AGB
1. Introduction
We are very pleased about your interest in our company. Data protection, friendly and respectful interaction and a collaborative approach are a particularly high priority for DKSR GmbH. We stand for data expertise and a collaborative approach to creating livable, sustainable and smart cities and regions. Therefore, we have established some rules for our portal DKSR.square. Detailed information about our privacy policy can be found on our privacy page.
These guidelines serve to protect our community (made up of customers, partners, and DKSR) and to create a sense of togetherness. DKSR fosters a growing community that helps promote, develop, and implement scalable solutions together with cities and municipal enterprises for cities.
By using DKSR.square and signing up for a user account, you ("you" or "user*") agree to the following terms and conditions, which will result in a legal agreement between you and DKSR ("Agreement"). To help you understand the Agreement, we will include some definitions. DKSR.square ("DKSR.square", "we", "us") is an online platform for innovative cities, municipal enterprises as well as private sector companies, operated by DKSR. The goals of the platform are as follows:
the transfer of knowledge around the topic of urban data;
enabling easy and barrier-free exchange between cities and municipal companies;
scaling smart city solutions through co-development and sharing.
If you have any concerns or questions about this agreement, please feel free to contact us at info@dksr.city .
2. About DKSR.square
Welcome to our portal, DKSR.square, an offering from DKSR. DKSR.square is the accompanying portal for exchange and collaboration for our interoperable and open urban data platform. In addition to creating the data platform as its own stand-alone infrastructure, we have created DKSR.square as a place to help promote and further develop urban data infrastructure with concrete products and proposals. Only a thriving ecosystem and a lively exchange will make it possible to take advantage of the potential of urban data platforms in away that promotes the emergence of sustainable smart cities and regions.
DKSR.square is designed to help you find your way in the often confusing world of smart city applications. Together, we can find the right solutions for the most pressing challenges and quickly implement solutions with the best products available.
To live up to this claim, we strictly adhere to these guidelines:
- We are objective: all products, partners and services are evaluated or arranged by us according to the same criteria. These criteria are developed together with experts and potential customers and apply equally to all. There is no possibility for service providers to improve their positioning within the portal by payments of any kind.
- We are transparent: All criteria (including how we chose the criteria and how and how the final rating of a product/service was calculated) are published transparently. Everyone can suggest justified changes. Through the full transparency of the evaluation processes, we support our objectivity.
- We are independent: We are an independent company whose shareholders are not involved in the operational business. All companies and/or organizations offering products are evaluated according to the same standards. There are no partner programs, paid services or other possibilities of influence. Our data platform is interoperable and accessible to any verified user. Our portal is also open to anyone who meets our minimum criteria (see chapters 4 and 6).
2.1 Structure of DKSR.square
DKSR.square is divided into different areas.
The implementation area
This area aims to accelerate the implementation of smart solutions. We take our customers by the hand and systematically lead them from concrete challenges to possible solutions. These solutions are in turn linked to real products and data. We also offer relevant information related to our our implementation protocols, such as experience reports from other cities or tips for tenders.
The interaction area
We want to use SQUARE to facilitate communication and exchange, especially within cities and between municipal companies. Topic-specific groups serve to facilitate this exchange. Here, a protected space is available that is only accessible to cities and municipal enterprises. However, there is also the possibility of opening forums in which discussions can be held with the free market (i.e. our provider ecosystem).
The knowledge area
The topic of Urban Data is still a relatively new one for most cities and municipal enterprises. That is why we have set up a knowledge area. This is wherea glossary of the most important terms related to urban data and knowledge products can be found. This offer will constantly expand and, in the future, will include checklists, webinars, tools and other knowledge products.
We prepare all information with the aim of making it easy for cities and municipal companies to implement solutions.
3. The Urban Data Community
The community is open to municipalities, municipal subsidiaries or regional organizations in an effort to jointly drive digitization forward. The goal is the dissemination and joint (further) development of data-based solutions for sustainable smart cities and regions. The UDC sees itself as a community with a practical focus: knowledge, experience and concrete products and digital use cases are actively shared among core members. Through supra-regional cooperation, projects can be driven forward locally more efficiently and with higher quality. Especially as a core member, you benefit from the resulting synergy effect.
The UDC has its roots in the network of the Morgenstadt Initiative of the Fraunhofer- Gesellschaft. DKSR is the organizer and technology partner of the Urban Data Community. Together with DKSR, Fraunhofer IAO communicates the concerns and topics of the community to the relevant partners and multipliers. As DKSR, we see ourselves accordingly as a link between municipal actors, science and business. We organize the cooperation for you and ensure a continuous exchange of experience and knowledge in the field of urban data.
