Community Terms and Conditions of Use

Sennheiser Explorers Community

Principle 

Sonova Consumer Hearing GmbH, Am Labor 1, 30900 Wedemark, Germany (hereafter referred to as Sonova) operates the Sennheiser Explorers Community. This online community is used to ascertain customer opinions. Only registered community members can take part in surveys, discussion forums and chats, and share their opinions about Sennheiser branded products and services. Regular prize draws are held amongst all active members in return for their participation in so-called “activities”.

Sonova is the data controller as defined by data protection law. Comprehensive information about Sonova, such as its address or details in the commercial register, can be found in our Imprint. Please refer to our privacy policy (“Privacy”) for more detailed information about how we protect your personal data.

These terms and conditions of use are valid between the community operator (Sonova) and you as a registered user (hereafter referred to as “user”) of the community and are mutually beneficial.

 

Purpose of the community 

Sonova offers the community as an online platform through which registered users can take part in surveys, discuss Sennheiser branded products and services, and post related questions and comments. Sonova’s intention here is to incorporate users’ opinions, experiences and ideas into new products or services, for example.

  

Terms and conditions of participation 

A user’s participation in and membership of the community is voluntary and free of charge. Only one membership is permitted per person, there is no entitlement to membership, and membership cannot be transferred. To register and participate in the community, users are required to consent to these terms and conditions of use, including the policies governing the handling of personal data in accordance with data protection guidelines. By giving your consent you agree that Sonova can collect, process and use the data that you provide in connection with your registration and active participation in the community. These terms and conditions of use are also valid for access to the community website https://explorers.sennheiser-hearing.com/. Users do not pay a fee to register and participate in the community. In individual cases, Sonova affords users incentives in the form of prize draws. Sonova accepts no responsibility for users’ obligations under tax law.

Prize draws 

In the context of the community sweepstakes are being held from time to time. As a way of acknowledging your active participation in the activities within the community (contributions to questionnaires, blogs or to the forum) all active members have the chance to win vouchers for Sennheiser products that could be redeemed in our web shop under www.sennheiser-hearing.com in Australia, United Kingdom (UK), Singapore, the USA, Japan and the EU. The vouchers have a value of either 100€ or 200€ or equivalent in local currency. The exchange rate of the day on which the vouchers were created applies.

Additionally, prize draws may be held for those register for the community the first time.

The following terms of participation are applicable for all sweepstakes and prize draws which are being held related to the community and if not otherwise stated for the certain prize draw or sweepstakes activity.

“Chances for Active Participants”

Every Active Member has the chance to win in a prize draw. A member of the Community is an “Active Member” if this member provides a Contribution, i.e. writing an article or post in the community or taking part in questionnaires provided by Sonova to the community members within the term of the certain prize draw.

All Contributions must be submitted by the community participant via the community platform within the respective campaign period (Term). Entries outside the term of the certain prize draw will not be considered. The Term of the certain prize draw will be announced in the community and/or in connection with the activity.

Any participation using automated procedures or similar devices or procedures shall not be permitted.

Persons entitled to participate and criteria for disqualification

Such persons are eligible to participate who are Active Member, who are of legal age according to the laws applicable at the venue of their ordinary residence in Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom (UK), the USA, Japan or the EU,  with the exception of employees of the Sonova group or companies affiliated with or commissioned by Sonova, and their relatives. Full acceptance and compliance with these conditions of participation is also a prerequisite for participation.

Participation in the prize draw shall not depend on any purchase from or payment to Sonova. In addition, a purchase or a payment shall have no whatsoever influence on the odds of winning a prize. However, it is necessary to provide a Contribution in the terms of being an Active Member. 

Sonova is entitled to exclude members from the prize draw if the member manipulates or attempts to manipulate the registration process, participation process, the system and/or the pages and/or violate these conditions of participation or morality and/or otherwise attempts to influence the community or the prize draw in an unfair or dishonest manner.

Sonova reserves the right to carry out validations of user accounts on a regular basis and in the event of justified doubt as to the user accounts’ authenticity.

Sonova shall not be liable for lost or delayed Contributions or for network, computer, hardware or software malfunctions of any kind, which may impair or delay the sending or receiving of the contribution.

Sonova may substitute the prizes by other prizes of the same or higher worth.

The allocated prize cannot be paid out in cash.

The winner is responsible for the payment of all taxes and duties associated with the receipt and/or use of the prize.

