Terms and Conditions of Use

1. Introduction
Welcome to the terms and conditions for www.which-local.co.uk (“Which?local”).
These terms and conditions explain your rights and obligations. Please read them carefully as you must read and agree to the terms and conditions of use before you use this website. Please contact us with any enquiries, comments or complaints you may have about these terms and conditions or the website in general.

1.1 Definitions
Which?local is operated by Which? Limited. Our Campaigns, Press and About us websites are operated by the Consumers' Association trading as Which?. The terms "Which?", "we", "us", or "our", refer to the operator of the website you are in.
Which? Ltd. is registered in England, company registration number 677665 (VAT registration no. GB238534158), registered office 2 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 4DF.
Consumers' Association is registered in England No 580128, and is a registered charity No 296072, registered office 2 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 4DF.

1.2 Complete agreement and privacy
The Which? privacy policy forms part of these terms and conditions, and together they contain all of the terms relating to the use of Which?local.

1.3 Acceptance of terms and conditions
You must read and agree to these terms and conditions before subscribing to Which?local. If you have any queries about these terms and conditions you should contact us.

2 Areas of use
Which?local is intended for use in the United Kingdom only. We make no warranty or representation that Which?local (or any element of it) is appropriate or available for use in locations outside the United Kingdom. Accessing Which?local from territories where your access to it is prohibited or where such service (or any part thereof) is considered illegal or unlawful is not permitted under these terms and conditions. If you choose to access Which?local from locations outside the United Kingdom, you do so on your own initiative and you are responsible for compliance with all applicable local laws.

3. Variation of terms and conditions
We reserve the right to change these terms and conditions from time to time, and the amended terms will be posted on this website. Please check the terms and conditions periodically to see whether a change has been made to them. If you do not agree with any change in these terms and conditions, please discontinue further use of Which?local. Your continued use of Which?local will signify your acceptance of any change in the terms and conditions set out here. Which? may modify or discontinue Which?local with or without notice to you and without liability to you or any third party.

4. Materials in site and software rights
4.1 All copyright, trademarks, patents, design rights, and other intellectual property rights relating to Which?local (including, but not limited to, the underlying software, the design, graphics, layout, feel, and structure of Which?local) will be and remain the sole property of us and our licensors.
4.2 You may view, use, download, and store the material on this website for personal and research use only. Commercial use is not permitted. Redistributing, republishing, copying, adapting or otherwise making material on this website available to third parties is prohibited.
4.3. Unauthorised use of Which?local may give rise to a claim for damages and/or be a criminal offence.
4.4 The information in Which?local is solely provided by Which? Members in the form of recommendations and comments and in no way represents the views of Which?.

5. Copyright
5.1 All of the Which?local content provided by us (including any computer software) is protected by English and International copyright laws and that copyright is owned or controlled by Which? or its licensors. Unless otherwise stated, we reserve all rights in that copyright. This means, for example, that you may not copy, issue copies to the public, perform, show, broadcast or make any adaptation of any of that content without our permission.
5.2  Much of the content to which you will have access on the Internet is protected by copyright laws and by other laws relating, for example, to trade marks. These laws are designed to protect the suppliers of that content and you should be aware that you may breach those rights if you use that content in a way which contravenes any restrictions imposed by those suppliers. You take full responsibility if you do breach those rights.
5.3  Whenever you submit content to Which?local, you are deemed automatically to have granted Which? a licence to use that content in any way that it wishes. That licence is worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable and royalty free. You are also deemed to have waived any moral rights which you may have had in that content and to have warranted to Which? that you are the owner of any copyright or similar rights in that content, and that any moral rights in that content belonging to another person have been waived.
5.4  By submitting recommendations and comments, you permit any Which? Member to access, display, view, store and reproduce such content for personal use.
5.5  By submitting recommendations and comments, you also warrant that you are entitled and have all necessary rights to grant the licences stated above. Subject to the foregoing, the owner of such content placed on Which?local retains any and all rights that may exist in such content.

6. Provision of and access to Which?local
6.1 To gain access to Which?local you must first provide a valid membership number. You will then be asked to enter a valid email address (your username) and new password. Once this is done you will have access to Which?local.
6.2 You are entitled to use and access Which?local in accordance with these terms and conditions from the time your username and password are successfully entered until your subscription is terminated.
6.3 Your right to use and access Which?local is personal to you, and you must not allow any other person to gain access to Which?local using your username and password. You must keep your username and password confidential.
6.4 You will be responsible for all activities that occur under your username and password. If you know or suspect that someone else knows this information, you agree to notify us immediately at
which-local@which.co.uk.

