TOS – Terms of service

1. General

Guzek Verlagsgesellschaft mbH (hereinafter referred to as the “Publishing Company” or “Provider”) operates and provides you with services and information within the framework of websites and partially moderated online platforms (hereinafter also referred to as forums) under the name bye-bye.com, among others, on the basis of these General Terms of Serice (TOS).

If special provisions apply to the use of special services for the respective service, we will point this out to you before use. In addition to the services and information made available online via the Internet or via social networks by the provider, printed works are also published and distributed online or in physical print.

By using one of the services offered by Verlagsgesellschaft for the first time, you also accept the validity of these TOS for all further services used by Verlagsgesellschaft. If you do not wish to be bound by these TOS, you may not use any services of the publishing company.

2. Registration

Registration by name is required to use the closed area of the provider’s online platforms and forums. All persons of legal age have access to the closed area. In the forums, in particular on the platform bye-bye-booze.com, areas may only be accessible to selected user groups. Also, individual areas of the editorial pages of the publishing company, especially of bye-bye-booze.com, may only be available to members.

False statements made in order to unlawfully access closed areas of the services of the provider, in particular of bye-bye-booze.com, will be prosecuted as fraud. In order to use the Services, you agree to provide true and complete information about yourself and to update such information as necessary. If any of the information you provide is untrue or incomplete or misleading, the Provider may, at any time, temporarily or permanently terminate your account and, in its sole discretion, bar you from using any or all of the Services, currently and/or in the future.

3. Data protection

You can find our privacy policy here.

4. Protection of your identity

The forums, especially on bye-bye-booze.com, are for communication among users. Due to the special topic of the page on bye-bye-booze.com, only a pseudonym chosen by you will be displayed in the default setting, unless you set this otherwise.

The use of pseudonyms which violate the personal or trademark rights of third parties or contain such a potential for confusion or are vulgar and/or offensive is not permitted.

5. Your user account

After registration, the publishing company will send you a confirmation e-mail. You can use the link contained therein to activate your user account with the password you have been given separately. You must ensure that the password and user account are not made accessible to third parties and bear full responsibility for all actions taken using your password or user account.

You are obliged to inform the Publishing Company as provider immediately of any misuse of your password or user account, as well as of any other breach of security. The Publishing Company excludes all liability to you or any third party for any loss or damage arising from your failure to comply with these obligations. You acknowledge that as the owner of your personalised user account, you are fully responsible and liable for all activities conducted through your user account.

The Publishing Company reserves the right to delete user accounts that have not been used for a period of more than six months. The Provider is under no obligation to delete unused accounts. The Provider reserves the right, for good cause, to modify, suspend, discontinue, or delete any or all services at any time, temporarily or permanently, with or without notice to the User.

You may delete your user account at any time, for any reason whatsoever. The provider will then remove the stored data. The Publishing Company is not obliged to store or archive the data and content of your user account. In the event of deletion of your user account, you may only regain access to the services with the prior written consent of the Publishing Company. You may also not assist a user whose user account has been deleted in gaining access to the services via your user account or with the help of your user account.

6. Membership

You can use closed areas of the Provider’s online services free of charge on a trial basis once for a certain period of time. However, this (limited) membership is restricted to certain areas of the services and for a limited period of time. The Publishing Company also reserves the right to modify or discontinue this service at any time and without notice. It is possible that test members will be shown additional advertising.

7. Terms and conditions for Premium Membership

With the Premium Membership you have unlimited access to all areas of the respective website intended for the respective use, which the Provider operates in particular under the name bye-bye-booze.com. The premium membership runs from the day of the online order for the service and period selected by you in each case.

The current prices of our price list valid at the time of your order or the extension of the premium membership apply to the subscriptions. You can find this price list on our website under “Become a member”.

Paid memberships are not automatically renewed. You will receive information shortly before the expiry of your bronze or silver membership and can decide whether you wish to renew. If you do not do so, the system will automatically close your access and your data will be deleted after an appropriate first. Gold membership is automatically converted into unlimited free membership after one year.

8. Order and delivery of printed work

Your order for the delivery of online content or the physical delivery of media and/or printed works (hereinafter referred to generally as media content) shall be deemed to be a binding offer to conclude a licence agreement for the provision of a specific (online) content and/or to conclude a purchase agreement for the printed work ordered.

