Community platform terms and conditions

The Online Community Platform (“the community”) is an interactive discussion based community platform provided on a third-party platform accessed via ICAEW’s single sign on protocols.

Your use of or participation in the community is governed by these terms and conditions, together with ICAEW’s website Conditions of Use and the forum’s Community Platform T&C’s (together, the “Agreement”). In the event of a conflict between any terms of the Agreement, the terms in these terms and conditions shall prevail. By accessing or using the community you agree to comply with the terms of the Agreement. If you do not agree with or accept any part of this Agreement, you should stop using the Community immediately.

If you have any questions about this Agreement, please contact us using the contact details provided on our Contact us page.

If you would like this Agreement in another format (for example: audio, large print, braille) please contact us using the details provided on our Contact us page.

The personal details you provide on registration will be used to facilitate your participation in the community. The registration process will also create an account on the discourse platform so you can access and use the platform. If necessary, we may use them to contact you.

Please note that when you make comments, your name will be visible to other participants. By uploading any information to this platform, you are providing your consent for this information to be processed by ICAEW for the purposes of administering the ICAEW Mobile App Platform which may include the sharing of the data with our third-party Platform Management Company. This includes any special category data that may be contained within the information uploaded. 

Please see our Privacy Policy for more details.

You must keep any password and login details confidential and must not disclose them or share them with anyone. If you know or suspect that someone else knows your password, you should reset it immediately.

If you have any concerns, contact us.

The purpose of the community is to provide a platform to allow member to member engagement and to allow members to discuss common issues and topics based on the category name and topic title. We permit you to use the Community only for personal, non-commercial, purposes. Use of the Community in any other way, including any unacceptable use set out in this Agreement, is not permitted.

You agree to at all times:

1. comply with the ICAEW’s End User Licence Agreement specifying the conditions of use
2. comply with the forum’s Community Guidelines
3. be respectful of others who use the site
4. comply with all applicable laws
5. not engage in any anti-competitive conduct or behaviour
6. keep comments relevant to the discussion topic
7. not knowingly post any misleading or inaccurate content
8. not post any offensive or explicit comments or content
9. not advertise, promote or offer for sale any products or services
10. not seek or offer any work or employment
11. not submit, or procure the sending of, any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising or promotional material or any other form of similar solicitation (spam)
12. not resubmit the same, or similar, comments
13. not submit any personal information about you or any third party, for example home addresses or phone numbers
14. only post comments in English
15. not submit comments or content infringing any third-party intellectual property rights
16. not submit any content or engage in any behaviour that is harassing, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually orientated or offensive to others with regards to religion or belief, sex, race or other personal characteristic
17. not submit any unlawful comments or content
18. not impersonate any person or entity
19. do not spam or flood the forum. Keep the number of comments you submit on a topic at a reasonable level. Multiple comments from the same individual, or a small number of individuals, may discourage others from contributing. We encourage open and lively discussions and member to member engagement but comment comments that violate any of the above rules will be in breach of the terms of this agreement.

As a condition of your use of the Community, you agree not to use the Community:

1. for any purpose that is unlawful under any applicable law or prohibited by this Community or the Agreement;
2. to commit any act of fraud;
3. to distribute viruses or malware or other similar harmful software code;
4. for purposes of promoting unsolicited advertising or sending spam;
5. to simulate communications from us or another service or entity in order to collect identity information, authentication credentials, or other information (‘phishing’);
6. in any manner that disrupts the operation of our Community, App, website or business or the website or business of any other entity;
7. in any manner that harms minors;
8. to promote any unlawful activity (including but not limited to the promotion or sale of any unlawful goods or services);
9. to represent or suggest that we endorse any other business, product or service unless we have separately agreed to do so in writing;
10. to gain unauthorised access to or use of computers, data, systems, accounts or networks; or
11. to attempt to circumvent password or user authentication methods.

We may make messaging forums or other communication services (Interactive Services) available on the Community.

We are not obliged to monitor or moderate any text, images, video, audio or other multimedia content, information or material (Submission) submitted to our Interactive Services. Where we do monitor or moderate Submissions, we shall indicate how this is performed and who should be contacted in relation to any Submission of concern to you.

We may remove or edit any Submission to any of our Interactive Services whether they are moderated or not.

Any Submission you make must comply with our Submission standards set out below.

By making a Submission, you grant to us a royalty-free, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable licence to use, reproduce, modify, publish, edit, translate, distribute, perform and display the Submission (in whole or in part) on the Community, App and on any other websites operated by us, indefinitely.

Any Submission you make to our Interactive Services and any other communication to users of our App and Community by you must conform to standards of accuracy, decency and lawfulness, which shall be applied in our discretion, acting reasonably.

In particular, any Submission or communication by you must be:

1.  your own original work and lawfully submitted;
2. factually accurate or your own genuinely held belief;
3. provided with the necessary consent of any third party;
4. not defamatory or likely to give rise to an allegation of defamation;
5. not unlawful, offensive, obscene, sexually explicit, discriminatory or deceptive and not promotional of such activities; and
6. unlikely to cause offence, embarrassment or annoyance to others.

You are prohibited from using the community, directly or indirectly, as a forum for the exchange of competitively sensitive information relating to any participant’s business or firm, including:

• current or future strategy marketing activities
• prices, costs or revenue
• any other information that might reduce uncertainty between competitors or potential competitor

If you become aware of a prohibited discussion you should cease engaging in that discussion and report it to ICAEW.

