Terms of Use 

1. Scope of Applicability 

(1) These Terms of Use of academics GmbH, Speersort 1, 20095 Hamburg, Germany (“we” or “academics”) apply to the use of our websites academics.de, jobs.zeit.de and academics.com, our applications (hereinafter collectively referred to as the “Portal”) and to the services offered via the Portal, whether free of charge or for a fee, by registered and unregistered users. The services of the Portal set out below are intended exclusively for the individual job search and career development of natural persons. 

(2) For employers who wish to purchase recruiting and employer branding products, or for agencies representing them, our “General Terms and Conditions (GTC) for clients” apply instead. 

(3) By using our Portal you declare your agreement to these Terms of Use. Use without consent is not permitted and must not be undertaken. 

2. Registration and User Account 

(1) Most of the services available on our Portal can only be used after logging in. Registration is required for login. In the registration process you must provide your email address. Afterwards you will receive an email from us with the request to confirm your email address and thereby your registration by clicking on an activation button or link. 

(2) You are required to provide complete and accurate information during registration and while using our Portal. You are also obliged to keep all provided contact data up to date and to ensure accessibility via the provided email address. In the event of changes, the data provided must be updated or corrected. In case of false or incomplete information, academics reserves the right to suspend or delete the user account and access to its services temporarily or permanently. 

(3) By registering you make us an offer to enter into a gratuitous contract. A valid agreement on a user account and the associated right to use the services offered to registered users (hereinafter “User Agreement”) shall only come into effect upon activation of the user account by us. We are under no obligation to accept the offer and activate the user account. 

(4) Registered users may log in to the Portal at any time by entering their email address and password or activation link, or alternatively via their Google or Facebook account. 

(5) Each person may hold only one user account. The user account is non‑transferable. 

(6) Users may delete their user account at any time. 

3. Services of the Portal 

(1) academics provides the following services in particular: 

• Jobs & Applications: Viewing and saving job postings, creating and managing search profiles, submitting applications for job postings. 
• Career Services: Online seminars, Doctorate test, download area with documents and recordings. 
• Information: Receiving newsletters and notifications about suitable job offers. 
• Matchmaking: Extracting uploaded documents and data from third‑party sources, processing application data to create search profiles, possibly using AI, storing and evaluating usage and activity data on the website for the purpose of optimizing our services and matchmaking, matchmaking with suitable employers or job postings 
• Communication: Telephone service for verification of users and application documents, visibility of user profiles to employers, possibility for employers to make contact in case of a match 

(2) How the services can be used is disclosed in the self‑service area of your user account at https://www.academics.com/my-academics. There you can manage your user account and manage various functions of the services that you use. Please note that not every service is available on all of our websites. 

4. Obligations and Responsibilities of Users, User Rights 

(1) Users are solely responsible for providing the hardware and internet connection to be able to use our Portal. 

(2) Users are obliged to keep their access data secret and not to misuse the Portal. If users suspect unauthorized use by third parties, they must immediately report this to us. 

(3) The creation and dissemination of unlawful content, infringement of third‑party rights, unauthorized use of data, automated access (bots, scraping) or other misuse are strictly forbidden. 

(4) academics may grant you, as part of certain services, the possibility to create your own content and to transmit it to academics for the purpose of publication in the Portal or for forwarding to other users. 

You agree not to engage in any activity that violates applicable law or accepted standards of decency when creating or submitting content. In particular, it is forbidden to create and/or transmit content that 

• constitutes a criminal or administrative offence 
• infringes the rights of third parties, in particular copyright, trademark, or competition law 
• contains offensive, racist, discriminatory, pornographic, or otherwise unlawful or immoral material, 
• is promotional in nature. 

(5) By transmitting content you grant academics an irrevocable, exclusive and transferable right to use the transmitted content, unlimited in time, geography, and scope. academics is in particular entitled to store the content in whole or in part, reproduce it, distribute it, make it publicly accessible, edit it, analyze it itself or through third parties, have it analyzed, evaluate and/or have it statistically evaluated, and/or exploit and use it in any other way within the scope of providing the services on the Portal. You guarantee that you own all rights necessary to grant such usage rights or that you are entitled to grant them, and that neither the content nor its use by academics under the agreement between you and us violates these Terms of Use or applicable legal provisions or infringes intellectual property rights or other rights of third parties. 

(6) You indemnify academics from all claims of third parties asserted against academics due to content you have transmitted. This also includes the reasonable costs of legal defence. In case of a claim you are obligated to immediately provide academics with all information necessary for examination and defence. 

(7) academics reserves the right not to publish transmitted contributions or other content. There is no entitlement to publication. 

(8) All contributions submitted by users represent solely their own view. academics does not adopt them as its own. 