Your acquisition of ownership of the printed work(s) and/or content published by the Publishing Company shall only take place in the event that this has been expressly agreed, failing which the Publishing Company shall remain the owner of the data carriers created by it. In case of doubt, you shall only be entitled to use the contents during the term of the contract in return for the agreed remuneration.

The Publishing Company shall endeavour to adhere as closely as possible to the agreed dates of performance (delivery) of the ordered media content. Insofar as no expressly binding delivery date has been agreed, delivery dates or delivery periods on the part of the Publishing Company shall be exclusively non-binding information. The Publishing Company shall only be liable for delays in delivery in the event of intent or gross negligence. In the case of orders that can be divided into individual services, the publishing company shall be unilaterally entitled to make partial deliveries or to issue partial invoices.

Invoices issued to you by the Publishing Company, including value added tax, shall be payable without any deductions and free of charges no later than 14 days after receipt of the invoice. The terms of payment specified for the overall order shall apply analogously to partial invoices, whereby the Publishing Company shall be entitled to render further (partial) services only after the partial invoices previously issued have been paid in full, without being in default of payment.

9. Right of withdrawal/cancellation policy

You have the right to revoke your contractual declaration in writing (e.g. letter, fax, e-mail) within 14 days without stating reasons. The revocation period begins on the day on which you or a third party named by you, who is not the deliverer, have taken possession of the media content in accordance with point 8 of these GTC.

In order to comply with the revocation period, it is sufficient to send the revocation in good time. Your right of revocation expires prematurely if the contract has been completely fulfilled by both parties at your express request before you have exercised your right of revocation. Your right of revocation expires prematurely in the case of contracts for the delivery of digital content not on a physical data carrier if you have expressly consented, in full knowledge of your right of revocation, to the performance of the contract, in particular through your download of the digital content(s), before the expiry of the revocation period.

The right of withdrawal therefore does not apply to contracts for the delivery of digital content that is not prefabricated and for the production of which an individual selection or determination by the consumer is decisive or which is clearly tailored to the personal needs of the consumer.

The right of revocation expires prematurely if we have only started the performance of the contract after you have given your express consent to this and at the same time confirmed your knowledge that you lose your right of revocation with the start of the performance of the contract on our part. Please note that we may make the conclusion of the contract dependent on the aforementioned consent and confirmation.

The revocation is to be sent to:
Guzek Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, c/o Mag. Christoph Anderle, Haydngasse 29/12, A-2340 Mödling, Austria

Consequences of revocation

If you withdraw from this contract, the Publishing Company shall reimburse all payments it has received from you, including delivery costs (with the exception of additional costs resulting from the fact that you have chosen a type of delivery other than the cheapest standard delivery offered by the Provider), without delay and at the latest within fourteen days of the day on which the Provider received notification of your withdrawal from this contract.

For the repayment, the provider uses the same means of payment that you used for the original transaction, unless expressly agreed otherwise with you; in no case will you be charged for this repayment. The supplier may refuse repayment until it has received the goods back or until you have provided proof that you have returned the goods, whichever is the earlier.

You must return or hand over the goods to the Publishing Company without delay and in any case no later than fourteen days from the day on which you notify the Publishing Company of the cancellation of this contract. The deadline shall be deemed to have been met if you send off the goods before the end of the fourteen-day period.

You shall bear the direct costs of returning the goods. You only have to pay for any loss in value of the goods if this loss in value is due to handling of the goods that is not necessary for checking the condition, properties and functioning of the goods.

In the event of an effective withdrawal, your access to the closed areas of bye-bye-booze.com will be closed. Goods received by you, in particular physical printed works, are to be returned by you to the above address of the publishing company, whereby you have to bear the risk and the costs of this return. Prior to receipt of this return, the publishing company is entitled to refuse to refund your payment.

10. Responsibilities and duties of the users

The responsibility for all information, data, texts, photos, graphics, messages or other materials (“content”) posted or transmitted by users via bye-bye-booze.com or other forums or websites of the provider lies exclusively with the persons posting this content on the service. Even if the Provider controls these to the best of its ability, the Publishing Company does not guarantee these Contents.

