ByLocals Terms of Use and Paid Services

ByLocals Terms of Use and Paid Services

Draft v1.2 for legal and checkout review — publish only after approval at bylocals.co.uk/terms

Effective: [LAUNCH-DATE] · Last revised: 2 Sep 2026

ByLocals is operated by Aceman Software Solutions Ltd, company no. 12928098, registered office 8 Holtdale Grove, Leeds, England, LS16 7RZ (“ByLocals”, “we”, “us”). Part A applies to everyone. Part B applies to organisations/representatives. Part C applies to purchases and subscriptions. An order form may add consistent feature-specific detail, but cannot override statutory rights, Free Core, the paid/organic firewall, privacy protections or any other non-negotiable in these terms and the Commercial Constitution. If an order form conflicts, the more protective rule applies and we must correct the documents before performance or charging.

These drafts do not remove statutory rights. Consumer-facing purchase text and cancellation information require qualified UK legal review before checkout opens.

Part A — Everyone using ByLocals

1. The service

ByLocals is an information and discovery service for independent businesses. We separate organisation ownership, each trading location, owner/claim identity and individual fact provenance. “Verified Independent” means only that the organisation is eligible_confirmed under the current independence policy; it is not an owner-identity label, endorsement, safety/quality guarantee, regulatory approval or statement that every fact is current.

Information changes; confirm time-sensitive or important details with the business. The Listing Policy explains eligibility, evidence and corrections. The Privacy Notice explains personal data.

2. Eligibility to use contribution features

You must be at least 16 to create an account, vouch, submit a tip or send an Enquiry. If using ByLocals for an organisation, you confirm you have authority to bind/represent it for the action. We may request proportionate evidence.

3. Acceptable use

Do not:

• break the law, threaten, harass, discriminate, defame, impersonate or submit another person’s data without a proper reason;
• scrape around technical controls, overload, probe or interfere with security/service operation;
• automate, buy, farm, incentivise or manipulate vouches, tips, enquiries, awards, clicks, ranking or verification;
• use ByLocals Requests for spam, recruitment, supplier sales, unlawful discrimination, emergencies or unnecessary sensitive-data collection;
• submit malware or material you lack the right to use;
• reverse engineer confidential detection controls or misuse API credentials; or
• present a badge, data point, generated asset or aggregate as a broader ByLocals endorsement.

We may investigate, rate-limit, hide content, suspend a feature/account or terminate access proportionately. Free correction/removal and legal rights remain available even where community/commercial access is restricted.

4. Vouches, tips and other content

A vouch requires lightweight participant verification and the versioned eligibility confirmation in the Review & Vouch Policy. The limit is one per participant per organisation per rolling 12 months; incentives and connected-party contributions are prohibited. Tips are pre-moderated.

You retain rights in content you submit and grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, moderate, reproduce and display it in ByLocals and to promote the ByLocals service while it remains published. You confirm it is lawful, first-hand where required and does not violate another person’s rights. We may preserve restricted evidence for moderation, disputes or legal duties after public removal.

Agree/disagree reactions are not a launch feature. Awards, if introduced, have separate published rules and votes; vouches do not automatically become award votes.

5. ByLocals Requests

ByLocals Requests relays a user’s question, quote, unconfirmed booking/table/consultation or product-availability request to an eligible business; ByLocals is not party to any later contract, does not guarantee a response/outcome and does not endorse either party. Do not include unnecessary health, financial, identity-document or other sensitive information. Emergencies must go to the appropriate emergency service.

A qualified Enquiry must: concern a service/category and location/area the business has opted to receive; include a usable reply route, a sufficiently specific genuine request, the sender’s consent to delivery and a separate affirmative confirmation that the sender is 16 or over; and not be a duplicate, obvious test, owner-originated submission, spam, job application, supplier solicitation or prohibited content. We store the version and time of that 16+ confirmation without collecting date of birth. Qualification and successful delivery are separate recorded states. Automated signals assist, but challenged decisions receive human review under the published procedure.

The receiving business may use an Enquiry only to respond to that request and meet legal/record duties. It must not add the sender to marketing without a separate lawful basis/PECR permission, resell the information or use it for unrelated profiling.

