Terms of Use

EcoWin General Terms and Conditions of Use

The present General Terms and Conditions of Use (hereinafter, the “General Terms”) describe the conditions according to which the EcoWin company provides access to its services.

These General Terms define (i) the conditions under which you may use our services on the www.ecowin.fr website and the general principles shared by sites of the EcoWin group.

When you click on the “I accept” button, you confirm that you accept all the stipulations of these General Terms. If you do not accept these General Terms, you cannot use our services. If you have questions, please contact our customer service.

When you use an EcoWin website, you accept to submit to the conditions of use corresponding to the site.

We reserve the right to modify the present General Terms at any moment by uploading a new version on our site. Changes are effective 30 days after having been placed online and an email is sent to members notifying them. During this 30-day period, you can notify us of your refusal to accept the changes. In this case, the present agreement, and thus your right to use our services, will end when the 30-day period is over.

The last changes made to the General Terms were effective on May 26, 2008.

1. Definitions

In the present General Terms, words or expressions beginning with a capital letter signify the following:

“EcoWin” designates a set of services whose object is to develop ridesharing, as well as any other types of land transport to which the services could be adapted, with the goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. EcoWin is available through multi-access (Internet, SMS, MMS, WAP, etc.), free of charge or in exchange for payment.

“WinO2” designates an exchange unit whose value corresponds to the average price of a kilometer of fuel consumed. It is also used to evaluate carbon dioxide savings.

“Service(s)” designates all services, provided free of charge or for payment, that are available to EcoWin members.

“Paying Service(s)” designates all services provided in exchange for payment that are available to members of EcoWin who have a valid EcoWin account.

“Member(s)” designates one or all users of EcoWin services who have a valid registration and who have either paid to use EcoWin or use it free of charge.

“Driver(s)” designates a member who uses his or her vehicle to transport persons who are members or non-members of EcoWin.

“Passenger(s)” designates a member (or members) who is (or are) transported in a vehicle which they do not drive.

“General Terms” designates the present agreement.

2. Registration Requirements

Our Services are restricted to persons who are legally able to subscribe to agreements under French law. Our Services may not be used by minors under 18 years of age. If you do not fulfill these requirements, you may not use our Services. In addition, you may no longer use our Services if your account has been temporarily or definitively suspended. Finally, your EcoWin account (including evaluation profiles and comments) and your user name may not be transferred or sold to a third party in any way.

3. Rates, Fees and Commissions

Our conditions related to rates for buying and sellingWinO2 units, exchange fees, means of payment, and tools and Services available for a fee on the website are incorporated by reference to the present General Terms.

We reserve the right to modify at any time our policy relative to the rates of WinO2 units, exchange and commission fees, and our Services. In the case these fees, commissions and rates are lowered, these modifications will be effective as soon as they are online. If the change is temporary (for example, during a special offer period) the duration of this modification will be displayed on the site. If these fees, commissions and rates are increased, these modifications will be effective 30 days after being made available online on the website. In the case of a new Service launch, the rate for this Service will be effective as soon as it is put in place.

Unless otherwise indicated, our rates are in euros (EUR) and include taxes.

Rates for access to the professional area will be sent to you after your registration if you have not previously requested them. You have one month to accept these rates and to benefit from the Service. After this period, if you have not responded, EcoWin reserves the right to cancel your account. No fees will be requested for the first month if you do not accept our rates and decided not to continue with EcoWin.

Invoicing
According to the present agreement, you accept to receive invoices from EcoWin in electronic format only. To receive a paper version of your invoice, send an email to serviceclient@ecowin.fr. Your invoice will then be sent by regular mail to the most recent postal address you have provided to EcoWin.


Taxes and Duties
You must pay all taxes and duties resulting from the utilization of our Services and our Internet site. EcoWin cannot be held responsible for transactions carried out and revenue generated on our site.

Please note: you must be either a company or a private individual. Whether you are a purchaser or seller of WinO2 units, the VAT may be applicable to your transactions. Specifically, if you use EcoWin regularly, you could be subject to the payment of other taxes (such as the professional tax) and social security contributions. You recognize this expressly and accept that the VAT and other taxes may be applied to your situation. We suggest you consult with a fiscal expert to obtain advice concerning this point.

4. EcoWin Is an Online Support Only

The role of EcoWin
We are not a “transportation company.” Our site is merely an online support that aims to provide anyone, anywhere and anytime with a Service for obtaining financial compensation for transportation. We do not intervene in the transaction between Driver and Passenger(s). In consequence, we have no control over the quality, reliability or legality of the transportation provided, the truthfulness or exactness of data supplied and put online by Members, the ability of Passengers to pay for transportation service or the ability of Drivers to provide said transportation service. We cannot ensure that Passengers or Drivers will provide financial compensation for transportation services.