Are you interested in becoming a core member? Contact us via community@dksr.city!
4. Access and rules for the ecosystem
Most solutions cannot be implemented by municipal companies or cities alone. Therefore, we are building a large ecosystem of companies and other organizations that offer a wide variety of smart city products.
Corporate partners can register their companies and products for free on our site, whichwe will then present to cities and municipal companies when they havethe relevant solutions. Registration is available to essentially any company that can prove or credibly assure that it meets the following criteria:
The company offers products or services in the smart city application field that use data, produce data, or both.
The company demonstrates interoperability with Open Urban Data Platforms according to open standards (e.g., DIN SPEC 91357 or ISO/IEC 30182:2017) or assures to establish such capabilities as soon as possible.
The company's product meets at least TRL 6 (Technology demonstrated in relevant environment) or higher.
Our registration process therefore consists of two steps, and we reserve the right to only approve companies on our portal that comply with the above rules. After the two-step registration process, the product listing takes place, which also requires approval from us:
Step 1:
Registration on our site with the following information:
Last Name(s) (surname or family name)
First Name(s) (forename or given name)
Organization name
Organization type (city, municipal corporation, private company)
Business email address
Step 2:
We will verify the information provided and, if the verification is successful, we will approve the applicant for the appropriate role (city, municipal company or private company).
The organization will then receive a link that allows it to create you’re a personal profile, as well as a profile for the organization (this only applies to the first registered user of each organization).
Step 3 - Product registration:
After you’re a corporate partner’s first product has been created, it can be submitted for review. We will then check to see if all relevant information is included and do the on-page linking. The product would then be linked to appropriate challenges & solutions
No claim to representation on the DKSR portal is granted at any time.
Our rules serve to build an ecosystem of partners and solutions with maximum attractiveness for municipalities and municipal service providers. Our focus is on quality, rather than quantity of the partner offering. We want to help solutions scale and therefore launch our portal with fewer, but more innovative and powerful partner companies.
In addition, the product providers have to carry out a self-assessment and answer a number of questions about their product. The questions were developed together with cities and municipal companies. This way, cities and municipal companies get the most important information at a glance and can then decide whether we at DKSR should establish contact or whether they would like to write to the company directly.
Communication on DKSR.square always originates from the city or municipal enterprise. The economic partners do not have access to the contact details of the municipal employees. Only forums allow for direct communication.
5 Rules of conduct and netiquette
DKSR.square is a place of exchange, so we would like to set up some clear rules as well as netiquette for common interaction.
5.1 Rules of conduct
In order to provide our community with a safe space for innovation and collaboration, all users must abide by the rules so as not to negatively impact other users. Therefore, in order to access the Service, users agree to abide by our rules and refrain from the following:
Posting, listing or uploading inappropriate content or items on our sites;
Violating or circumventing any law, third party right, or our systems, policies, or determinations of account status
Using our Services while being while unable to enter into legally binding contracts (for example, if the potential user were under 18 years of age), or during atemporary or indefinite ban from our Sites, Services, applications or tools
Manipulating the price of a product or interfering with other users' offers
The publication of false, inaccurate, misleading, deceptive, defamatory or offensive content
Any action that could undermine the feedback or rating system;
Transferring you’re a DKSR.square account (including feedback) and user ID to another party without our consent
Distributing or posting spam, unsolicited or mass electronic communications, chain letters or pyramid schemes
The distribution of viruses or other technologies that may harm DKSR or users’* interests or property
Using robots, spiders, scrapers, data mining tools, data collection and extraction tools, or other automated means to access our Services for any purpose, except with the prior express permission of DKSR
Interfering with the operation of our Services or placing an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure
Exporting or re-exporting DKSR applications, data or tools, except in accordance with the export control laws of the relevant countries and in accordance with published rules and restrictions
Infringement of copyrights, trademarks, patents, publicity rights, moral rights, database rights and/or other intellectual property rights (collectively, "Intellectual Property Rights") owned or licensed by DKSR. Some, but not all, acts that may constitute infringement include reproducing, performing, displaying, distributing, copying, reverse engineering, decompiling, disassembling, or creating derivative works of content owned by DKSR or another person
Infringing upon intellectual property rights of third parties affected by you’re use of our Services or posting Content that does not belong to the user who is posting.