6. Reports and platform role

Businesses and users create some content and communications. We moderate and investigate under our policies but cannot pre-verify every statement or message. Report illegal, harmful, rights-infringing or manipulated material at bylocals.co.uk/report. We may remove/restrict content, preserve evidence and cooperate with lawful authority requests. Our Online Safety Act/intermediary classification and any required user terms/reporting/risk controls must be confirmed before user-to-user features launch.

7. Intellectual property and permitted reuse

Our brand, design, editorial work, curation, evidence decisions, provenance structure and software belong to us or our licensors. A business owns its original materials. Public users may quote short extracts with attribution and link to ByLocals. Bulk extraction, systematic replication, resale, model training or creation of a competing/commercial database requires a written Data Feed/API licence. Statutory rights and lawful uses are unaffected.

8. Availability and changes

We may improve, suspend or discontinue a feature. We aim to give reasonable notice where a paid feature materially changes and offer applicable cancellation/refund remedies. We do not promise uninterrupted availability, exhaustive coverage, a particular ranking, traffic, enquiries, revenue or AI/search-engine citation.

Part B — Organisations and claimed locations

9. Claiming, authority and transfers

Claim codes and magic links are confidential, time-limited and single-use. You confirm authority for the organisation/location and provide accurate evidence. We may pause or revoke access, resolve competing representatives and require a new verification on ownership/control change. Identity or claim status does not prove every fact.

10. Free Core and owner duties

Free Core includes the ordinary listing, claim/dashboard, ordinary fact confirmation/editing, corrections/removals and eligibility for organic discovery. Keep submitted facts accurate, date-sensitive facts current and content lawful. Material edits may be moderated and show provenance.

Free Core also includes a rich source-grounded About story where sufficient evidence exists and lets an authorised representative correct or replace it without paying. Objective assertions remain tied to evidence/provenance; owner voice is identified as such. Free Core lets an authorised representative submit up to six business images for each location. You confirm each image genuinely depicts the current location, its products/services or an authorised team; is not stock, synthetic or materially misleading imagery presented as the business; and that you own it or have a sufficient licence/permission, including permission to use recognisable people’s likenesses. Do not upload unnecessary personal/sensitive information or images of children without a lawful, properly assessed reason and permission. We may scan, re-encode, strip metadata, create public derivatives, moderate, reject or remove an image. You retain ownership and grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, process, resize and display an approved image for the ByLocals listing and service while it remains approved, plus the limited retention needed for security, disputes and legal duties.

Free does not mean guaranteed inclusion: the organisation must satisfy the Listing Policy. Removal, correction, appeal and badge rules remain available whether or not you pay.

11. Permanent paid/organic firewall

No purchase, renewal, sponsorship, Supporter status or commercial relationship can affect eligibility, independence/identity verification, evidence required, fact status, correction/removal service level, organic ranking, freshness, relevance, answer matching, vouch weight, awards or editorial inclusion/tone.

Paid features provide convenience, production, communication, physical goods, support or licensed data—not organic recommendation advantage. The pilot has no sponsorship inventory, checkout or sales workflow. Any later sponsorship proposal requires separate approval and unmistakable separation from organic surfaces. Any implementation that conflicts with this clause is an error to report, not a commercial entitlement.

12. Badge and Verified Kit

An authorised organisation may use the current Verified Independent badge, unmodified and linked to the relevant ByLocals page, only while its independence status is eligible_confirmed. It describes that independence assessment only; owner identity and fact provenance remain separate labels. The digital badge and basic QR are free. A future Verified Kit supplies optional physical collateral only at a price confirmed after fulfilment evidence; purchasing it cannot grant, preserve or restore the status. On status expiry/withdrawal, stop new use and remove reasonably controllable digital use; replacement physical materials are not automatically refunded where they were accurate when supplied.

Part C — Paid and later services

13. Orders, prices and payment

The checkout/order form confirms the exact supplier, customer, deliverable, entitlement location(s), billing period, renewal, tax/VAT treatment, payment date, cancellation method and any minimum term before commitment. No pre-ticked add-ons. We use [PAYMENT-PROVIDER]; we do not intend to hold full card details.