Member precautions
Since authenticating Internet users is difficult, we are not able to confirm the identity of Members. We have thus created an online evaluation system that enables you to evaluate the person you have dealt with. We also encourage you to communicate directly with potential Driver(s) or Passenger(s).

Discharge of responsibility
Since we do not intervene in transactions between Drivers and Passengers, you absolve us (as well as our main office, subsidiaries and companies of the group, corporate officers, directors, agents and employees) of all responsibility in the case of litigation between Members for all claims, as well as for present or future damages, presumed or not, assessed or not, resulting directly or indirectly from these claims.

Verification of information
We do not verify the information supplied by Members and made public on our site. Member information may be offensive, damaging, imprecise or fraudulent. The identity and occupation of a Member may be different from the ones presented on the website. We therefore recommend you use prudence and good sense when consulting the site and take all the necessary precautions. Please consult our pages with a list of tips for Passengers and Drivers.

Fraudulent acts
Without excluding other means of appeal, we reserve the right to suspend or close your account if you have been found (following a conviction, transaction or inquiry by the police, an insurance company, or a third party) to have engaged in fraudulent acts concerning our site.

We strongly recommend that site users inform EcoWin of all potentially fraudulent acts.

5. Personal Information

The term “Personal Information” designates all information you supply when you register on the site, use a procedure to purchase, sell or exchange WinO2 units, fill out the profile form, write emails or post messages on the public forum. You alone are responsible for your Personal Information, since EcoWin plays only a passive intermediary role for putting them online.

Standards for Personal Information

Your Personal Information must not :

• be false, imprecise or misleading;


• be fraudulent or imply the use of vehicles that are not in operating condition, are counterfeit or have been stolen;


• fail to comply with any laws or regulations (including, but not limited to, laws and regulations controlling exports, consumer protection, unfair competition, discriminatory practices or misleading advertising);


• contain a virus, Trojan Horse, worm, time bomb, cancelbot or any other type of malware designed to damage or secretly intercept computer operations, data or nominative information;


• engage our responsibility or cause the loss of benefits from all or part of services provided by our service providers, in particular our Internet service providers;


• propose goods or services or contain direct or indirect hypertext links to goods and services that are prohibited by the present General Terms.

User license
So that we may use the information you have communicated to us without infringing on your rights concerning this information, we grant a transferable, non-exclusive, free license, without limitation of duration or territory, with the right to grant sub-licenses for the utilization and disclosure of this information for use in all existing and future media. The present license is valid during the entire legal protection period relative to your Personal Information.

6. Driver’s Obligations

Without excluding other means of appeal, we reserve the right to suspend or close your account if, as a Driver, you:

• do not have a valid driver’s license


• use a vehicle that is not properly insured or in proper working condition; at a minimum, the vehicle must have been technically inspected.


• do not respect driving regulations and do not act responsibly.

7. Passenger’s Obligations

Since we do not intervene in transportation, Passengers absolve us (as well as our main office, subsidiaries and companies of the group, corporate officers, directors, agents and employees) of all responsibility in case of litigation, accident or infraction during transportation provided by an EcoWin site Member Driver and all present or future damage, presumed or not, assessed or not, resulting directly or indirectly from these claims.

8. Site Access and Integrity

You accept to not use software or manual procedures to copy our Internet pages or record or collect information on these pages without our previous express written consent. You accept to not use any kind of device or software with the aim of disturbing or attempting to disturb the operation of our website. You accept to not carry out any type of action that would result in a disproportional load on our infrastructures. Most of the information on our site is updated in real time and is provided to us through license by our Members or third parties. You accept to not copy, reproduce, alter, change, create derived work from or reveal to the public all or part of the contents of our site without our previous express written consent or that of the third party concerned.

9. Member Profiles

You must not carry out any type of action that would compromise the integrity of a Member profile. If your evaluation balance is less that 10%, we reserve the right to suspend your registration in a definitive manner and you will no longer be authorized to register on the EcoWin site.

9.1 Offensive comments
When you register, you accept that the EcoWin company can publish an evaluation of your reliability, which you may judge to be erroneous. In this case, if you contact us by letter or by email to explain the situation, we will carry out a brief inquiry, which may lead to removing the evaluation under consideration. Whether or not we remove this evaluation from the site, you accept to renounce to any action against us relative to this evaluation. You recognize and accept that we are unable to control the initial situation and that we are unable to carry out in-depth investigations.

10. Offences

Without excluding other means of appeal, we reserve the right to give you a warning, temporarily or permanently suspend your registration, terminate your registration and cease to provide you with our Services in the following cases:

• if you violate all or part of the present General Terms or documents that are incorporated in these General Terms by reference;


• if we are unable to verify or authenticate the information you provide and you do not respond to our requests for authentication;


• if we believe that your conduct might engage your responsibility, our responsibility or the responsibility of Members.

