Terms and Conditions

§ 1 Scope and provider

(1) These terms govern the use of the “Traintrack” app (iOS and Android) and of the pages at app.traintrackapp.de.

(2) The provider is EastsitePlatforms UG (haftungsbeschränkt), Seckenheimer Landstraße 7, 68163 Mannheim, represented by its managing directors Finn Prietzel and Felix Hüsgen, e-mail: support@traintrackapp.de (hereinafter “the operators”).

(3) Traintrack is aimed exclusively at consumers. Deviating terms of users do not apply.

§ 2 Services

(1) Traintrack is a platform for railway enthusiasts. Users can publish railway-related photos and texts, document sightings of trains, exchange ideas in forums and chats, and receive points and badges.

(2) Use is free of charge. Certain features can only be used with a paid subscription (§ 9).

(3) There is no entitlement to specific features. For features of a paid subscription, the statutory provisions on digital products apply, in particular § 327r BGB (German Civil Code).

§ 3 User account

(1) Use requires an account. Users must be at least 16 years old.

(2) Users keep their login details secret and inform the operators without delay of any misuse of their account.

(3) The username must not infringe the rights of third parties or mislead as to the identity of the user.

§ 4 Rules for content and conduct

(1) Photos, posts, sightings and albums must be related to railways; comments and forum posts must fit the topic in question.

(2) Content is prohibited that

• violates applicable law,
• is insulting, threatening, harassing, discriminatory, glorifies violence or is pornographic,
• contains advertising or spam,
• depicts or glorifies dangerous or prohibited behaviour or originates from areas entered unlawfully,
• shows personal data of others without their consent, such as addresses, vehicle registration numbers or a person’s whereabouts,
• shows the positions of military transports while they are under way,
• infringes the rights of third parties, in particular copyrights or the right to one’s own image,
• endangers minors.

(3) Users must not mislead as to their identity, must not circumvent suspensions or blocks with further accounts, and must not read out Traintrack by automated means or disrupt it.

(4) To protect against spam, the operators may limit the number of posts, messages, requests and reports per period of time.

(5) When photographing and observing trains, users are themselves responsible for their safety and for complying with the law.

§ 5 Points and badges

Points, levels and badges have no monetary value. There is no entitlement to achieving, keeping or transferring them. The operators may deduct points obtained by deception.

§ 6 Rights to content

(1) Users retain the copyright in their content and ensure that they hold the necessary rights and that recognisably depicted persons have consented.

(2) By publishing, users grant the operators the simple (non-exclusive), royalty-free right to store and reproduce the content for the operation of Traintrack, to make it publicly accessible in the app and on the pages of shared links, and to adapt it technically for this purpose, for example by reducing its size or blurring faces. The operators may also show individual pieces of content, crediting the user, on their own social media channels in order to draw attention to Traintrack; the user can object to this at any time by e-mail to support@traintrackapp.de. Any other use outside Traintrack requires separate consent in the individual case.

(3) The right ends when the user deletes the content or their account, except for copies that the operators retain for handling reports, for complying with legal obligations or for defending against claims.

(4) For messages in chats and posts in forums, § 7(4) and § 8(5) apply instead of paragraphs 2 and 3.

§ 7 Chats

(1) Users can write to other users and form groups of up to 50 people. If the recipient does not follow the sender, the sender can only send them a request. Before writing for the first time, the user confirms the chat rules and their minimum age.

(2) Chat rules: § 4(2) and (3) apply. A declined request must not be circumvented via another account. Commercial advertising, chain letters and links to adult sites are also prohibited.

(3) The server automatically checks every message against a list of blocked internet addresses, hides matches and presents them to the operators’ team. If a participant reports a message, the team sees the reported message and, upon an explicit click, up to ten messages before and after it. Beyond this, the operators take no notice of the content of messages. By accepting the chat rules, the user consents to both. Group names and images are checked in accordance with § 10(2).

(4) The operators store messages only in order to deliver and display them and to handle reports.

§ 8 Forums

(1) Forums are created by the operators. All logged-in users can read along. Anyone can write who has joined the forum, has confirmed the forum rules, is at least 16 years old and has a confirmed e-mail address.

(2) Writing permissions grow with account age, participation without objection and reactions from others. New accounts can initially only write in certain forums; links and individual forums are reserved for experienced members. The app shows what the user is currently allowed to do before they write. Topics without activity for 90 days no longer accept replies.