After the end of each Term of certain prize draw, Sonova shall draw the winners from all members of the community who actively contributed to the community during the period of the respective prize draw by way of using a random number generator.

The winners of the prize draw will be notified via e-mail. The legal recourse is excluded. Notification of the prize will be sent to the e-mail address that the user provided when registering on the platform. In the event of an undeliverable prize notification, the operator is not obliged to carry out further investigations.

The winner confirms the claim of the prize immediately after being informed about the prize, but at the latest within two weeks, and provides the information requested by Sonova. Otherwise, Sonova is entitled to determine a new winner by way of a substitute draw. The same applies if the prize cannot be delivered at the latest two weeks after sending the prize notification, unless the winner is not responsible for the non-delivery.

The winner’s right to claim the prize cannot be assigned or transferred to a third party.

Procedure 

As a member of the community, you will receive intermittent e-mails announcing activities in the community and invitations to take part in surveys or discussion forums. The main purpose of these is to ascertain your personal opinions and preferences.

Termination of membership 

You can stop participating in the community at any time, and you do not need to give a reason or specific notice. You can terminate your membership in the community itself under “Settings”, by sending an e-mail to team@explorers.sennheiser-hearing.com  or by clicking the unsubscribe link in a community e-mail. This agreement regarding the terms and conditions of use expires with the termination.

Member data and password 

When registering for the community, the user is obliged to provide all of the requested information truthfully and completely. The registered user undertakes to immediately report any changes to their data. During registration, each user chooses a password that must not be disclosed to third parties. The registered user will immediately change their password if they suspect that a third party has gained knowledge of the password.

User name 

During registration, each registered user chooses a user name. User names are prohibited that
(i) violate the rights of third parties, in particular third party name and trademark rights,
(ii) are an expression of political or religious beliefs or could be understood as such,
(iii) contain pornographic or sexist elements,
(iv) serve to discriminate against or offend another person or group of people or
(v) are in breach of public morals or public order.
Sonova reserves the right to reject user names or demand that user names be changed and to suspend membership for as long as a registered user is in violation of the abovementioned rules.

Your obligations as a user 

(i) BE RESPECTFUL:
As part of the community, you will gain insights into new and interesting points of view. Please respect your fellow members and behave politely, even if you have a different opinion. Behaviour that could be construed as harassment, threats, racism, abuse or hate will not be tolerated.
(ii) CLEAN AND LAWFUL CONTENT:
All content that is not acceptable (e.g. posts, member names or subject lines that include obscenities, sexually explicit or indecent language) will be deleted. The registered user assures Sonova that the content they post is not unlawful. If a user becomes involved in illegal acts or encourages others to such acts, all content provided by that user will be promptly deleted and their membership of the community immediately terminated. Illegal acts will be reported to the relevant authorities.
(iii) AUTHORISATION FOR MATERIAL PROTECTED UNDER COPYRIGHT:
Any and all articles, reports or other copyrighted documents, materials, images, videos etc. included in your posts may only be disseminated with authorisation from the respective copyright holder. As a user you guarantee that none of your posts, texts, images, films, services etc. infringe third-party copyrights, commercial rights, or other rights, either domestically or internationally. You undertake to indemnify Sonova against all claims for costs arising from any alleged infringement of property rights and to reimburse Sonova any expenditure thus incurred. If there is any uncertainty as to whether the information provided by you is subject to third party rights, we can demand that you inform us about the origin of the information that you provided, especially if the information to be posted is a text or photograph, and who owns the rights of use and exploitation.
(iv) CONFIDENTIALITY:
The registered user is obliged to treat e-mails and other messages as well as all content published by the community and posts made by other users as confidential. Information contained in these must not be passed on or processed further or used in a different form.
(v) ADVERTISING BAN:
Posts containing spam, chain letters, pyramid schemes, junk mail, commercial offers or advertising are not permitted and may be deleted by Sonova without notice.
(vi) PLEASE STAY ON TOPIC:
The community covers a broad range of topics that relate to various projects at Sonova. To ensure that your contributions are as useful as possible for all members, we expect you to refrain from off-topic discussions.
(vii) DECIDE FOR YOURSELF HOW MUCH PERSONAL INFORMATION TO SHARE:
Generally speaking, you should not disclose any information about yourself in your posts that you would not want to be publicly known, for example, information that might allow someone to identify you in real life (e.g. address, telephone number, e-mail address).
(viii) It is not permitted to capture content or information from or about other users via automated mechanisms (including bots, robots, spiders and scrapers).
(ix) You are not permitted to upload viruses or other malicious code to the community websites.
(x) You are not permitted to share your login and password with third parties or to otherwise enable third parties to access the community using your login details.
(xi) You also undertake to register for one account only in the community. For the purposes of quality assurance, Sonova reserves the right to compare existing accounts and IP addresses to identify duplicate accesses and accounts. Where a user has been involved with multiple logins or in the abuse of the system through fake programs, false information, spam or similar, Sonova is entitled to temporarily suspend said user until the facts have been clarified and, if these suspicions are confirmed, to immediately terminate the user’s membership of the community and delete their account and/ or the related content.
(xii) Each registered user is encouraged to report to Sonova any content or activities that violate these terms and conditions of use as soon as they become aware of this or of circumstances indicating the unlawful content or unlawful act.

