Terms of Service

Welcome to Better Century!

These terms govern use of the forum found at community.bettercentury.org, and all other features of the website www.bettercentury.org, except where we expressly state that separate Terms (and not these apply). These terms are between yourself and Better Century C.I.C. (referred to as Better Century).

To use the forum, you need to agree to these terms of service.

Skip to:[Our services] [Your Permission to Use the Forum] [Conditions for Use of the Forum] [Acceptable Use] [Content Standards] [Enforcement] [Your Account] [Your Content] [Your Responsibility] [Disclaimers] [Limits on Liability] [Feedback] [Termination] [Disputes] [General Terms] [Contact] [Changes]

Our services

Our mission is to make a Better Century, where improved use and sharing of resources creates an environment where all life thrives. Our purpose is threefold:

Mediate cooperation between an increasing number of people and organisations to improve sharing of resources.
Facilitate mass uptake of innovative products and services that improve use of resources.
Invest in new innovations, charities and campaigns that support our mission.

To deliver our mission and purpose, we provide the following services to our members:

Provision of good curated content
We aim to provide useful content for people and organisations to take action to support our mission. Our members provide the bulk of content, however Better Century will moderate, bring together, tag and highlight interesting community content and develop content to help improve user experience on the site. We will ensure that content is not harmful and we endeavor to protect and support our community. To see more about how we do this please read our Community Guidelines.

Find the best organisations to support the mission
Through member referrals and recommendations through posts, Better Century, with the input from members, will identify NGOs, businesses, charities and other organisations that can help support Better Century’s mission. We will use the data that we have to make suggestions for you and others about means by which you can engage these organisations, or can provide feedback on their function.

Identify products and services most useful to members
We want our members to have access to those products and services that can help them support the mission better. We will use the data that we have to make suggestions for you and others about services and products that may be useful to you.

Identify innovations, charities and campaigns that support our mission
By identifying problems individuals and organisations have in supporting our mission we can isolate means by which to overcome them. If for instance we find that there is insufficient subsidy to support deployment of solar panels we may support campaigns that lobby for more support in this area, or innovations companies are developing to support higher payment for solar production. We will use information we have and gain community input into means by which we may do this.

Your Permission to Use the Forum

Subject to these terms, the Better Century gives you permission to use the forum. Everyone needs to agree to these terms to use the forum.

Conditions for Use of the Forum

Your permission to use the forum is subject to the following conditions:

You may no longer use the forum if the Better Century contacts you directly to say that you may not.
You must use the forum in accordance with Acceptable Use and Content Standards.

Acceptable Use

You may not break the law using the forum or encourage others to do so.
You may not use or try to use another’s account on the forum without their specific permission.
You may direct other community members to sites that provide products and services that help the community improve use and sharing of resources, but you may not buy, sell, or otherwise trade in user names or other unique identifiers on the forum, unless express permission is granted.
You may not send advertisements, chain letters, or other solicitations through the forum, or use the forum to gather addresses or other personal data for commercial mailing lists or databases.
You may not automate access to the forum, or monitor the forum, such as with a web crawler, browser plug-in or add-on, or other computer program that is not a web browser. You may crawl the forum to index it for a publicly available search engine, if you run one.
You may not use the forum to send e-mail to distribution lists, newsgroups, or group mail aliases.
You may not falsely imply that you’re affiliated with or endorsed by the Better Century.
You may not hyperlink to images or other non-hypertext content on the forum on other webpages.
You may not remove any marks showing proprietary ownership from materials you download from the forum.
You may not show any part of the forum on other websites with <iframe>.
You may not disable, avoid, or circumvent any security or access restrictions of the forum.
You may not strain infrastructure of the forum with an unreasonable volume of requests, or requests designed to impose an unreasonable load on information systems underlying the forum.
You may not impersonate others through the forum.
You may not encourage or help anyone in violation of these terms.

Content Standards

You may not submit content to the forum that is illegal, offensive, or otherwise harmful to others. This includes content that is harassing, inappropriate, or abusive.
You may not submit content to the forum that violates the law, infringes anyone’s intellectual property rights, violates anyone’s privacy, or breaches agreements you have with others.
You may not submit content to the forum containing malicious computer code, such as computer viruses or spyware.
You may not submit content to the forum as a mere placeholder, to hold a particular address, user name, or other unique identifier.
You may not use the forum to disclose information that you don’t have the right to disclose, like others’ confidential or personal information.