Starting checkout does not create an order or activate a service. We create an order only after settled payment, then separately activate the stated entitlement; if activation fails after payment, we show that status and provide retry, support and any applicable remedy. A failed, expired, cancelled or abandoned checkout creates no order or entitlement. A retry is a new checkout, and any late payment is reconciled without silently enabling service.

Owner services are priced and enabled per location by default. A billing account may consolidate invoices for an organisation, but this never silently widens an entitlement or charge. Any multi-location order must list every included location and its scope explicitly.

Candidate paid-model prices, unavailable until a separate paid-launch decision, are:

• Connect: £9.99 monthly or £99 annually per location;
• Grow: £14.99 monthly or £149 annually per location;
• Growth Review: £79 one-off pilot price; and
• Verified Kit: no approved public price until supplier and fulfilment evidence passes.

Local Supporter remains a later £24 annual concept. No institutional intelligence, data feed/API or Local Guide Embed product or price is approved; all are research-only until the constitutional buyer-evidence gates pass. ByLocals does not handle the business’s customer payments; booking, order and shopping actions complete with the business or its provider.

14. Subscriptions, renewal and cancellation

Subscriptions begin only after an explicit order. Checkout clearly states auto-renewal and sends durable confirmation. Cancel through the account or [SUPPORT-EMAIL]; cancellation stops the next renewal and access continues to the paid-through date unless law or an order says otherwise. We do not charge a cancellation fee.

We give reasonable advance notice of a price or material adverse subscription change. If you do not accept, you may cancel before it applies. Failed payments may pause the paid convenience feature after notice, but cannot reduce Free Core or organic treatment.

Any statutory cooling-off, refund, repair/repeat-performance or price-reduction right applies in full. Where a consumer asks us to start digital/service performance during a cooling-off period, checkout obtains the legally required express request and acknowledgement; we do not infer it. Business-customer refunds are otherwise governed by these terms/order and mandatory law.

15. Connect and ByLocals Requests

Connect is location-scoped and provides owner-approved native question, quote, unconfirmed booking/table/consultation and product-availability Requests, plus filtering, verified delivery/history, response states and route-health monitoring. Ordinary links to a business’s existing website, menu, booking, reservation, order or shop route remain Free Core.

The owner approves the mode, label and destination, and native intake opens only after the delivery route is verified. A booking Request records a preference only and is not confirmed until the business accepts it. A product Request does not assert availability. The receiving business is responsible for its response and any later contract. ByLocals never auctions, resells or shares a Request with competitors and charges no per-lead fee, commission or customer-payment fee.

The free beta does not convert automatically. After a separate paid-launch decision an eligible owner may choose Connect at the stated flat price without a per-location Request threshold. Qualifying Requests are unlimited. We do not guarantee Request quantity, quality beyond the definition, response, booking, customer, sale or revenue. There is no automatic zero-Request service credit.

16. Grow

Grow includes Connect and may be offered only after the location has been public for at least 28 days and has enough real filtered activity or public-source change for a decision-useful preview. It provides up to 12 months of aggregate history, privacy-safe demand themes above disclosure floors, activity/Request trends, monitoring, opportunity alerts, a bounded monthly evidence-based marketing action note, suggested update drafts, owner-visible change history and a full-history export.

The authorised owner edits, rejects or approves an exact suggested draft and must separately choose “Submit selected changes for ordinary review”. That handoff creates ordinary Free Core fact proposals only. It never publishes, approves, reprioritises or refreshes a fact. Grow does not promise complete detection, search position, traffic, Requests, bookings, customers, sales or acceptance by another platform and provides no priority correction, verification, freshness label or ranking advantage.

Every authorised owner with a covering content role can request a Free Core standard export of the current business record in documented open formats. While Grow access is active, that location also receives the full owner-visible change-history export. Both require recent re-authentication; archives are encrypted/private, available for no more than 24 hours, destroyed after the first successful transfer, and exclude quarantined raw uploads, private claim evidence, internal risk/moderation material, participant identity, raw queries, Request contact/body and other members’ security data. This product export does not replace or restrict any free data-protection access/portability right.