7. Our liability & Warranties
7.1  Users of Which?local are responsible for any decisions they take based on information provided on the site. We do not accept liability (as far as permitted) for any loss arising from using or relying on information in this site.
7.2 Arrangements made between you and any third party named or referred to on Which?local are entirely at your sole risk and responsibility.
7.3 You agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from any liability, loss, claim, and expense (including reasonable legal fees) related to any breach by you of these terms and conditions or arising from your use of Which?local.
7.4  Except as set out in clause 7.8, we shall not be liable to you for any indirect, incidental, special or consequential losses or damages or loss of profits, data, goodwill, revenue in each case regardless of whether such losses or damages arise in the normal course of events or whether Which? has been advised of the possibility of such damages. If you are using Which?local for commercial urposes, notwithstanding that such use would be in breach of the terms of use of Which?local, Which? shall not be liable for any loss of profits, loss of contracts, loss or corruption of data, or other economic loss arising in connection with your use of Which?local.
7.5 Which? shall not be liable for any losses or damages whether arising in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise arising out of or in connection with this website including without limitation the use or the inability to use Which?local.
7.6 Which? shall not be liable to any Which? Member in respect of any recommendations or comments posted by other Which? Members.
7.7 Which? does not read every recommendation or comment posted on Which?local and, as such, we do not guarantee the accuracy, integrity or quality of such content. While we require all users of Which?local to comply with these terms and conditions (including the standards below), you understand that, by using Which?local, it is possible that you may be exposed to content that is offensive, indecent or objectionable. If you see a recommendation or comment which you believe breaks the following standards please report it to us immediately using the ‘REPORT THIS RECOMMENDATION OR COMMENT’ link at the bottom of the post. All reports will be reviewed within a reasonable period from the time it was reported, during normal office hours.
7.8 These terms and conditions do not exclude our liability (if any) to you for personal injury or death resulting from our negligence, or for any matter which it would be illegal for Which? to attempt to exclude its liability and do not affect your statutory rights.
7.9 In any event, our liability to you is limited to £1,000 for any event or related series of events and £2,000 for all events in any period of 12 months.
7.10 Which? tries to meet AAA standards of accessibility, but cannot guarantee that Which?local will be compatible with all hardware and software that may be used by visitors to the site.
7.11 As we rely on you to provide us with up-to-date and accurate contact details, we shall not be liable to you for any loss or claim arising from your failure to provide us with accurate and/or up-to-date contact details.
7.12 Which?local is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. Which? expressly disclaims all warranties or representations of any kind, express or implied, to the fullest extent permitted by law.
7.13 You understand and agree that Which? does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of any information in or provided in connection with Which?local and that Which? is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of such information.
7.14 Whilst Which?local is provided for the general information of the Which? Members, all information is provided on the basis that neither Which? (including its employees and consultants) nor Which? Members (while such members are posting recommendations and comments on Which?local) are engaged in rendering legal, medical, counselling or other professional services or advice. Which? advises you to seek appropriate professional advice or care for any situation or problem which you may have.
7.15 Which? shall not be responsible for any loss or damage caused directly or indirectly, by the information or ideas contained, suggested or referenced on Which?local. Your participation in
Which?local is solely at your own risk. No advice or information, whether oral or written, obtained by you from Which? or through Which?local shall create any warranty not expressly made in these terms and conditions or imposed by law.
7.16 Which? makes no warranty that Which?local will meet your requirements, or that the Which?local network will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error free; nor does Which? make any warranty as to the results that may be obtained from the use of Which?local.
7.17 You understand and agree that any material and/or data downloaded or otherwise obtained through the use of Which?local is at your own discretion and risk and that you will be solely responsible for any damage to your computer system or loss of data that results from the download of such material and/or data.

8. Your liability
The aim of this website is to give honest and personal views of local service providers.  As we cannot and do not verify any postings, it is very important that we can rely on your postings being truthful, based on your own personal experience and compliant with these terms and conditions.  Therefore your use of this website is subject to you agreeing to compensate us in full if we incur any losses or if any claims or legal proceedings are brought or threatened against us by any other person arising from your use of Which?local for any reason, for example, where you are found to have posted an untrue review, you are posting a review about your own business or you are posting copyright material without the copyright owner's permission - all of which would be a breach of these terms and conditions.

9. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify and compensate Which? and its officers and employees, in full in respect of any claim or demand, including reasonable legal fees, made by any third party due to or arising out of your use of Which?local in breach of any of these terms and conditions of use.  Such a claim could include, by way of example only, a claim of copyright infringement arising through the use of your account by you or anyone else.

