1Who we are and what these terms cover
These Terms and Conditions (“Terms”) are the agreement between you and Gabriele Fabrizio Sbalbi, sole trader (individual activity), trading as Kitesurf Culture, [street and number], Vilnius, Lithuania (certificate no. [individual activity certificate / business certificate number]), email [email protected] (“we”, “us”). They apply to the website kitesurfculture.com and to everything we offer through it: the kitesurfing spot guide, the directory of kite schools, shops and stays, the blog and its comments, the newsletter, member accounts, business listings, reviews and, when we offer them, paid services (together the “Site”).
By using the Site, or by creating an account, you accept these Terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the Site. How we handle personal data is explained in the Privacy Policy and the Cookie Policy, which are not part of the contract but should be read with it.
If you use the Site as a consumer, nothing in these Terms takes away the rights the mandatory law of your country gives you.
2The Site and our services
Kitesurf Culture is a community and information project for kitesurfers. Reading the Site is free. We may offer additional features to members and to businesses, some of them against payment (see section 9). We may add, change or remove features, content or the Site as a whole. If a change significantly affects a paid service you have bought, we will tell you in advance and give you the remedies the law provides.
We aim to keep the Site available, but we do not promise uninterrupted or error-free access: maintenance, updates and events beyond our control can interrupt it.
3Who can use the Site
The Site is for people aged 18 or over who can enter a binding contract. If you act for a business, you confirm that you may bind it. We may close the account of anyone we find to be under 18.
4Your account
- You can use most of the Site without an account. An account gives access to member features (for example reviews, submitting spots, saved items or a business dashboard) as they become available.
- Give true and current information, and keep it up to date. Verify your email address when asked.
- One person, one account. Keep your password secret and tell us at once if you think someone else uses your account. You are responsible for what happens under it, unless the cause is our fault.
- You can close your account at any time from your settings or by writing to [email protected]. Your personal data is then handled as the Privacy Policy describes. Content that other people have already replied to or quoted may stay online without your name.
- We may suspend or close an account for the reasons in section 14.
5Acceptable use
You agree not to, and not to let anyone else:
- break the law, infringe other people’s rights (copyright, trademarks, privacy, personality) or post anything unlawful, threatening, defamatory, hateful, obscene or misleading;
- post spam, advertising or links that only promote yourself or a business, or fake, paid-for or undisclosed-incentive reviews;
- impersonate a person or business, or give false information about who you are or whom you represent;
- collect data of other users, or scrape, copy or monitor the Site with robots or automated tools without our written permission (ordinary web browsers and search engines are fine);
- overload the Site, probe or bypass its security, or introduce malware;
- try to decompile or reverse engineer the software of the Site, except where the law allows it;
- use the Site to arrange unsafe or illegal activity, including kiting where it is forbidden or dangerous.
6Content you post
You keep the rights to what you post (comments, reviews, photos, spot or school information, listings): “User Content”. To run the Site, you give us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, display, reproduce, resize, translate and adapt User Content technically (for example thumbnails), and to show it on the Site and in our newsletters and social channels to promote the Site, with your name or username where you have given one. You can pass this right only to service providers who help us run the Site. The licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except for copies in backups, and for content others have already quoted or replied to. We do not pay for User Content.
You confirm that you own the User Content or have permission to post it, that it does not break these Terms or the law, and that the people shown in photos agree to be published. You are responsible for it. We do not check everything before it is published and we do not endorse User Content.
Reviews and ratings. Write only about your own genuine experience, tell us if you were paid, rewarded or are connected to the business, and never review your own business or a competitor to harm it. We do not verify that a reviewer used a school, shop or stay unless the review is marked as verified. We may publish, hide or remove reviews that break these Terms, and we treat all reviews by the same rules, whether they are good or bad. Our Comment Policy sets the community rules for comments.
7Schools, shops, stays and business accounts
- The Site lists kite schools, shops, stays and other services run by third parties. Information about them comes from them or from public sources. A listing is not a recommendation, and a certification or rating is shown as declared by the business unless marked as verified.
- We are not a party to any booking, lesson, purchase or stay you arrange with a business. That contract is only between you and the business, and it is responsible for the service, the price and its refunds. Use the business’s own terms.
- A business that claims or manages a listing must be entitled to represent it, keep the information true and current, own or license the images it uploads, and answer reviews respectfully. We may ask for proof and may refuse, suspend or remove a listing.
- Paid listing tiers, badges and priority placement, where offered, are always marked as such.
8Kitesurfing is dangerous: information only
Kitesurfing and the activities around it can cause serious injury or death. Everything on the Site (spot descriptions, wind and season data, forecasts, safety notes, equipment sizes, articles, comments) is general information that may be incomplete, outdated or wrong for the day and place you are in. Conditions, rules, hazards, access and local bans change. It is not instruction, training or professional advice and does not replace a qualified, certified instructor, local knowledge or your own judgement.
Before you ride, check the conditions, the local rules and the safety situation yourself, use suitable and well maintained equipment, and never go out beyond your level. You take part in the sport at your own risk. See also the General Disclaimer.
9Paid services and subscriptions
This section applies when we offer a paid service (for example a business listing plan). Before you pay we show you the service, the price including taxes, the billing period and how to cancel.
- Payment. Payments are handled by our payment provider (Stripe). We never see or keep your full card number. Prices include VAT where it applies.