17. Growth Review

Growth Review is a private location-specific assessment of the business’s public web presence, ByLocals record, action routes and stated goal. The order states the evidence considered, delivery estimate and that the deliverable contains three prioritised actions with effort/impact reasoning. We may use disclosed AI providers with human review. The customer must not supply material it lacks the right to use or unnecessary personal/sensitive information.

The review is general marketing information, not regulated advice, a public-profile deliverable or an open-ended consultancy. We do not guarantee search ranking, traffic, enquiries, customers, sales or acceptance by another platform. It cannot change ByLocals public content, facts, eligibility, verification, ranking or service priority. Any factual correction still uses the ordinary Free Core route.

18. Local Supporter (later)

Local Supporter is a voluntary £24 annual consumer/community support subscription with only the clearly described recognition/convenience benefits. It gives no ranking, moderation, award, access-to-business or editorial influence. It launches only with consumer cancellation/renewal terms and can be used without making contributions.

19. Institutional/data research (not an available service)

No institutional intelligence product, data feed or API is currently offered. Research conversations and sample outputs do not create access rights or a recurring service. Any future paid pilot requires a separate approved order defining permitted thresholded/public data, purpose, methods, limitations, confidentiality, data-protection roles, security, correction propagation and liability. It must exclude raw queries, participant records, Enquiry content, private owner performance and re-identification.

20. Standalone Local Guide Embed

No standalone Local Guide Embed is offered. Any future feed or embedded display requires separate product, licence, buyer-evidence, accuracy, rights, suppression, correction-propagation and no-paid-inclusion approval; these draft terms do not create it.

21. SocialPostxr and other products

SocialPostxr is a separate Aceman product with separate terms and price. In the ByLocals model, we market it only after a distinct, unbundled affirmative consent. Claiming, purchasing or consenting to ByLocals communications is not consent. SocialPostxr use/activity cannot influence ByLocals organic treatment.

22. Refunds, complaints and disputes

Order/support issues: [SUPPORT-EMAIL]. Privacy rights: [PRIVACY-EMAIL]. Content/verification appeals use the published routes. We acknowledge promptly and apply statutory remedies. Nothing requires a consumer to use our process before exercising an external right. The final checkout must identify any applicable alternative-dispute-resolution information.

23. Liability

Nothing excludes or limits liability where unlawful, including death/personal injury caused by negligence, fraud/fraudulent misrepresentation, or mandatory consumer rights. For consumers, we are responsible for foreseeable loss caused by our breach or failure to use reasonable care, but not business loss.

For a business customer, subject to the preceding sentence: neither party is liable for indirect/consequential loss or lost profits/revenue; our aggregate liability for a paid service is capped at the greater of £100 and fees paid for that service in the preceding 12 months; liability connected only with Free Core is capped at £100. These business limitations require counsel review for reasonableness and do not apply to payment obligations, deliberate misuse of the other’s IP/confidential information, or liabilities that cannot lawfully be limited.

24. Suspension, termination and survival

We may suspend/terminate for material breach, fraud, security/legal risk or discontinued service, with notice and opportunity to remedy where appropriate. You may close an account/request listing removal under the Listing Policy. Clauses intended to survive—payment already due, licences for archived/legal records, confidentiality, restrictions, liability and dispute terms—continue as necessary.

25. General

We version material changes and give account holders appropriate notice; new paid terms are not accepted merely by visiting the site. No waiver is continuing. Invalid clauses are adjusted/severed without affecting the rest. We may assign these terms as part of a genuine business transfer with notice and privacy safeguards; you may not transfer a claim/order without consent.

English law applies. Consumers retain mandatory rights and may use the courts available under applicable consumer law. For business customers, the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.

---

Version 1.2 · 2 Sep 2026 · draft. Reconciles Free About/action links, Requests, Connect, Grow, Growth Review, no merchant payments and research-only institutional/data status. Obtain qualified UK consumer, contract, platform, data/IP and Online Safety Act review before publication or checkout activation.