Enforcement

Better Century may investigate and prosecute violations of these terms to the fullest legal extent. Better Century may notify and cooperate with law enforcement authorities in prosecuting violations of the law and these terms.

Better Century reserves the right to change, redact, and delete content on the forum for any reason. If you believe someone has submitted content to the forum in violation of these terms, contact us immediately.

Your Account

You must create and log into an account to use some features of the forum.

To create an account, you must provide some information about yourself. If you create an account, you agree to provide, at a minimum, a valid e-mail address, and to keep that address up-to-date. You may close your account at any time by e-mailing admin@bettercentury.org.

You agree to be responsible for all action taken using your account, whether authorized by you or not, until you either close your account or notify the Better Century that your account has been compromised. You agree to notify the Better Century immediately if you suspect your account has been compromised. You agree to select a secure password for your account, and keep it secret.

Better Century may restrict, suspend, or close your account on the forum according to its policy for handling copyright-related takedown requests, or if the Better Century reasonably believes that you’ve broken any rule in these terms.

Your Content

Nothing in these terms gives Better Century any ownership rights in intellectual property that you share with the forum, such as your account information, posts, or other content you submit to the forum. Nothing in these terms gives you any ownership rights in the Better Century’s intellectual property, either.

Between you and the Better Century, you remain solely responsible for content you submit to the forum. You agree not to wrongly imply that content you submit to the forum is sponsored or approved by Better Century. These terms do not obligate Better Century to store, maintain, or provide copies of content you submit, and to change it, according to these terms.

Content you submit to the forum belongs to you, and you decide what permission to give others for it. But at a minimum, you license Better Century to provide content that you submit to the forum to other users of the forum. That special license allows the Better Century to copy, publish, and analyze content you submit to the forum.

When content you submit is removed from the forum, whether by you or by Better Century, the special license ends when the last copy disappears from the Better Century’s backups, caches, and other systems. You agree that we are allowed to keep copies of any content you submit for archival and potential law enforcement purposes. Other licenses you apply to content you submit, such as Creative Commons licenses, may continue after your content is removed. Those licenses may give others, or the Better Century itself, the right to share your content through the forum again.

Others who receive content you submit to the forum may violate the terms on which you license your content. You agree that the Better Century will not be liable to you for those violations or their consequences.

Your Responsibility

You agree to indemnify Better Century from legal claims by others related to your breach of these terms, or breach of these terms by others using your account on the forum. Both you and the Better Century agree to notify the other side of any legal claims for which you might have to indemnify the Better Century as soon as possible. If Better Century fails to notify you of a legal claim promptly, you won’t have to indemnify Better Century for damages that you could have defended against or mitigated with prompt notice. You agree to allow Better Century to control investigation, defense, and settlement of legal claims for which you would have to indemnify Better Century, and to cooperate with those efforts. Better Century agrees not to agree to any settlement that admits fault for you or imposes obligations on you without your prior agreement.

Disclaimers

You accept all risk of using the forum and content on the forum. As far as the law allows, Better Century and its suppliers provide the forum as is, without any warranty whatsoever.

The forum may hyperlink to and integrate forums and services run by others so that members of the community and the general public can benefit from peer recommendations. The community is responsible for these recommendations with Better Century bearing no liability.

As such, Better Century, does not make any warranty about products and services provided by others, or content they may provide. Use of these products and services, run by others, may be governed by other terms between you and the one running service.

Limits on Liability

Neither Better Century nor its suppliers will be liable to you for breach-of-contract damages their personnel could not have reasonably foreseen when you agreed to these terms.

As far as the law allows, the total liability to you for claims of any kind that are related to the forum or content on the forum will be limited to £50.

Feedback

Better Century welcomes your feedback and suggestions for the forum. See the Contact section below for ways to get in touch with us.

You agree that Better Century will be free to act on feedback and suggestions you provide, and that Better Century won’t have to notify you that your feedback was used, get your permission to use it, or pay you. You agree not to submit feedback or suggestions that you believe might be confidential or proprietary, to you or others.

Termination

Either you or Better Century may end the agreement written out in these terms at any time. When our agreement ends, your permission to use the forum also ends.

The following provisions survive the end of our agreement: Your Content, Feedback, Your Responsibility, Disclaimers, Limits on Liability, and General Terms.

Disputes

We try to provide clear rules so that we can limit or hopefully avoid disputes between you and Better Century. If a dispute does arise, however, it’s useful to know up front where it can be resolved and what laws will apply.

