Informed Consent's

Acceptable Use Policy

Informed Consent ("IC") is a privately owned website, operating since 1997 with the aims of promoting safety, community and consensuality in the BDSM scene in the UK. The owner, administrators and moderators of IC have the right to deny individuals' access to part or all of the site, for any operational reason or otherwise, at our discretion.

This document describes the minimum standards you agree to meet by using the site.

Legal Age

You may not use this site if you are under 18 years of age, or the age of majority where you are - whichever is greater.

Legality of Content

You may not access this site from jurisdictions where accessing or providing adult material is illegal. You may not upload text, pictures or other content which is likely to be legally obscene under English law. You may not upload material which uses real or imagined children, or real or imagined animals, or real or imagined corpses in erotic contexts. Furthermore, you may not upload or link to pictures of children, or adults who appear to be children, in any context, however innocent the image appear to be.

Consensuality

You may not use this site if you practice, advocate or condone any of the following activities, in the UK or other countries: rape, paedophilia and any other form of sexual abuse involving children or non-consenting adults.

Sex Offenders Register

You may not use this site if you are subject to the notification requirements of the Sexual Offences Act, 2003. (Informally, that you are "on the sex offenders register".) However, notification due to a conviction under the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, 2008 for possession of images featuring consenting adults does not prevent use of this site, as the CJIA is in violation of articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Human Rights Act, 1998.

Copyright and Intellectual Property

You may not use IC to infringe other people's copyrights. In most cases, text and images created by living people and people who died less than 70 years ago are still in copyright. By uploading text, pictures or other content to IC, you assert that you own the copyright, have permission from the copyright owner or the material's copyright is in the public domain. By uploading content to public areas of IC, you grant IC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to make your material available in public via WWW, email, RSS or any other protocol, until you explicitly remove your material from the website.
Material contributed by other users of the site remains under their own copyright, and you must obtain their permission before reproducing it elsewhere.
Unless otherwise stated, material produced by IC which you download may be reproduced for personal use only.
You may not use IC to publish private correspondence without the sender's permission, or publish private correspondence from IC elsewhere without the sender's permission.
You may not create unofficial online or offline groups, businesses or events etc which use Informed Consent's name, which imply that they are official, or which claim they are endorsed by Informed Consent. (Please think up your own name!)

Data Protection and Privacy

IC does not collect "identifying information" about users, as defined by the Data Protection Act in the UK. You may not display identifying information (ie full names, addresses, telephone numbers etc) about yourself or other people on the site (eg on the web boards, weblogs, listings or profiles.) We recommend that you use a nickname, alias or handle when using IC and other publicly visible sites, and do not reveal identifying information to people you do not know and trust. Please see the Personals help page for more safety / privacy advice.
Equally, please do not refer to the administrators or moderators of the site in your posts using any personal names.
Please also see our full Privacy Policy for a formal statement of how we operate.

Use of the site

You may not use IC to commit crimes under English law, or expose IC to civil liabilities to other users. You may not use IC to defame, harass, threaten or stalk other users or individuals.

"Flaming"

Robust debate is a feature of many adult internet environments. However, you may not use IC to call other users names ("you're a twat!"), or falsely attribute statements to other users, especially when presented as direct quotations. Please do not attempt to use IC for "name and shame" campaigns with accusations about events outside of IC, as moderators cannot distinguish between genuine complaints and malicious smear campaigns.

"Your Kink Is OK" (YKIOK) and Hijacking

One of the aims of IC's web boards is to provide a supportive forum for people to discuss their sexuality. By using the web boards, you undertake to avoid attacking other people's BDSM interests, kinks or fetishes where they only involve informed, consenting adults. Please avoid put-downs, one-ups, posts saying little more than "oh, we don't do THAT!", and other disparaging comments. If you feel an activity is dangerous and that you have to post, please try to frame your post as a discussion of the risks and how to minimise them, rather than dismissing that kink and those who do it.
Threads on the web boards tend to be started to raise a specific topic or announce a specific event. If the original post (OP) on a thread asks that people start a new thread rather than discuss another specified topic, please respect that: for example, asking that people start another thread rather than discuss the ethics of age-limited events on a thread announcing an under-35s munch. (If you make such a request in an OP and it's ignored, you're welcome to ask the admin team to intervene.)

"Sock puppets" and misrepresentation

You may not maintain multiple profiles on IC without acknowledging your ownership of them in their profile descriptions. This is intended to stop sock puppets rather than additional profiles for events, businesses etc.
You may not use pictures or writing which give the false or misleading impression that you are or represent or are affiliated with another member or group.

"BDSM for Money" services

No services which are legally classified as prostitution may be advertised on IC.
IC is a free website aimed at the non-commercial BDSM and fetish scenes in the UK. However, services which involve doing BDSM or fetishism for payment may be advertised on member profiles provided any profiles clearly indicate their association with comm-dom/comm-sub services in their profile settings ("£") before advertising such services.
If you wish to continue advertising in this way in your IC profile, you are advised to avoid hijacking weblog and web board threads to promote your business.

Other commercial advertising

The listings sections of IC include several areas for information about different types of BDSM / Fetish shops, events and services (like dungeon hire.) Users are very welcome to list their own shops, events and services in the listings. However, please do not promote your business on the web boards or weblogs unless:
(1) You're making one announcement per date of your event on BDSM Events or on Open Air BDSM or on Pro-Mistresses etc.
(2) You're replying to a query someone else (not connected to you or your business) has made about where to buy specific products or services in the previous 7 days.
(3) For weblog ads, you're an individual selling off a few of your own second hand BDSM/Fetish items on an auction site like eBay or your own website or by email. (These ads aren't ok on the web boards, except in your signature.)
(4) You put a link to your business, event, eBay listings etc in the signature of your posts, and you make on-topic posts.
Clearly, it's in your interest not to annoy other users of IC by spamming the boards or weblogs with ads.
Users may not use IC to promote third party sites or businesses in return for any monetary or in kind reward. This includes links including affiliate scheme references, links in return for competition entry, or links to Top Lists. You may not use IC to promote premium rate phone services.