10. Your obligations for use of the Forum
10.1 You and each Which? Member, respectively, are responsible for the content of your/their recommendation or comment and your use of Which?local and the consequences of any such recommendation or comment. By using Which?local you agree to comply with the following guidelines:
(a) Which?local is to be used by you for your personal use only. The use of Which?local for commercial purposes or to obtain financial gain are strictly prohibited.
(b) Which?local may not be used to send chain letters, junk mail, 'spam', solicitations (commercial or non-commercial) or bulk communications of any kind.  Which?local may not be used to advertise a company, product or service or to recruit staff.
(c) You are not permitted to post links to alternative service providers unless it is with the express permission of Which?.
(d) You may not post to Which?local or use Which?local to publish, send or distribute any message or material (in any media or form) that is unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, vulgar, obscene, profane, threatening, racially or sexually or otherwise discriminatory, offensive, inaccurate, is in breach of confidence or a third party's intellectual property rights or which otherwise includes objectionable material of any kind or nature, that encourages or engages in conduct that could constitute a criminal offence, give rise to civil liability or otherwise violate any applicable local, national or international law or regulation or which has a disruptive influence on the normal flow of the recommendations and comments.
(e) When using Which?local you must not impersonate any other person or entity, whether actual or fictitious.
(f) You must not create any member names which deliberately mimic or impersonate a Which? member of staff or other Which? Member.
(g) You must not use Which?local or any part of Which?local in a way that might reasonably be expected to cause the same to be interrupted, damaged, rendered less efficient or which could in any way damage the operation of another's computer.
(h) You will not harass or intimidate any Which? Member by the recommendations and comments you post on Which?local.
(i) You must not post or use any part of Which?local to distribute or send any illegal material of any kind, including but not limited to, illegal material in the form of text, graphics, video, programs or audio. Posting content or participating in any form of discussion with the intention to commit any illegal activity is strictly prohibited.
10.2 Which? reserves the right in its absolute discretion at any time to edit, alter, delete or move any material whatsoever posted to, appearing on or distributed by Which?local and you. Which? will not enter into any discussions about its decision to edit, alter, delete or move such material.
10.3 We do not and cannot monitor the information made available to you or by other Which? Members. Accordingly, we accept no responsibility for screening, policing, censoring or editing any such content and we have no liability to you for that content. We rely on you to observe these guidelines and comply with these terms and conditions.
10.4 To ensure the continuing quality of our service, telephone calls to our Technical Support and Customer Support lines may be monitored or recorded for training purposes.

11. Recommendations and comments
11.1 Which? Members may access Which?local to post, comment, and read recommendations regarding service providers in their local area.
11.2 If you choose to post a recommendation or comment you may disclose personal data about yourself, via the name you choose as your alias, to other Which? Members (who may be outside the European Economic Area), it is therefore advisable to choose a username and/or nickname which will not identify you to other Which? Members.
11.3 You must not, through using Which?local, collect, store, or otherwise process personal data about other subscribers to Which?local.
11.4 You agree to only post recommendations where you have personally used a service provider and you agree that all recommendations or comments as submitted by you are based on your true reasonably held beliefs and opinions.
11.5 You warrant that you have no personal or professional connections whatsoever with the service provider.
11.6 We reserve the right to remove any recommendation or comment posted on Which?local for whatever reason.

12. Termination and remedies for breach of these terms and conditions
12.1 Which? shall be entitled to restrict, suspend or terminate your membership or deny you access to Which?local or take such other action as Which? deems appropriate if Which? determines, in its sole discretion, that you are in breach any of these terms and conditions or Which? considers in its sole discretion that your use of Which?Local is inappropriate or otherwise unacceptable.
12.2 The restriction, suspension or termination of our service pursuant to this section will be without prejudice to any rights which Which? may have against you in respect of your breach of these terms and conditions.
12.3 Which? shall be entitled to disclose your user identity and details if required or requested by the courts or other law enforcement authorities and/or agencies or in such other circumstances as specified in our privacy policy.
12.4 Which? shall be entitled to cease operation of Which?local at any time and for whatever reason.

13. Matters beyond reasonable control
Neither party is liable for any breach of these terms and conditions that is caused by a matter beyond its reasonable control, including acts of God, fire, lightning, explosion, war, flood, industrial disputes, sabotage, extremely severe weather, or acts of local or central Government or other competent authorities.

14. Linking policy
Which? is completely independent. We do not take funding from Government or companies and we do not display advertising on any of our websites. We will only link to:

1. companies and organisations with which we have a working relationship;
2. companies, organisations and government bodies which are recognised sources of information on a particular issue; and
3. specific pages, documents and sites which are relevant to a particular piece of content on our site.

No linking of any part of Which?local is permitted to any website not owned or operated by Which? without the express written consent of Which?.

15. Your personal information
We will collect personal information in connection with the service we provide. The Which? privacy policy has details on what information we collect, what we do with that information, and other related matters such as cookies.

16. Applicable Law
These terms and conditions shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and any dispute shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

17. Miscellaneous
17.1 In the event that any provision of these terms and conditions conflicts with the law under which these terms and conditions are to be construed or if any such provisions are held invalid by a court with jurisdiction over the parties to these terms and conditions, such provision will be deleted and the remainder of the terms of these terms and conditions will remain in full force and effect.
17.2 Any failure or delay by us to enforce strict performance by you of any of these terms and conditions or to exercise any right under these terms and conditions will not be construed as a waiver to any extent of our rights.
17.3 Which? may assign its rights and obligations under these terms and conditions and upon such assignment Which? shall be relieved of any further obligation under these terms and conditions.
17.4 These terms and conditions and the privacy policy constitute the entire understanding between you and us as to your use of Which?local and supersede all prior agreements and understandings between us and you. Nothing in these terms and conditions shall operate to exclude or restrict your or our liability for fraudulent misrepresentation.