If you are a consumer and habitually reside in a Member State of the European Union, the laws of that Member State will apply to any claim, cause of action or dispute that you have against Better Century, which arises out of or relates to these Terms, and you may resolve your claim in any competent court in that Member State that has jurisdiction over the claim.

In all other cases, you agree that the claim must be resolved in a competent court in the United Kingdom and that UK law will govern these Terms and any claim, without regard to conflict of law provisions.

General Terms

If a provision of these terms is unenforceable as written, but could be changed to make it enforceable, that provision should be modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable. Otherwise, that provision should be removed.

You may not assign your agreement with the Better Century. The Better Century may assign your agreement to any affiliate of the Better Century, any other organisation that obtains control of the Better Century, or any other organisation that buys assets of the Better Century related to the forum. Any attempted assignment against these terms has no legal effect.

Neither the exercise of any right under this Agreement, nor waiver of any breach of this Agreement, waives any other breach of this Agreement.

These terms embody all the terms of agreement between you and the Better Century about use of the forum. These terms entirely replace any other agreements about your use of the forum, written or not.

Contact

You may notify the Better Century under these terms, and send questions to the Better Century, at admin@bettercentury.org.

The Better Century may notify you under these terms using the e-mail address you provide for your account on the forum, or by posting a message to the homepage of the forum or your account page.

Changes

Better Century last updated these terms on May 24th, 2019, and may update these terms again. Better Century will post all updates to the forum. For updates that contain substantial changes, Better Century agrees to e-mail you, if you’ve created an account and provided a valid e-mail address. Better Century may also announce updates with special messages or alerts on the forum.

Once you get notice of an update to these terms, you must agree to the new terms in order to keep using the forum.

Privacy Policy

This policy explains the way that we collect, use and protect your data as well as your choices with regard to your data.

We’ve tried to be as clear whilst including all the relevant information – but please do write to admin@bettercentury.org or contact the CommunityManager through the site if anything doesn’t make sense or needs further explanation.

This is a long document so feel free to skip to sections most relevant to: [Duty of care], [What data we store of yours], [What we use your information for], [Visibility of posts and profile], [Permissions and how we contact you], [Protecting your data],

Duty of care

We recognise our duty of care with regards to your data and endeavour to do the right thing with the personal data you choose to share with us, including: not compromising your anonymity; protecting your privacy; storing your data securely and giving you control over your own data.

Our mission at Better Century is to improve use and sharing of resources, so to create an environment where all life thrives. We believe that securing your data, preserving your anonymity, protecting your privacy, and giving you control over your data are an important aspect of that mission.

We believe that employing data and data analytics appropriately can improve the user experience. Data you give us when filling in forms (when joining, for example or when filling in questionnaires) helps us show you more relevant things. It also allows us to see which aspects of the site are popular and well-used, meaning we can make the site better for everyone.

What data we store of yours

We store IP address, cookies, your device’s unique ID, page browsing history, ads you’ve viewed and clicked, searches you’ve made on site, approximate location, and any enquiries you’ve made. For registered members we also store username, password and email address; discussions you may have with Better Century administrators and moderators; and a summary of decisions we’ve taken about you if we’ve reviewed what you’ve posted.

We store things such as your device’s reading habits to show you things we think may be of interest to you (eg content or ads). When we look at this information across large numbers of users, it helps us see which parts of Better Century are well-used and which aren’t, and this helps us to decide what sort of content and features might be useful to develop.

We don’t require your name or address when you register with the site, and you can use Better Century fully without providing it.

Subject to your permissions and choices (as explained later) we collect, store and process the data listed in this section. We believe we provide a useful service, and therefore have a legitimate interest in processing your data which benefits both Better Century and you.

We store the following data for all users, whether registered or not:

IP address, cookies, device ID – to identify your web browser and device.
Page browsing information – to enable us to show you more relevant things and so we can improve our service.
Within our user database, we assign you a “Better Century Unique Reference Number”. Against this reference number we record the topics of content you are viewing or creating – in other words, your “interest areas”. This helps us understand what you may be interested in so that we can show you things we think may be relevant to you (such as ads or other Better Century content). When we look at this information from all users, we can see what is popular and less popular, helping us provide a better service over time.
We also use Google Analytics to report on page views in aggregate to help us understand usage trends. We do not pass your personal data to Google and your IP address is anonymised before we share this information with Google Analytics. Google uses cookies and can learn about your browsing to inform Google ads and other Google services, as explained here: https://policies.google.com/privacy/partners
Ads viewed and clicked and searches you’ve made on site – to show you more relevant ads and content in future.
Products and services – we will give options for people to rate the delivery of products and services from organisations. This is optional and we only give users this option if we trust the company and think the service might be helpful to you. We will always explicitly ask for your permission before recording or passing this information to any organisation involved in this way.