- Renewal and cancellation. Subscriptions renew automatically for the same period until you cancel. You can cancel at any time in your account or by email; the service then runs until the end of the period you have paid, and we do not charge you again.
- Price changes. We tell you at least 30 days before a price change takes effect. If you do not agree, you can cancel before it applies.
- Right of withdrawal for consumers. If you buy as a consumer in the EU you have 14 days from the purchase to withdraw without giving a reason. If you ask us to start the service during that time, you pay a proportionate amount for what was already provided, and you lose the right once the service has been fully provided with your express consent and acknowledgement. To withdraw, write to [email protected]. Businesses have no right of withdrawal.
- Refunds. We refund what the law requires, and may refund more at our discretion. Refunds go to the payment method you used.
- Non-payment. If a payment fails we may suspend the paid features until it is settled.
- Conformity. Consumers keep the legal rights if a digital service does not conform to the contract (Directive (EU) 2019/770): we will bring it into conformity, or reduce the price or end the contract where the law gives that remedy.
10Our content and intellectual property
The design, software, text, photos, illustrations, videos, logo and database of the Site belong to us or to our licensors and are protected by copyright and database rights. You may view the Site and print or share single pages for personal, non-commercial use, and quote short extracts with a clear credit and link. Any other use, such as copying, republishing, framing or using it commercially, needs our written permission: ask at [email protected].
We reserve our rights over the content of the Site for text and data mining under Article 4 of Directive (EU) 2019/790, and do not allow it for training or building commercial datasets without a licence.
You may not use our name, logo or the trademarks of others shown on the Site without the owner’s consent. You may link to the Site, as long as it is not in a way that suggests we endorse you.
11Third-party sites, services and affiliate links
The Site contains links, embedded content (such as maps, wind forecasts and videos) and tools from third parties. We do not control them and are not responsible for their content, availability or privacy practices; their own terms apply. Some links are affiliate links: if you buy through them we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. This never changes our opinion on a product (see the General Disclaimer).
12Warranties and liability
What the law does not allow us to exclude stays. Nothing in these Terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our fault, for fraud, for intent or gross negligence, or for anything else that cannot be limited under the law that applies to you. If you are a consumer, your legal rights, including those under Directive (EU) 2019/770 and the Unfair Contract Terms rules, are not affected.
Within these limits: the free parts of the Site are provided “as is” and as available; we do not guarantee that the information on it is complete, accurate or fit for your purpose, and we are not liable for loss caused by relying on it, for content posted by users or businesses, or for services you buy from third parties. For the rest, we are liable only for damage that was foreseeable when you accepted these Terms. If you are a business user, our total liability for a paid service is limited to the fees you paid for it in the 12 months before the event, and we are not liable for lost profit, lost data or indirect loss.
13Business users: indemnity
If you use the Site as a business, you will compensate us for third-party claims and reasonable costs caused by your breach of these Terms or by the content, information or images you published. This section does not apply to consumers.
14Suspension and termination
You can stop using the Site and close your account at any moment. We may restrict, suspend or end your access, remove content or close your account if you break these Terms or the law, if the content is illegal, if you give false information, if you do not pay a paid service, if you harm other users or the Site, or if the law or an authority requires it. We will tell you what we did and why, by email or on the Site, unless the law or an investigation prevents it, and you can ask us to review the decision by writing to [email protected]; we will answer within a reasonable time. If we end a paid service without a reason related to you, we refund the unused part of the period you paid.
15Reporting illegal content and copyright
Under the Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065) our point of contact for authorities, and for you, is [email protected]. To report content you think is illegal or that infringes your copyright, write to us with: (1) where the content is (the exact web address), (2) why you think it is illegal or infringing, (3) your name and email (except for the offences where the law allows anonymous notices), and (4) a statement that you act in good faith and that the information is accurate. We confirm receipt, assess the notice carefully and without delay, and tell you and the person who posted the content what we decided and why, and how to challenge it.
16Changes to these terms
We may update these Terms, for example for new features, legal changes or security. We publish the new version on this page with its date. For registered users we send a notice by email or on the Site at least 30 days before a material change applies. If you do not accept it, you can close your account before that date; if you keep using the Site after it, the new Terms apply to you. Changes never apply to a purchase already made, unless they favour you or the law requires them.
17Complaints, governing law and courts
If something is wrong, write to [email protected] first: we try to answer within 14 days. As a consumer you can also contact the consumer protection authority of your country (in Lithuania, the State Consumer Rights Protection Authority, vvtat.lt). Note that the EU Online Dispute Resolution platform has been closed since July 2025.
These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Lithuania. If you are a consumer, you also keep the protection of the mandatory rules of the country where you usually live, and you may bring a claim before the courts of that country or of Lithuania. For business users, the courts of Vilnius, Lithuania, have jurisdiction, unless the law imposes another.
18General
- Whole agreement. These Terms, with the policies they refer to, are the entire agreement between you and us about the Site.
- If a part is invalid, the rest stays in force, and the invalid part is replaced by the valid one closest to its purpose.
- No waiver. If we do not enforce a right at once, we do not lose it.
- Transfer. We may transfer these Terms to a successor of the Site, with notice to you; you may not transfer your account without our agreement.
- Events beyond control. Neither of us is liable for a delay or failure caused by an event beyond reasonable control (for example outages of networks or providers, war, strikes, natural events), except for payment obligations.
- Language. The English version is the one that binds us; a translation is only for convenience.