(9) If you transmit personal data to other users or employers, you do so at your own risk. We have no influence on the actual use of these data by the respective recipients. It is therefore your responsibility to verify carefully the identity of the recipients before transmitting personal data. In particular, it is advised not to transmit personal data to private email addresses. Furthermore, we recommend not to forward sensitive data – such as passport numbers, social security numbers or bank details – even if such a request is made. The communication of ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, membership in a trade union, genetic data, biometric data for the sole purpose of identifying a natural person, health data, data concerning one’s sex life or sexual orientation of any natural person must in any case be omitted. 

(10) academics reserves the right, in the event of violations by users of these Terms of Use or applicable law, to exclude users temporarily or permanently from using the Portal and/or the user account. The measure depends on the severity and frequency of the violation and is at the sole discretion of academics. 

5. Intellectual Property of academics 

(1) Please note that our Portal and any associated software, databases, graphics, user interfaces, designs and other contents are subject to copyright protection and/or protected in other ways. 

(2) Please also note that all identifiers (names, trademarks, business names, names of magazines and classifieds markets etc.) of academics GmbH are protected under name law or trademark law or title protection law. 

(3) Users receive, subject to compliance with these Terms of Use, a non‑exclusive and non‑transferable right to use the Portal. It is strictly forbidden to use the Portal or the services offered therein for the development of other services. It is also strictly forbidden to modify the source code, to translate, reproduce or decompile it or to examine its functions, unless academics is obliged by law to permit one or more of the aforementioned actions. 

6. Reporting and Complaints Procedure 

(1) Should you believe that content published by third parties on our Portal violates applicable statutory provisions and/or these Terms of Use and/or other general terms and conditions of academics (collectively “unlawful content”), you may report such content to us. You may use our online form which is linked in the footer. 

(2) Upon receipt of a report, we shall examine the reported content. If the examination reveals that content is unlawful, we are entitled to block, remove or otherwise restrict access to the unlawful content in whole or in part. 

(3) If, after careful consideration of all circumstances, it is obvious that the report was made abusively, we are entitled to refuse to process the report. Abuse is deemed to occur in particular if a reporting person repeatedly reports numerous contents without sufficient reason. 

(4) If academics does not take action in respect of reported content, the person who made the report may lodge a complaint against that decision within six months after notification of the decision. If academics does take action, the person affected by the action may lodge a complaint against that decision within six months after notification of the decision. 

(5) Paragraph 3 applies mutatis mutandis to the complaint.

7. Changes to Services 

We reserve the right to further develop, change or discontinue services. There is no claim to specific functions or permanent availability. 

8. Liability and Warranty 

(1) We do not assume any warranty for the timeliness, accuracy, completeness or suitability of the content of our Portal. 

(2) We do not assume any warranty for uninterrupted or constant availability of the offered (online) services. Disruptions, interruptions or downtime may occur at any time for technical or operational reasons, in particular with regard to capacity limits, security or integrity requirements, or due to carrying out necessary technical measures. 

(3) We do not assume any warranty for a specific storage capacity for user accounts. We are entitled to restrict the permissible data volume for uploads at any time, temporarily or permanently, particularly for technical reasons or for maintaining or optimizing our services. 

(4) For damages resulting from injury to life, body or health academics is liable without limitation. The same applies for damages based on intentional or grossly negligent breach of duty by academics, its legal representatives or vicarious agents. 

(5) For damages resulting from a slightly negligent breach of material contractual obligations academics is liable in amount limited to the typical contract‑related and foreseeable damage. Material contractual obligations are obligations whose fulfilment is essential for the proper performance of the contract and on whose compliance users regularly rely. 

In all other respects, academics’ liability for slight negligence is excluded. 

(6) Liability under the Product Liability Act and under mandatory statutory provisions remains unaffected by any limitations under this Section. 

(7) To the extent that academics’ liability is excluded or limited under this Section, this shall also apply to the personal liability of the legal representatives, executives and agents of academics. 

9. Data Protection 

Personal data is processed confidentially and in accordance with applicable data protection laws. Further details are set out in the Privacy Policy. 

10. Termination 

(1) Users may terminate use of the Portal at any time by deleting their user account. This also terminates the User Agreement with academics. 

(2) academics is entitled, in case of violations of these Terms of Use by users, to block or delete their user account. 

(3) academics is entitled, in case the Portal is discontinued, to terminate the User Agreement with immediate effect and to permanently delete the user account. 

11. Modification of the Terms of Use 

(1) academics is entitled to amend these Terms of Use at any time. Changes will be announced at least two weeks before coming into force by email or by notice in the Portal. 

(2) If the intended amendments affect services that are offered for a fee, they will become effective only with your consent. The consent will be requested together with the notice under paragraph 1, sentence 2. If you do not consent, academics may terminate the User Agreement with two weeks' notice effective from the date the amendments were scheduled to take effect and permanently delete the user account. 

12. Final Provisions 

(1) German law applies. Consumers within the meaning of Article 6(2) of Regulation (EC) No. 593/2008 enjoy, irrespective thereof, the protection granted by mandatory provisions of the law which, in absence of a choice of law, would be applicable. 

(2) Should individual provisions be invalid, the validity of the remaining provisions shall not be affected.