We store the following information for registered members:

Username, password, email address – so that you can log in. If you choose to join we ask for your email address so that we can create an account for you and check you’re a real person (to prevent ‘bots’ signing up). We won’t send you newsletters or mass email communications that you haven’t asked for, and we don’t sell your email address to anyone else.
Discussions that take place over email or via Private Messages between you and Better Century moderators – so that we have a record.
A summary of any actions we may have been taken with regard to your use of Better Century Community (usually in response to reported posts) – so that we have a record and can moderate fairly.

We also store the following optional data for registered members:

Registration data: facts about you that you choose to provide in the sign-up process. We do not share this information with anyone else. Provision of this data is optional; you can skip this stage.
Permissions to email you, to send you newsletters that you have chosen to receive.
Private Messages that you choose to send other users.
Data that you provide when taking part in surveys, panels, product tests, quizzes or competitions. For these things, we sometimes ask for your name and address (for example to send you a product to test) or other data requested by the competition provider (such as your email address). Before recording or passing this information to another organisation, we will provide the organisation’s data policy and clearly ask for your permission each time.

What we use your information for

Any of the information we collect from you may be used in one of the following ways:

Personalize your experience — your information helps us to better respond to your individual needs.
Improve our site — we continually strive to improve our site offerings based on the information and feedback we receive from you.
Improve customer service — your information helps us to more effectively respond to your customer service requests and support needs.
Build understanding — Your information will help us identify what hurdles there are improving use and sharing of resource, it may be more subsidy is required to achieve uptake or we need better suppliers, this collective intelligence could help shape what innovations, campaigns or charities we support, or may inform research we publish.
To send periodic emails — The email address you provide may be used to send you information, notifications that you request about changes to topics or in response to your user name, respond to inquiries, and/or other requests or questions.

Visibility of posts and profile

Posts on Better Century are visible to anyone on the internet, including through search engines. This is done so that everyone can find out how to make a Better Century. So when posting, you should bear in mind that any personally identifying details you include in the text or pictures you post could be seen by anyone. If you are ever worried you can delete posts or contact administrators to support any changes you’d like to see to certain threads.

Your user name and any photo you associate with this account will also be visible publicly. So when constructing your profile do consider that any personally identifying details you include in your user name or profile picture could be seen by anyone.

In all your posts, in personal messages to other users, and in choosing your username, you should be mindful about the possibility that information you choose to disclose could lead to someone working out who you are in ‘real life’. For example, anything that references your real life name, where you live or your date of birth could make it easy for someone to work out who you are. Other personal information in your posts might also allow people to work out who you are through ‘jigsaw identification’.

Registered users will be able to look at a version of your profile which will include what posts you have written and information you have provided about yourself. Your email address will not be visible but some other optional information you provide about yourself will be. We hope that visibility of posts and information about users will help build trust and good relations on the site.

Registered members can start discussions and add comments, pictures and videos to existing discussions under our Terms of Service. This is optional in the sense that it’s up to you whether you post or not; if you do post we always store the contents of those posts.

You should be aware that the administration and moderation team have access to your posts and can see that content in combination with your registration data. We restrict to the minimum the number of people who have access to this data and we constantly review this. You can check your registration data through your profile.

Permissions and how we contact you

You can change your registration data and your email preferences at any time through your profile page. Through this functionality you can also watch particular categories of discussion and you can also ‘mute’ particular users so you don’t need to see their posts. You are also able to hide your public profile. If you wish to delete your account you can contact the administrator and they can do this for you.

Your registration data

You can change the information that you provided when you registered, including your email address and username, on your profile page.

If you have signed in using Facebook or Google, you can stop access at any time via your Facebook or Google account settings.

Your email preferences

You can change which notifications and newsletters you receive, by going to your profile page.

Your posts

If you’re ever worried that you’ve said too much or the wrong thing. You can go to a post and correct it or delete it. If you have any problems with this then a moderator or administrator can help you.

