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KitesurfingOfficial

Legal

Terms of use

Last updated: 22 July 2026

1. Who we are and what these terms cover

KitesurfingOfficial (kitesurfingofficial.com) is operated by the provider named in the site notice (Impressum). These terms govern your use of the website and its community features. Using the site as a visitor is free and does not require an account; community features (forum, contributions, clips, saved items, business tools) require a free account.

How we handle personal data is described in the privacy policy, cookies in the cookie policy. Our editorial work is governed by our editorial standards, code of ethics and corrections policy.

2. The service

KitesurfingOfficial is a free editorial and community platform about kitesurfing: spot guides, learning resources, gear information, news, an event calendar, a business directory, a job board and community features. We do not sell goods through this website. Editorial content is provided for general information — it is not individual advice.

3. Accounts

You must be at least 16 years old to create an account. Provide accurate information, keep your credentials secure, and tell us promptly if you suspect misuse of your account. You are responsible for activity under your account. You can delete your account at any time in your profile settings; we may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms (see section 6).

4. Your content

You keep ownership of everything you post — forum posts, comments, spot contributions, photos, clips, reviews, business information ("user content"). So that we can run the service, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, display, format, translate and excerpt your user content on KitesurfingOfficial, including in our apps, feeds and previews of the service. This licence ends when your content is deleted, except where we must keep copies to comply with law, resolve disputes, or where content has been shared with others (e.g. quoted in the forum).

You confirm that you hold the necessary rights to what you upload — in particular for photos and videos — and that your content does not violate the rights of others (copyright, trademarks, personality rights) or the law. For photos of identifiable people, you confirm the persons shown agree to publication.

5. Rules of conduct

When using community features you must not post content that:

  • is illegal, defamatory, harassing, hateful or discriminatory;
  • infringes intellectual property or other rights of third parties;
  • contains spam, undisclosed advertising, or misleading commercial claims;
  • contains malware, phishing or other technically harmful material;
  • discloses other people's personal data without their consent;
  • gives dangerous "advice" that disregards basic kitesurfing safety practice.

You must not scrape, bulk-download or republish substantial parts of the site for commercial purposes without our permission, and you must not interfere with the operation or security of the service.

6. Moderation and reporting (notice & action)

Every piece of community content can be reported through the report functions on the site or by email to the address in the Impressum. We review reports, and we may remove or restrict content, or suspend accounts, where content violates these terms or the law. Where we take action against your content or account, we will inform you of the essential reasons on request and you can object by replying to us; we will re-review at least once with a human decision-maker. We do not use fully automated removal decisions without human review.

7. Third-party content, links and embeds

The site links to external websites and embeds third-party media (e.g. YouTube, Instagram) that only load after your interaction. External content is the responsibility of its providers; at the time of linking no legal violations were apparent to us. Business listings and event data are largely based on information from the businesses and organisers themselves or on public sources; a "verified" mark refers to our identity check of the listing claim, not a guarantee of service quality.

8. Safety notice — kitesurfing is dangerous

Kitesurfing is a risk sport. Spot guides, wind and season information, forecasts, gear scores and learning content on this site are general editorial information, can be incomplete or out of date, and are no substitute for your own judgement, local knowledge, current weather assessment, proper training and appropriate insurance. Conditions at a spot can differ fundamentally from what is described. You ride at your own responsibility.

9. Our content and intellectual property

Editorial content, design, data compilations and software of this site are protected by copyright and other laws. You may use the site for personal, non-commercial purposes, including sharing links and short quotes with attribution. Any further use — in particular systematic extraction or commercial republication — requires our consent. Openly licensed machine-readable datasets that we deliberately publish (marked as such, e.g. under /data) may be used under the conditions stated there.

10. Availability and changes to the service

The service is provided free of charge. We work to keep it available and current, but do not guarantee uninterrupted availability. We may develop, change or discontinue features of the free service; where a change materially restricts community features, we will give reasonable notice where feasible.

11. Liability

We are liable without limitation for intent and gross negligence, for injury to life, body or health, under the German Product Liability Act, and where we have expressly assumed a guarantee. For slight negligence we are liable only for breach of essential contractual duties (duties whose fulfilment makes the proper performance of the contract possible in the first place and on whose fulfilment you may regularly rely), and in that case limited to the foreseeable damage typical for this kind of free service. Any further liability is excluded. This does not shift the burden of proof to your disadvantage.

12. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms, for example when features change or the law requires it. For material changes affecting registered users we will give notice (e.g. on the site or by email) with reasonable lead time; if you continue using community features after the effective date, the updated terms apply. The current version is always available at this address.

13. Final provisions

German law applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. If you are a consumer with habitual residence in another country, the mandatory consumer protection provisions of that country remain unaffected. Should individual provisions of these terms be invalid, the remainder stays in effect.

We are neither obliged nor willing to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board (§ 36 VSBG).

Contact for all questions about these terms: see the Impressum.