Users may not, in the context of the use of the services:

• publish data, texts, images, files, links or other content which, in the opinion of the provider, is illegal, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, hateful, racist or otherwise objectionable;
• impersonate any person in the Services. This does not affect the right to use a pseudonym. However, this may not infringe the personal rights of third parties or be used in a confusable manner;
• Enter, publish, transmit by e-mail or in any other way content which infringes the rights of third parties, in particular patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets or other property or personal rights;
• Enter, publish, transmit by e-mail or otherwise – in particular via the forum – unsolicited advertising, promotional material, mass e-mail (“spam”), junk mail or other advertising;
• Collect or store personal data about other users.
• Enter, post, email or otherwise transmit any material that contains software viruses or any other information, files or programs designed or effective to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer, software, hardware or telecommunications equipment or to initiate any process or program without the consent of the user of the computer;
• Harass, threaten, defame, cause distress or embarrassment to or otherwise cause inconvenience to anyone, whether a natural or legal person or a group of persons;
• The publishing company reserves the right to reject content that is accessible via the reader forums, in particular from bye-bye-booze.com, or to publish it elsewhere within bye-bye-booze.com or on other websites of the provider, in whole or in excerpts, or to move it to another section within the reader forums. There is no legal obligation to do so. This applies in particular to contents that violate these GTC or are objectionable for other reasons.

The Publishing Company shall have the right to review, modify, store and disclose to third parties any Content to the extent required by law or in the exercise of its reasonable discretion necessary to comply with legal process, court order or governmental request. The Publishing Company may enforce these TOS, respond to claims of infringement by third parties, protect the rights, property or personal safety of bye-bye-booze.com, its users or the public, identify or correct technical problems and respond to complaints about the Service, or implement security measures against virus or hacker attacks or other similarly harmful applications and files.

11. Rights to published content

No liability is assumed for unsolicited manuscripts. Insofar as a fee has been paid for contributions, all claims to remuneration for the use of the contribution within the framework of the portals operated by the publishing company or its legal successors and their advertising are thereby settled. Contributions identified by name do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial team.
For all content that you publish on the websites and/or forums, in particular on bye-bye-booze. com in the member forum, you grant the provider the royalty-free, perpetual, royalty-free, irrevocable and non-exclusive right, including the right to grant sub-licences, to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish this content (in whole or in part) worldwide, translate, adapt, edit, distribute, perform, display and/or incorporate such Content in any other work, media or technology, whether now known or yet to be developed, in any form whatsoever, for the full term of the rights in the Content.

If you are not the owner of the rights to any Content you submit, you warrant that the creator of the Content agrees to the transfer of rights in accordance with the foregoing.

12. Commercial use

You may not copy and reproduce the services or parts thereof, in particular their contents, for commercial purposes, copy, reproduce, imitate, sell, resell or use their use or access to the services for commercial purposes of any kind whatsoever, unless you have been expressly permitted to do so in writing by the publishing company.

13. External Hyperlinks

The services maintained by the Publishing Company may contain links or references to other websites. Since the provider has no means of control over external sites and sources, the publishing company is not responsible or liable for the availability of these external sites or sources and does not adopt as its own any content accessible on or via such sites or sources.

Insofar as the Provider itself sets links to external sites, the Publishing Company shall only check the site specified with the link address for obvious legal violations. The provider will remove link references immediately as soon as it becomes aware of legal violations or inadmissible content on the published link addresses.

If you as a user or author set a link in a forum post of the provider, you thereby expressly declare that no illegal content was recognisable on the pages at the time the link was set.

14. Indemnity

As a user, you indemnify and hold harmless the Publishing Company from and against all claims, including claims for damages, asserted by other users or other third parties against the Provider due to an infringement of their rights by the content published by you as a user on the websites and/or forums, in particular on bye-bye-booze.com of the Provider in the member forum and posted there, including links made by you.

In such cases, you as the user shall bear all reasonable costs incurred by the provider as a result of the infringement of third-party rights for which you are responsible, including the costs incurred for legal defence.

15. Warranty and liability as well as limitation of liability

Medicine and science are subject to constant developments. The authors and the provider take the greatest possible care to ensure that the editorial information on treatment and drug therapy in particular corresponds to the current state of knowledge. However, a guarantee for the correctness of this information is expressly excluded. Any administration and/or dosage of medication is exclusively at the risk of the user and his/her physician.

The information contained in the editorial services of the publishing company, in particular of bye-bye-booze.com, has been compiled to the best of our knowledge and belief with the greatest possible care. In all other respects, notwithstanding the foregoing, the limitations of liability set forth in these terms and conditions shall be observed. Insofar as these terms and conditions restrict, limit or exclude claims for damages, this shall also apply accordingly to legal or legally authorised representatives, employees or other staff and vicarious agents of the publishing company, as well as to claims for damages arising from unlawful acts.