Community discussions and threads will not usually be moderated by ICAEW. However, from time to time certain topics and discussions may be moderated by the ICAEW, Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm.

ICAEW reserves the right at its sole discretion to:

• delete or close a community topic or discussion
• remove or amend any content that it deems to be inappropriate
• suspend temporarily, or permanently delete, a members account or access
• report any unlawful content or behaviour to the relevant competent authority, without any prior notice

While we try to make sure that the Community is secure, we do not actively monitor or check whether information supplied to us through the Community is confidential, commercially sensitive or valuable.

Other than any personal information which will be dealt with in accordance with our Privacy Policy, we do not guarantee that information supplied to us through the Site will be kept confidential and we may use it on an unrestricted and free-of-charge basis as we reasonably see fit.

You may report any suspected breach of the Agreement by notifying us from within the Community by using the ‘Flag’ feature that can be found on any of the posts on the platform. Alternatively, you can directly contact us. When you report anything, you should include:

• details of the community and the topic
• details of the concerning behaviour
• dates and times

ICAEW does not control and does not accept any liability or responsibility for any third-party advertising or websites that can be accessed through the Community, links or content posted by participants or for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of them. ICAEW does not accept any legal responsibility for any content, material or information contained in them. The display of any hyperlink and reference to any third party advertisitng or website does not mean that we endorse that third party’s website, products, or services. Your use of a third party site may be governed by the terms and conditions of that third-party site and is at your own risk. ICAEW does not endorse or approve the contents of any such site, link or content.

Any third-party websites or materials posted by you on the Community must comply with the content standards set out in ICAEW’s website Legal notice and terms of use. You warrant that any such material does comply with those standards, and you will indemnify on demand ICAEW for all and any loss or damage suffered as a result of a breach of that warranty.

All content posted on a community topic or discussion is intended for information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice on which reliance should be placed. Participants are hereby placed under notice that they should take appropriate steps to verify such information.

You should not act or refrain from acting based on the information contained in a community topic or discussion without first verifying the information and obtaining your own legal and/or professional advice.

Except where expressly stated to the contrary, copyright and all other intellectual property rights in the text, images, video, audio, graphics or other multimedia content, software or other information or material submitted to or accessible set out in the Community by ICAEW is owned by ICAEW and our licensors.

We and our licensors reserve all our intellectual property rights (including, but not limited to, all copyrights, trade marks, domain names, design rights, database rights, patents and all other intellectual property rights of any kind) whether registered or unregistered anywhere in the world. This means, for example, that we remain owners of them and are free to use them as we see fit.

Nothing in this Agreement grants you any legal rights in the Community or the content other than as necessary for you to access it. You agree not to adjust, try to circumvent or delete any notices contained on the Community or the content (including any intellectual property notices) and in particular, in any digital rights or other security technology embedded or contained within the Community or the content.

You may not use our trade marks, logos or trade names except in accordance with this Agreement. Where we give permission to use our trade marks, logos or trade names, you shall do so only in accordance with our brand guidelines.

The Community is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. ICAEW makes no representations or warranties whatsoever regarding the accuracy of the information, content, materials, or products contained on the Community or the operation of the Community. To the fullest extent permitted by law, ICAEW expressly excludes all conditions, warranties and other terms which might otherwise be implied by statute, common law or the law of equity. ICAEW expressly disclaims all liability and responsibility for any direct, indirect or consequential loss or damage incurred by any user arising from any reliance placed on information, content, product or materials posted on the Community, including materials posted by any visitor to the Community, and by anyone who may be informed of any of their contents, or from the use or inability to use the Community, whether directly or indirectly, resulting from inaccuracies, defects, errors, whether typographical or otherwise, omissions, out of date information or otherwise, even if such loss was reasonably foreseeable and ICAEW had been advised of the possibility of the same. Direct, indirect or consequential loss and damage shall include but not be limited to loss of profits or contracts, loss of income or revenue, loss of business, loss of goodwill, damage to reputation and wasted expenditure or management time.

Nothing in these Conditions shall exclude ICAEW’s liability for death or personal injury resulting from its negligence, nor its liability for fraudulent misrepresentation, nor any other liability which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.

By using the Community you expressly agree and confirm that you shall be solely responsible for any content that you post on our Community or for content that is posted with your sanction or on your behalf. We will not be liable to any third party in relation to such content, for which you will be solely responsible.

You hereby agree to indemnify us and keep us indemnified against all costs, damages, expenses, losses, and liabilities incurred and/or suffered by us as a result of any claim or action brought in relation to your access and/or use of the Community and Interactive Services.

We are not liable to you if we fail to comply with terms and conditions because of circumstances beyond our control.

No one other than us or you has any right to enforce any of these terms.

We shall apply the terms of this Agreement in our absolute discretion. In the event of your breach of this Agreement we may terminate or suspend your use of the Community and/or App, remove or edit Submissions, disclose Submissions or any other communication to users of our Community by you to law enforcement authorities or take any action we consider necessary to remedy the breach.

We may further develop or modify the Community, and the Interactive Services to improve its quality. You will be informed of such development/modification as soon as it is implemented.

ICAEW reserves the right to at its sole discretion update these terms and conditions from time to time.

This Agreement, and any dispute or claim arising out of, or in connection with, it, its subject matter or formation shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of England and Wales.

Any disputes will be subject to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales. This means that you can choose whether to bring a claim in the courts of England and Wales or in the courts of another part of the UK in which you live.