumers may also use the [Online Dispute Resolution information page].

15. General

1. Changes to these Terms. We will give you at least 30 days' notice of a material change, by email and on the site. If you do not agree, you may close your account before it takes effect, and we will refund any prepaid period you will not receive. Changes required by law or for safety can take effect sooner.
2. Assignment. We may transfer these Terms to a company that takes over Acclaimedly. We will tell you, and your rights will not be reduced. You may not transfer them.
3. Notices. We contact you at your account email. You contact us at the addresses in these Terms.
4. Severability. If a court finds part of these Terms unenforceable, the rest still applies.
5. No waiver. If we do not enforce a term straight away, we can still enforce it later.
6. Third parties. No one else has rights under these Terms, except where section 8 benefits our officers and staff.
7. Language. If these Terms are translated, the English version prevails, except where the law requires otherwise.

16. Legal notices required in particular places