Uninterrupted service 

Sonova strives to provide uninterrupted service but is not required to do so. In exceptional cases there may be fluctuations in server availability which in turn impede use. The same applies to maintenance work or updates or faults occurring beyond the control of Sonova. Sonova reserves the right to amend or remove the offer on the platform or parts thereof, in terms of its content, structure or scope, taking due account of the interests of the registered members.

Copyrights 

Sonova strives to comply with applicable copyrights in all publications. However, if a copyright infringement does occur, Sonova will remove the object in question from its publication on being notified or will mark the object with the corresponding copyright. All brands and trademarks mentioned on these websites as well as any brands and trademarks registered by third parties are subject without limitation to the applicable trademark legislation and to the property rights of the respective registered owner. The copyright for Sonova content is held solely by Sonova. It is not permitted to reproduce these graphics or texts in other electronic or printed publications without explicit permission from Sonova.
The community content, design and structure are protected by copyright and Sonova expressly retains all property rights. In particular, the reproduction, processing, dissemination and any kind of exploitation requires written authorization unless the applicable legislation stipulates that consent is not required for the action in question. Downloads and copies of these pages are only permitted for personal, not commercial, use. The setting of hyperlinks to the community, especially deep links, inline links or links in frame technology, is only permitted with prior written authorization. The intellectual property rights to the complete works produced by Sonova based on the user’s information remain the exclusive property of Sonova.

The registered user remains the owner of all rights to which they are entitled regarding the content that they publish. By uploading content under their user account and by transmitting content to Sonova for the purposes of improving products and publishing said content in the community, the registered user grants Sonova the non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free and transferable right to use this content, with no restrictions in terms of time and geography, in its product development and for publication on the community websites. This also includes the right to process and reproduce the content for the aforementioned purposes (e.g. to shorten, compress, or convert it to other formats).
You agree that Sonova retains the right, both for the duration of the agreement and following the expiration of these terms and conditions of use, to use all results and other insights and information relating to your posts, information, images, videos, texts etc.

Indemnification by the registered user 

If Sonova has legal action brought against it as a result of content posted by the registered user and if the registered user is at fault, the registered user will indemnify Sonova against any such claims. If the registered user violates the law through the content that they post and this violation results in Sonova being attacked by a third party, or where there is a risk that a violation of the law of this kind could damage Sonova’s reputation, Sonova is entitled to terminate the membership without notice and without prejudice to all other rights and claims.

Liability for references (links) 

The community websites may also include links to third party websites, over which we have no control. Sonova in no way presents this content as its own and does not accept any liability for it.

Severability 

If one or more provisions in these terms and conditions are found to be partly or fully invalid or unenforceable, or if these terms and conditions are found to contain or develop gaps, this will not affect the validity of the remaining provisions set out in these terms and conditions.

Jurisdiction and applicable law 

This agreement is subject to the law of the Federal Republic of Germany. The exclusive place of jurisdiction for all conflicts arising from or in relation to these terms and conditions is Wedemark. Registered members of the Sennheiser Explorers Community located in Australia, United Kingdom (UK), Singapore, the USA, Japan and the EU are also subject to German law.

Final provisions 

There are no additional verbal agreements. Sonova reserves the right to fully or partially change, supplement or delete these terms and conditions or to temporarily or permanently stop their publication. In the event that these terms and conditions are changed, a notification will be placed on the community landing page and the amended terms and conditions of use will be published under “Terms and conditions of use”. You can comment on or reject these changes within 8 days of the notification. By continuing to use the community you declare your acceptance of the changes.

Data protection 

Membership of the community also requires your Consent under data protection law. Please refer to the applicable data protection policy for details. 

Status: 01.05.2024