General terms and conditions of business

§ 1 General / Subject matter of the contract
Sarasota-Online, hereinafter referred to as “the operator”, operates an online web directory, which is designed to provide industry-related contact and Internet addresses, in which advertisers can make data entries themselves for a fee.

The inclusion of entries by the advertisers takes place exclusively on the basis of the currently available terms and conditions. These terms and conditions apply to all areas of use and agreements, unless other agreements have been expressly made in writing. Other terms and conditions of a contracting party do not become part of the contract and do not require an explicit rejection. With the use of our offer, these terms and conditions are accepted by the customer (hereinafter referred to as “the advertiser” or “the advertiser”). All subsidiary agreements and amendments to the contract must be expressly agreed to.

§ 2 Contractual performance
The web portal offers its customers the possibility of presentation through a corresponding advertising entry with the respective company portrait / service provider in the form of a short description, as well as the contact data, which the advertiser enters himself. This data can then be retrieved by third parties through the directory structure or the associated search queries within the framework of these General Terms and Conditions, or are publicly available.

Depending on the contractually agreed service package, the provider’s offer includes the inclusion of an advertising profile and possibly an advertising logo in an existing database. The company portrait leads via a link (if entered) to a page on the customer’s Internet (target page). The entry of the customer will be placed in the result list in case of a corresponding search query of third parties, provided that this entry corresponds to the search criteria. The operator reserves the right to display paid entries before the free entries and, if necessary, to additionally display sponsor links from other advertisers. The criteria of the entry for the search query by third parties can be partly determined by the customer by entering an appropriate text description. The advertiser can make his entry in the category chosen by him within the framework of the categories specified by the operator. With the confirmation of the entry data and acceptance of the valid general terms and conditions by the advertiser or advertiser, a legally valid contract is concluded according to the German Civil Code.

The rubric entries are available on the server of the operator and can be reached within the Internet. Due to technical circumstances that cannot be influenced, an accessibility of 100% cannot be guaranteed. If the authorized person does not agree with the listing in the online portal, he can have his entry deleted at any time. A short email to the address given in the imprint is sufficient for this purpose. In the case of a deletion, there is no claim to a refund of the fee paid.

§ 3 Change of services
If the legal, commercial or technical framework conditions for the use of the Internet or the website change and if this makes it significantly more difficult for the operator to provide the contractual services, the operator is entitled to change, sell or discontinue the services offered without any claim for damages.

§ 4 Rights of use
The advertiser agrees to the storage of the entry in the database of the operator and the use of this data within the framework of business activities and in accordance with data protection regulations. This includes, in particular, the unrestricted right to reproduce, distribute, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public for retrieval, publicly reproduce and edit in any form, supplement or combine with other content and/or pass on to third parties the data supplied, in whole or in part, as an information system.

§ 5 Inclusion in the newsletter distribution list
By entering his data (e.g. through an entry, advertising or participation in a partner program on ), the advertiser is automatically included in the newsletter distribution list of the operator. The advertiser can unsubscribe from the newsletter distribution list at any time or will be removed from the distribution list upon request.

§ 6 General use
All rights of use of the database and the entire content of are held by the operator of . Any exploitation beyond the normal use, any publication of the extracted data, any kind of total or partial reprinting, any reproduction or distribution constitutes a violation of copyright, which will be prosecuted under civil and criminal law and obligates the perpetrator, among other things, to pay damages. It is also prohibited to copy, modify, translate, reverse engineer or further develop the concept, design, structure, and in particular all graphics, text and software or parts thereof, to bypass or render inoperable program encryptions, and to remove copyright or copyright notices.

§ 7 Responsibilities of the operator
The operator is not responsible for the self-entries of the advertisers and the links to their homepages, neither regarding the correct input of the data nor regarding the content of the respective entry or the design of changes, additions, upgrades. These are external contents. The operator is entitled to carry out maintenance and servicing work on the online service and endeavors to keep disruptions to usability as low as possible in the process. The operator is also entitled to change the structure of the categories or entries for reasons of clarity. The advertiser is expressly informed that the operator has no influence on the use of the information entered by him by the users of the online portal.

§ 8 Responsibilities of the advertisers and users
The advertiser is solely responsible for the completeness, correctness and legality of his entry. He expressly assures that the contents and offers of his possibly linked homepage are compatible with applicable German law, respectively do not violate any rights of third parties. The advertiser indemnifies the operator from all disadvantages – in particular a liability claim – of third parties, which arise for the operator due to legal violations committed by him. The indemnification obligation also includes the obligation to fully indemnify the provider from legal defense costs, in particular court and attorney fees. The advertiser assures that the images, logos and trademarks used by him for the entry are free of third party rights, respectively that the advertiser is entitled to use the transmitted signs. This applies in particular to name, competition, copyright and personal rights of third parties. Insofar as third parties assert rights against the operator due to the publication of images, logos, brand names or trademarks that the advertiser has transmitted to the operator in the course of the entry application, the advertiser is obligated to indemnify the operator from any resulting damages. Should the advertiser subsequently determine that his entry, his logo, his target page or a placed advertising banner affects applicable law and/or the rights of third parties, he must inform the provider of this immediately. If the customer receives an access code from the provider, he is responsible for keeping it secret. The same applies to self-assigned or created passwords. The operators can reject an entry of the advertiser and delete it without any announcement, if it violates in whole or in part against applicable law, in particular criminal law provisions or overriding rights of third parties. If the operator offers a forum and this is used by the advertiser, the user undertakes to observe the forum rules set up there. Separate conditions apply to the participation in an affiliate program of.