The Publishing Company only offers forums for the exchange and communication of information via the designated services and websites. Their use by you is at your own risk. The Publishing Company shall be liable for damages only within the scope of the statutory provisions, provided that intent or gross negligence can be proven. Liability for slight negligence is excluded.

Insofar as the provider cannot be accused of intentional or grossly negligent actions or omissions or a grossly negligent breach of essential contractual obligations, it shall not be liable for:

• the secure and error-free availability of the services, at all times without interruption and their suitability to meet the user’s requirements;
• the up-to-dateness, correctness, completeness and quality of the information provided;
• the fault-free functioning of the hardware and software used for the services;
• the elimination of any errors in the hardware or software used for the services;
• the use or non-use of the information provided or the use of incorrect and/or incomplete information on the services offered;
• downloading or otherwise obtaining content in connection with the services;
• damage to users’ computer systems or other technical equipment used for the Services;
• loss of data or other damage resulting from the downloading of content or other transactions in connection with the services;
• advice or information received by Users in connection with the Services, whether written or oral, including but not limited to therapy, treatment or dosage advice received by Users of the Services from other Users;
• the conduct of users or other third parties or for content or statements passed on by users or other third parties within the framework of the Services;
• Damages arising out of the use or inability to use the Services, including, without limitation, costs of procurement of substitutes or costs incurred in connection with goods or services purchased from third parties, messages received or other transactions, or arising out of unauthorised access to the Services or alteration of Users’ input or data or otherwise in connection with the Services;
• damages resulting from the interruption, temporary suspension or termination of the Services, in particular with regard to the provisions on the modification of the Services made possible to the Provider pursuant to Clauses 5. and 6. of these GTC vis-à-vis Users or other persons;
• direct or indirect consequences resulting from the use of editorial content of the services and the information from the reader forums or the editorial offer
• loss or damage caused by any errors, inaccuracies or incompleteness in connection with any Content, including but not limited to the use of any Content published or otherwise transmitted in connection with the Services
• the deletion of, and failure to store, data relating to messages, any communications or other Content posted and transmitted on the Services;
• links, sources and external sites, including without limitation any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any such external content or by reason of any goods or services obtained through any external site or source, even if such links are included by users in postings on the Services;
• illegal, incorrect or incomplete content of external sites and, in particular, for damages arising from the use or non-use of such information.

Insofar as the Publishing Company cannot be accused of gross negligence, the amount of compensation obligations shall be limited to compensation for typically foreseeable damage.

The following shall apply to orders and deliveries of tangible items, in particular printed works or digital content on tangible data carriers, by the Publishing Company: in the event of a justified notification of defects, the defects shall be remedied within a reasonable period of time, whereby you shall enable the Publishing Company to take all measures necessary to examine and remedy the defect. In particular, you undertake vis-à-vis the Publishing Company to send the product delivered to you for rectification of defects.

The Publishing Company shall not assume any warranty for transport damage for which a transport company expressly chosen by the Publishing Company is responsible for the delivery of the goods. Otherwise, the statutory warranty provisions shall apply. In the event of non-delivery through no fault of the Supplier or as a result of industrial disputes, no claims shall exist against the supplier.

16. Place of performance, applicable law, partial invalidity, place of jurisdiction and information on alternative dispute resolution

Place of performance is Vienna. Austrian law shall apply with the exception of its conflict-of-law rules to the exclusion of the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). Should individual provisions of these GTC be or become invalid, this shall not affect the remaining content of these GTC. You will work in partnership with the Publishing Company to find a provision that comes as close as possible to the invalid provisions, failing which the statutory provisions shall apply. The exclusive jurisdiction of the competent court in Vienna is agreed for disputes, provided that this agreement on jurisdiction does not conflict with mandatory legal provisions.

Information on alternative dispute resolution pursuant to the Austrian Disputes Resolution Act (AStG), which transposes the EU ADR Directive into Austrian law. The EU Commission provides an internet platform for online dispute resolution. This serves as a contact point for out-of-court dispute resolution regarding contractual obligations arising from online sales contracts. This platform can be accessed via the link http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr and is available for alternative dispute resolution.

Vienna, December 2023