Commercializing any DKSR application or any information or software associated with such application, except with DKSR's prior express permission
collecting or otherwise gathering information about users without their consent
circumventing any technical measures we use to provide the Service.
By using the Service, users guarantee you’re their compliance with all of the requirements set forth above and, further, agree not use the Service in any manner that violates any law or regulation. Note that by entering into this agreement, the user is making a legally enforceable promise.
5.2 Netiquette
DKSR.square is a space for open, transparent and equal exchange. All users share the same goal: to exchange ideas about urban data and to make our communities sustainable based on data. We welcome participation in discussions in our forums and share knowledge and experiences.
To make this happen, we want to ask everyone to adhere to our netiquette forcomments in the forums:
Please always remember:
Behind every comment is a human being. Please respect treat them with respect.
Respect the other users and remain objective and polite, even whendisagreeing or after having discovered an error. To err is human.
Refrain from sexist, racist or discriminatory posts at all times.
Please share only appropriate posts.
Check the truthfulness of posts - DKSR.square is not a place for misinformation or conspiracy narratives.
We thank you for following these guidelines!
Please note: DKSR reserves the right to delete comments and forum posts if netiquette is disregarded. In the case of particularly severe disregard, the comment function or forum access will be temporarily or permanently blocked for the offending user. In such cases, all Users will be informed of this action immediately.
6. Fees & Memebership Dues
Our portal has an open and therefore free part. In addition, we offer areas to which only core members of the Urban Data Community have access. To become a core member of the community, you can get information here and fill out a membership application directly. If you have any questions, please contact us at community@dksr.city.
The membership fee is currently 190 Euro per month. We reserve the right to adjust the fees but will inform the members in time.
In our role as an independent partner, we list products according to independent criteria, such as alphabetical order, publication date, in random order, or by rating. The portal is free of charge for companies. We will not give companies the opportunity to place their products more prominently by paying fees.
7. Conditions for registering & advertising
We would like to establish a group of people interested in Urban Data in our portal and create a community of companies, cities and municipal utilities that are interested in implementing projects and collaborating within a community. Therefore, our portal is initially limited to cities, municipal companies and companies that are demonstrably active in the field of urban data. The rules for company registration can be found in the following section. We allow companies to register and list their products free of charge. However, we reserve the right to review company profiles and products before publication. Pure consulting companies or companies that cannot show how their product/service can be integrated into an urban/regional data space are excluded from publication. Our goal is to present an ecosystem of compatible companies and products to cities, municipalities and urban businesses that have an urban data platform according to DIN SPEC 91357 in use.
For quality assurance purposes, all products listed by a company are published only after a review by DKSR.
Criteria for company registration
Clear reference to urban data platforms that follow DIN SPEC 91357 standards
Willingness to interact in a community
Basic information about the company has been provided
Criteria for product listing
Product / service has clear connection to urban data / data platforms
All information about the product is complete
Product self-assessment (this will soon be a mandatory step)
Criteria for the order of products in search results
Products are listed in order according to different criteria
Alphabetically
According to currently set filters such as (SDGs, Smart City Domains).
If no order is selected by the user, the products are randomly ordered, this is part of how we ensure the independence of DKSR
There is no monetary possibility for companies to improve their product placement
Metatags and URL links included in a listing may be removed or modified so as not to affect third party search engine results.
Users agree to abide by DKSR's rules for posting a product or service on DKSR: user are also responsible for the accuracy and content of the listing and the item offered.
All media that is uploaded creditsthe source and the poster gaurantees their right touse it.
DKSR cannot guarantee exact duration of performance.
Content that violates DKSR's rules may be deleted at DKSR's discretion.
We may revise the data in the DKSR -Offer to add, remove or correct information.
Allegations must be backed up with facts and sources.
8. Access for members only
DKSR reserves the right to restrict access to certain parts of the Website at its discretion.
When DKSR provides user ID and password to enable you to access certain areas of the Website or other content or services, the user must ensure that the user ID and password are kept confidential.
DKSR.square is operated as a platform for high quality exchange between professionals. Therefore, users witha personal email addresses may be asked to register again using you’re their professional email addresses and you’re their personal email address may be deleted. We may also deactivate your account at our discretion.