§ 7 Content of the entries / linking to the target page of the advertiser
The advertising entry, link to the target page, advertising logo, or advertising banner of the advertiser may not be designed in such a way,

  1. that it misleads third parties about the purpose of the advertisement;
  2. that in the case of design functional elements (e.g. selection boxes, search masks, pull-down menus), these functional elements cannot be activated;
  3. that illegal or immoral content is implied or contains such content;
  4. that racist or forbidden contents are propagated.
  5. that adult material; sexual themes; violent expressions; nudity and/or sexual activities; coarse or offensive expressions; insulting or inappropriate expressions are used.

The Provider reserves the right to decide at its own discretion which entries or which banners it includes or publishes in its web portal and not to accept content relating to specific products or services. The texts of the advertising entries, company portraits and advertising banners shall be written in German and grammatically correct. The advertiser’s linked target page must make it possible for the user to return to the provider’s web portal by clicking once on the browser’s “Back” button. If this is not the case, the advertising entry can be deactivated by the provider.

§ 9 Contract term / Entry positioning
Entries that are subject to a charge are paid for by the advertiser by transferring a one-time processing fee. The contracting parties may terminate the contract in writing (also by fax or e-mail) without giving reasons. In the event of termination, the advertiser’s entry will be deleted by the operator free of charge. In the case of entries that are not subject to a fee, the operator reserves the right to block, delete or activate them at any time at its own discretion within the scope of providing information to visitors / portal users that it deems useful and beneficial. Furthermore, the advertiser has no influence or right to a certain placement or order of the entries and does not acquire this by repeated placement on a certain position.

§ 10 Remuneration / Terms of Payment
For all services the valid prices of the operator apply. With the successful creation of a paid entry by the advertiser, an online invoice is created, if desired, this can also be sent to the advertiser by e-mail or mail. Currently, the invoice is also made available online. The entry will only be activated after receipt of payment of the invoice due. Invoices for other chargeable services, such as sponsor and banner advertising, are sent either online, by e-mail or by post. In the event of late payment, the operator may suspend or block further execution of the current or another order until payment is made and demand advance payment.

§ 11 Warranty
Despite the greatest possible care and attention to generally accepted programming principles, errors in the operation of the website cannot be ruled out. Therefore, the operator assumes a warranty only within the scope of the statutory provisions. The advertiser undertakes to notify the operator of any errors within 14 days. The operator does not assume any liability for the correctness of the content of the entries made by the advertisers.

§ 12 Liability
The Provider assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of the content published in the online web directory, for its legality, its decency or for the fulfillment of copyright regulations in connection with the content published on the respective Internet site. However, the Provider reserves the right to delete pages or links from the Internet portal that violate existing laws and legal norms; in his opinion are racist, sexist, pornographic or glorify violence; in his opinion are likely to hurt the moral, religious or ideological feelings of its users. The operator is liable for entries with costs in cases of violation of essential contractual obligations, but limited to a maximum of the fee paid for this entry. For services provided free of charge, the operator is not liable. Any misuse, whether knowingly or unknowingly, of all data of the online portal is strictly prohibited. Claims of third parties to the intellectual property of the operator are to be rejected. The operator is in no way liable for omissions or possible errors on his website and reserves the right to make changes without notice. The Operator does not assume any liability for the type, scope, content or quality of services provided by third parties, even if this was done through the mediation of the Operator or if the business contact was established through the Internet offer of the Operator. The operator can use subcontractors and third parties to fulfill his services (e.g. programming work). The general terms and conditions of these partner companies shall apply when they are used.

§ 13 Data protection / storage of data
In accordance with the Federal Data Protection Act, the advertiser is hereby informed of the fact that his complete address and all information necessary for invoicing and the operation of the online system will be stored and processed in machine-readable form. Data will only be passed on to third parties if this is necessary for administration or system expansion, or if it serves the purpose of guaranteeing a demand-oriented service offer for customers (see § 4 Rights of Use) or if the project, including its contents, is sold to third parties. The advertiser is advised that when transmitting data on the Internet for all participants, according to the current state of technology, it cannot be completely ruled out that unauthorized persons may gain access to the transmitted data during the transmission process.

§ 14 Copyright
The online portal / program used here including all software components, in particular the database and other program and data areas are protected by copyright. It is prohibited to copy, modify, otherwise reproduce, rent, publish, redesign or technically transfer the program, parts of the program or components of the software as well as the database or data sets to another data carrier or to use them in any other way. The used texts, images, logos and these GTC, as well as all related services and products of the provider are also subject to copyright and may only be used outside of this contractual relationship with the express written permission of the provider. In case of violations, these will be prosecuted and punished by the provider to the fullest extent of the applicable law.

§ 15 Final provision / severability clause
Should individual provisions of these GTC be or become invalid, this shall not affect the validity of the remaining provisions. The invalid provisions shall be replaced by such provisions that come closest to the intended purpose. This applies accordingly in the event that a loophole exists. The advertiser expressly agrees that any correspondence on the part of the operator may be in electronic form, i.e. by e-mail. This correspondence between the operator and the advertiser is valid even if letters from the operator do not have a handwritten signature. The advertiser will receive changes to these GTC by e-mail/newsletter at least 4 weeks before they come into force.

§ 16 Place of Jurisdiction / Place of Performance
The place of performance is the registered office of the operator. The place of jurisdiction shall be the registered office of the Operator, unless otherwise stipulated by law. Also for the dunning procedure as well as for the case that the residence or usual stay of the advertiser is unknown at the time of the complaint collection, the seat of the operator is agreed upon as area of jurisdiction. In the event of linguistic ambiguities with regard to translations of the homepage and the GTC or in the event of other cases of doubt and problems of interpretation, the German version of the text shall be the last binding version.

§ 17 Applicable law
All legal relationships arising from the business relations with the operator are exclusively subject to German law. International laws do not apply. These GTC refer to the online service in its current form.

Langwiesen, 18.01.2014