Your cookies

Most web browsers automatically accept cookies. A cookie is a small, temporary file which a web server sends to your web browser to be stored. Cookies allow Better Century to identify your web browser and device if we see it again.

Cookies do not contain your name or other personal details and there are some benefits to you of their use:

“Information storage and access” cookies allow you to perform certain functions like logging in. Cookies improve your experience of the site. For example, they allow you to log in and post, and allow us to show you discussions you’ve already read in a different colour, and to display them top-down or bottom-up according to your preference.
Cookies also help us to show you more relevant content and ads. These are formally known as “Personalisation” cookies, “Ad selection, delivery, reporting” cookies and “Content selection, delivery, reporting” cookies. To help keep the site running, we earn money by showing ads to people who might be interested in them – relevant ads are more likely to be clicked on, and command a higher price. By knowing what you have an interest in we can ensure that you don’t get adverts that are not relevant to you. We will continually review our policy for advertising by engaging a group of active users who can inform us of what is and isn’t working.
“Measurement” cookies allow us to gather information about how many people visit, how often, and what they look at while on the site (a process called ‘analytics’). If you visit multiple pages or come back after a break, cookies mean we do not count you as a new visitor. Using cookies like this allows us to compile aggregate statistics about how many users has and how long people use the site for, on average. We share this anonymous information with advertisers. Understanding what’s well-used means we can create more of what users find useful and less of what they don’t.

Data requests

If you’d like you can ask us to provide details of the personal information we hold about you, under the 2018 EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). To request this information, please email us at admin@bettercentury.org or write to Better Century C.I.C., Brecon House, 12 Almond Road, Bicester, OX26 2HT.

Protecting your data

The way we store and process data is compliant with the UK 2018 Data Protection Act, the 2018 EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and other relevant pieces of legislation. We always aim to comply both with the spirit as well as the letter of the law and to be responsible with your data.

The way that we store and process data is compliant with the following legislation:

UK Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA)
EU General Data Protection Regulation 2018 (GDPR)
ePrivacy Directive 2002 (amended 2009)

As well as keeping up-to-date with laws about data, we aim to take sensible decisions based on common sense, listening to users’ views and industry best practices.

Your data is stored by our web hosting company Google Web Services. Some data technology companies (such as Google) store your cookies (Note: they do not have access to any personal information on Better Century, only on your browsing habits). We use multi-tier web application security for our servers including Denial of Service protection and Web Application Firewall at the network edge to ensure your data is secure.

How long is your data held

Any personal data you give us, or that we collect, will be retained by us for as long as it’s needed to perform its function. Registration data is held permanently unless your account is deleted. There’s no one-size-fits-all time limit, but we regularly review the data we hold to ensure it is still necessary.

Any personal data that you give us will be retained by us for as long as it’s needed to perform its function. We give some examples: Information provided when entering competitions is held for a maximum of three months. Information you give us when you sign up is stored permanently unless you choose to delete it or unless you delete your account. Private Messages are stored until you delete them. If you delete your account, your messages will also be deleted.

We regularly review the data and delete information that is no longer needed. All the data we hold is stored securely and only accessible to authorised staff members, who have appropriate data training.

We will not store your data beyond the consented and legitimate interest, and for that reason aim to delete the following data accordingly:

Retain server logs containing the IP address of all requests to this server no more than 90 days.
Retain the IP addresses associated with registered users and their posts no more than 5 years.
Delete all information about users who have had their account deleted, within two years.

If your data is compromised

If our security is breached, our data is compromised or if we fail to comply with the law, we will tell affected users as soon as we become aware of the failure. We will report any data breach to the Information Commissioner and, if appropriate, the police, in a timely fashion.

Used appropriately, we strongly believe using data improves the user experience at Better Century and supports our aim of creating an environment where all life thrives. Data you give us when filling in forms on site (when joining, for example) or when you’re using the site or our apps helps us show you more relevant things and improve Better Century for everyone.

If, via human error, or via a breach of our security, we fail to comply with the law, we will let affected users know as soon as we are aware of it. We will report any data breach to the Information Commissioner in UK and, depending on the circumstances, the Police.

Third parties and your data

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties, under strict confidentiality agreements, who assist us in operating the community and the business. We will not release personally identifiable or contact information of our members to any other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third party products or services on our site. These third party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance

Our site, products and services are all directed to people who are at least 13 years old or older. If this server is in the USA, and you are under the age of 13, per the requirements of COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act), do not use this site.