9. Content
Users retain all rights, titles and interest in the materials, content, data and information (including your personal information and the personal information of others) that submited to DKSR. Providing content (directly or indirectly) when using our Services, grants us a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise any intellectual property rights you may have in such Content in connection with our provision, enhancement and promotion of the Services in any media now known or hereafter developed. This right includes, but is not limited to, permission to use your logo for the following purposes: 1.) Use of the logo on the dksr.city homepage to reference your company as a partner*, member and/or customer 2.) Use of the logo in the context of company presentations and individual further advertising materials presented to DKSR’s network via DKSR.square. To the extent permitted by applicable law, users waive you’re their right to enforce theirintellectual property rights in such content against DKSR, our agents, our sublicensees and their agents in connection with our use, such agents' and sublicensees' use of such content.
You affirm and agree that:
You own or otherwise control all rights necessary to use and carry out your obligations under this Agreement for the Content you provide.
Such content is accurate.
The use of such content (including derivative works) by us, our users*, or others under contract with us, and in accordance with this Agreement, does not and will not infringe any intellectual property rights of any third party.
DKSR assumes no responsibility and shall have no liability for any Content provided by you or any third party.
DKSR is not responsible for verifying or guaranteeing listings or content provided by third parties through its Services, and you will not attempt to hold us liable for any inaccuracies.
If you upload content, it is your responsibility to verify the content of your listings for accuracy and that you will not attempt to hold our catalog providers or us responsible for any inaccuracies.
The Website may contain copyrighted, trademarked or other proprietary material. You agree not to remove any copyright, proprietary or identifying notices contained in the catalogs or create derivative works based on catalog content (other than by including it in your listings).
The name "DKSR" and other DKSR Brands, logos, designs and phrases we use in connection with our Services are trademarks, service marks or trade dress of DKSR in the EU countries. They may not be used without the prior express written consent of DKSR.
10. Data privacy from others
If DKSR provides you with information about other Users, you agree to use the information only for the purposes for which it was provided to you. You may not share, sell, rent, or distribute User information to third parties for purposes unrelated to the Services. In addition, you may not use information for marketing purposes, whether electronically or otherwise, unless you have obtained the consent of the relevant User(s) to do so.
11. Newsletter
SQUARE is a community that thrives on sharing and disseminating information. When you sign up on DKSR.square, you will also be automatically registered for the DKSR newsletter. Your data will be handled in accordance with DSGVO and our privacy policy. You can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time. We use Hubspot for our newsletter services. You can find their legal notice here: https://legal.hubspot.com/legal-stuff.
12. General conditions
12.1 Liability Waiver
If you have a dispute with one or more Users, you release us (and our affiliates and subsidiaries, and our and their respective officers, directors, employees and agents) from claims, demands and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown, arising out of or in any way connected with such disputes. By entering into this Release, you expressly waive any protection (statutory or otherwise) that would limit the scope of this Release to those claims that you know or suspect exist in your favor at the time you agree to this Release.
12.2 General
If any provision of this User Agreement is found to be invalid, void, or for any reason unenforceable, it shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions, except as otherwise provided in this Agreement. We may assign this Agreement in our sole discretion; in which case we would post a notification to that effect on www.dksr.city.
Headings are for reference purposes only and do not limit the scope or extent of the particular section. Our failure to act on a breach by you or others does not mean that we waive our right to act on subsequent or similar breaches. We do not guarantee that we will take action against all breaches of this Agreement.
We may modify this Agreement at any time by posting the modified terms on www.dksr.city. Our right to modify the Agreement includes the right to change, add, or remove terms in the Agreement. We will provide you with 30 days' notice by posting the modified terms. In addition, we may notify you by email or other direct forms of communication. If you continue to access or use our Service, you agree to be bound by the modified Terms. We may also ask you to confirm your acceptance of this User Agreement by clicking electronically. This User Agreement may not otherwise be modified except by mutual agreement between you and DKSR.
The policies posted on our websites may be changed from time to time. Changes become effective when we post them on the DKSR site.
If you create or use an account on behalf of a business, municipal corporation or municipality, you agree that you are authorized to act on behalf of that entity and to bind the entity to this Agreement. Such an account would then be owned and controlled by the entity or municipality. No agency, partnership, joint venture, employee-employer or franchisor-franchisee relationship is intended or created by this Agreement.
The Terms of Service, the User* Privacy Notice, and any policies posted through our Services constitute the entire agreement between you and DKSR and supersede all prior agreements and understandings of the parties.
The following sections will survive any termination of the Terms of Service as a User Agreement: Fees, Privacy of Others, Content, and General Terms.
12.3 Law and jurisdiction
These Terms of Use shall be governed by and construed in accordance with German law and European law. Any disputes arising in connection with these Terms of Use shall be subject to the [non] exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Berlin, Germany.
For contact information, please go to the imprint.