11. Limitation of Guarantee

EcoWin and its suppliers propose the website and the Services that are part of the site as is. In consequence, we exclude all guarantees, within the limits allowed by law.

12. Indemnity

You accept to defend and compensate EcoWin (including lawyer’s fees is a reasonable amount), as well as other companies of the EcoWin group, corporate officers, directors, agents and employees, against all claims made by a third party, caused by or resulting from a violation on your part of the present General Terms or of any document incorporated in these General Terms by reference, or a violation on your part of any law or third-party right.

13. Conformity to Law

You commit to obeying all current laws, regulations or standards relative to the utilization of our Services. In addition, you expressly recognize and accept that the utilization of our Services may lead to your qualification as a “merchant” as defined according to Article L121-1 of the French Business Code. If you are a merchant or have the status of a merchant, EcoWin calls your attention to the fact that you are under certain specific obligations, such as registering with the Register of Commerce and Companies, ensuring that your accounting conforms to applicable rules and paying the VAT and other applicable taxes and duties. Furthermore, as a merchant or, more generally, if you use the site as a professional, you must follow the regulations concerning remote invoicing and sales, as well as all applicable rules of consumer rights. We suggest you consult with a lawyer to obtain further advice on this point.

14. Relations between the Parties

EcoWin, on the one hand, and you, on the other, are independent parties, which act in their own name and for their own account. The present General Terms do not create any subordination, authorization, joint venture or shared company links or an employer/employee or franchisor/franchisee relationship between EcoWin and yourself.

15. Notifications

In principle, all notifications to your attention shall be sent by email to the address you communicated to EcoWin when you registered. You should receive these notifications within 24 hours after the email is sent, unless the sender is notified of the non-validity of the email address. Notifications may also be sent by registered letter with proof of receipt to the postal address given when you registered. In this case, the deadline for reception is three days after the letter is sent.

16. Applicable Law and Litigation

The present General Terms are is governed by and interpreted according to French law. French courts have jurisdiction over all litigation which may arise between the parties related to execution of the present General Terms.

17. Diverse Stipulations

• We do not guarantee that the operation of our Services will be uninterrupted, free of error or reliable.
  
• We reserve the right to limit temporarily or permanently all activities related to purchase, sales and exchange of WinO2 units on our site according to criteria and thresholds that may vary.
  
• We cannot be held responsible for non-compliance with our obligations as they are listed in the present General Terms if this non-compliance is caused by events beyond our control and/or resulting from force majeure. In addition to the situations recognized by legal precedence, force majeure includes all natural disasters, acts of war, disruptions of public order, epidemics, fires, floods and other disasters, all governmental acts, strikes and lock-outs, as well as all external electrical or technical problems that interfere with communication.
  
• On the assumption that one or more of the modalities listed in these General Terms might be considered as illegal, void or inapplicable according to a court decision, the other stipulations of these General Terms remain valid as long as the general framework of the agreement is not called into question.
  
• You accept that the rights and obligations pertaining to the present General Terms, as well as all documents that are incorporated within them by reference, may be freely and rightfully transferred by EcoWin to a third party in case of a merger or acquisition.


• The titles of the different articles contained in the present General Terms are merely indicative and do not necessarily determine the contents of the articles to which they refer.
  
• Our tolerance of a breach of the present General Terms by a Member or a third party in no way alters our rights and actions with regard to similar and/or future breaches.
  
• Do not consider that what other Members do is a given or that EcoWin approves and validates all transactions, even if you have carried out similar sales or purchases of WinO2 units in the past.
  
• Current law in your country of residence may be notably different from current law in other countries. In a similar way, there may be different legal requirements, such as the possession of a valid driver’s license, to carry out an activity or for transferring money. We cannot keep abreast of current law in each country; even if this were possible, we cannot control how Members use our site.
  
• EcoWin neither approves nor validates the transactions carried out on the company site, and you alone accept the responsibility as concerns the legality of your actions in relation to laws that apply to you.
  
• We accept no responsibility for possible danger stemming from your transportation by a Driver who is a Member of the EcoWin site, which may affect your health or physical integrity.
  
• The present General Terms, along with the documents incorporated by reference, constitute the entire agreement concluded between the parties.
  

18. Other Useful Information

The Services listed in the present document are proposed by
ECO WIN S.A.R.L.
Means of parental control, as well as adequate protection (computer material, software or filtering services) against contents that may shock the sensitivity of children, are commercially available.
If you have any questions, please write to our consumer service at serviceclient@ecowin.fr or visit our site and use the « contact us » link.