(3) Forum rules, in addition to § 4:

1. Stay respectful. No disparagement on grounds of origin, religion, gender, disability or sexual orientation.
2. Don’t harass anyone. No stalking, no exposing others, no secondary accounts.
3. No personal data of others. No names, photos or locations of other people, no information about railway staff.
4. Contact stays within Traintrack. No phone numbers, e-mail addresses or invitations to other messengers.
5. Links in moderation. At most two per post, no short links, no links to adult sites or pirated content.
6. No advertising, no spam. No advertising for shops, channels or prize draws, no private sales offers, no chain letters, not the same text more than once.
7. Spot safely and legally. No instructions for entering tracks, railway premises or security areas without permission or for damaging anything.
8. Nothing unlawful, respect the rights of others. Quote other people’s texts only briefly and with the source.
9. No deception. Do not pose as Traintrack, the team, a moderator or anyone else.
10. Protect minors. Nothing sexual, no initiating contact with minors, no requests to send photos of oneself.

(4) In the event of material changes to the forum rules or stricter writing permissions, the user confirms the new version before their next post; they can continue to read.

(5) For the duration of storage, the user grants the operators the simple (non-exclusive), royalty-free right to display their posts to all logged-in users and to use topic titles in notifications. It ends when they withdraw a post or delete their account; § 6(3) applies accordingly.

§ 9 Subscriptions

(1) The app shows the scope, term, price and any trial period before purchase. Conclusion, payment, cancellation, withdrawal and refunds are handled exclusively via the Apple App Store or Google Play in accordance with their terms.

(2) When a subscription ends, the associated features cease to be available. Deleting the account does not end a subscription.

§ 10 Reports, moderation and appeals

(1) Users can report content that they consider unlawful or a breach of these terms via “Report” in the app, where the app offers this, and otherwise by e-mail to support@traintrackapp.de; anyone without an account uses the e-mail address. The operators confirm receipt, decide diligently and objectively, and communicate the decision.

(2) The operators enforce these terms with

1. fixed blocklists for internet addresses and terms, matches of which are rejected or hidden,
2. an automatic check of texts by an AI model for comments, posts, albums, profiles and forum posts after publication, and for user and group names before saving,
3. an automatic check of images for adult, violent or suggestive content; faces in images of posts and sightings are automatically blurred,
4. in forums, additionally, an automatic pre-check for contact details, blocked internet addresses, unauthorised links, invitations to other messengers, reserved terms and duplicate posts; the provisional hiding of a post reported by several experienced members; an automatic 24-hour writing ban if three posts have been rejected within 24 hours because of contact details, blocked internet addresses or short links; and temporary restrictions on writing in individual forums, or for new accounts in all forums, if a conspicuously large number of posts, joins or reports come in,
5. review by humans in the operators’ team.

(3) In the event of violations, the operators may, graduated according to severity and repetition, remove or hide content, block individual features, or suspend the account temporarily or permanently. They act proportionately and take into account the rights of all those involved, in particular freedom of expression.

(4) The operators notify the person concerned of every measure with a statement of reasons, in the app or, if the account is suspended, by e-mail, stating whether automated means were involved and the options for challenging it.

(5) The user can appeal against a measure and against the decision on their own report within six months, in the app via “File an appeal” or by e-mail. A human decides on the appeal. If the measure was unjustified, it is reversed without delay. Recourse to the courts remains open.

§ 11 Suspension and termination

(1) The user can end the contract at any time by deleting their account in the app.

(2) The operators can terminate the contract with four weeks’ notice. The right of both parties to terminate for good cause remains unaffected; suspensions are governed by § 10.

(3) If the operators terminate for good cause because the user has culpably committed serious or repeated breaches of these terms, there is no entitlement to a refund of a current subscription. In all other cases in which the operators make a paid subscription unusable prematurely, they refund the portion for the remaining term on request.

§ 12 Liability

(1) The operators are liable without limitation for intent and gross negligence, for injury to life, body or health, under the German Product Liability Act and to the extent of a guarantee.

(2) In the case of simple negligence, they are liable only for the breach of a material contractual obligation, that is, an obligation whose fulfilment makes the proper performance of the contract possible in the first place and on whose observance the user may regularly rely, and limited to the foreseeable damage typical for the contract. Otherwise, liability for simple negligence is excluded. This also applies in favour of their representatives and vicarious agents.

(3) The operators are responsible for content of other users only in accordance with Art. 6 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 on digital services (Digital Services Act).

§ 13 Changes to these terms

The operators may change these terms if the legal situation or features change. The amended version only applies once the user agrees to it in the app. If they do not agree, the operators may terminate the contract in accordance with § 11(2).

§ 14 Applicable law

German law applies. Users whose habitual residence is in another country retain the protection of the mandatory consumer protection provisions of that country.