Legal · Community rules

Acceptable Use, Community Content and DSA Policy

Version 1.1 · 17 September 2026 · Krone Consulting s.r.o., Mlynské Nivy 5, 821 09 Bratislava, Slovakia · info@mermaid.navy · Part of the Terms and Conditions (§1.4, §7, §18).

Community observations improve boating context, but they are never official navigation data. A rating, depth report, anchorage comment or map correction may be mistaken, stale or unsafe. Verify every safety-relevant statement against official and current sources.

1. Purpose, scope and our position under the Digital Services Act

This Policy governs ratings, comments and photographs about anchorages, marinas, ports and boating locations; point-of-interest corrections, map or depth reports and community details; profile names and public attribution; reports about allegedly illegal or rights-infringing content; moderation, account restrictions and appeals; and any other user-generated content hosted or shown through Mermaid. It forms part of the Mermaid Terms and Conditions (§1.4, §7, §18); defined terms have the meaning given there.

Krone Consulting s.r.o. hosts community content as an intermediary service under Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (the Digital Services Act). Krone is a small enterprise within the meaning of Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC, so under Article 19 of the Regulation the additional obligations for online platforms do not apply to it. This Policy sets out what does apply to us, namely points of contact (Articles 11 and 12), transparency of these rules (Article 14), notice and action (Article 16) and statements of reasons (Article 17), together with the steps we take voluntarily: an internal review of moderation decisions, repeat-misuse rules and ranking transparency.

2. Mermaid's role

Krone provides the technical hosting, organisation and presentation of community content, may create or commission editorial content, and combines user reports with licensed or internally reviewed data. A user's submission is that user's statement, not Krone's endorsement. Unless content is labelled as verified or editorial, assume it has not been independently verified; even verified content becomes outdated. For safety-sensitive map, depth or point-of-interest corrections, Mermaid keeps a report private, shows it as unverified, or requires manual quality assurance before it enters a production dataset.

3. Conditions for submitting content

You may submit content only if you have a valid Mermaid account or an authorised invitation where required; have the rights, evidence and permissions needed; identify observations honestly and distinguish fact from opinion; use the location and category intended by the interface; avoid unnecessary personal data; and comply with this Policy, the Terms and the law. You remain responsible for your content. Submission creates no employment, agency, partnership, reward or right to publication.

4. Prohibited content and conduct

4.1 Illegal content

Content is prohibited if it is illegal under EU or national law, including material that facilitates violence, terrorism, child sexual abuse, trafficking or exploitation; unlawfully sells or promotes controlled goods or services; infringes copyright, database rights, trademarks, trade secrets or other intellectual property; is unlawfully defamatory, threatening, harassing or discriminatory; unlawfully discloses personal, confidential or protected information; violates consumer, advertising, sanctions or competition law; or obstructs a lawful authority order.

4.2 Dangerous maritime misinformation

You must not knowingly or recklessly state that a route, depth, berth, anchorage, mooring or port is safe without appropriate qualification; falsify coordinates, chart features, hazard locations, draft limits, bridge clearance or navigational restrictions; conceal that information is old, estimated, tide-dependent or based on a single observation; impersonate a harbourmaster, coast guard, meteorological office, chart authority, charter company or certified professional; encourage users to ignore official charts, notices, warnings, local rules, lookout or the skipper's judgment; fabricate an emergency, distress report or vessel position; or modify evidence to create a false account of a defect, incident or voyage. Good-faith reports are welcome even when uncertain: state the date, conditions, method and level of uncertainty.

4.3 Privacy and personal data

Do not publish another person's home, berth, live position, telephone number, email, identity document or financial details; a minor's identity, image or location without authority; health, disability, biometric, criminal or other sensitive information unless a dedicated feature lawfully asks for it; photographs of crew, bystanders, boat names or registration numbers of others, or private documents, where they are not needed; or content intended to expose, intimidate or track a person. Use the private charter workflows, not community content, for crew, expense, evidence or live-sharing information.

4.4 Abuse, manipulation and misuse of the Service

Do not create fake accounts, coordinated ratings or deceptive reviews; offer or accept undisclosed payment or benefit for a review, or review a business you own, work for or were rewarded by; post repetitive promotion, irrelevant links, malware or scams; automate submissions, scrape or bulk-extract content, charts, bathymetry, forecasts, boat documentation or point-of-interest data; manipulate ranking, reporting or moderation systems; misuse the notice or appeal channels to harass others; evade a restriction; or interfere with infrastructure, security or access controls. Beyond community content, you must not share booking codes, crew links, base credentials or app-store entitlements with people outside the charter or the base; bypass plan, region or rate limits; upload false or altered check-in or check-out evidence or forge signatures; use anchor-watch or position sharing to track a person without their knowledge and consent; use the boat assistant to obtain its instructions, to generate unlawful content or as a source of instructions in an actual emergency; or use the cash kitty for anything other than sharing the genuine costs of the charter.

4.5 Infringing and unauthorised media

Do not upload a photograph, chart extract, marina plan, weather graphic, logo, manual or other work unless you created it, hold a licence or a legal exception applies. Attribution alone does not create permission.

5. Quality standards for boating observations

A useful submission identifies the exact location or point of interest; states the observation date and approximate conditions; distinguishes measured data from a visual estimate or hearsay; gives the vessel context where relevant, such as draft or length, without exposing private booking data; says whether a depth was displayed, sounded or estimated and whether it depends on tide or datum; avoids absolutes such as "always safe"; discloses any relationship with a marina, charter company or business; and includes an image only where it adds necessary information. Mermaid may convert free text into structured fields, normalise units, correct formatting or translate a contribution; a change that alters meaning is reviewed by a person.

6. Licence and attribution

The community-content licence in Terms §7 allows Krone to host, moderate, translate, aggregate, adapt and use contributions in Mermaid datasets and displays. We show a display name, boat type, date and, where the feature supports it, a "verified visit" label. We may remove attribution to protect privacy, comply with law, create aggregated data or fit a small interface, and we promise no payment, credit or continued publication.

7. How moderation works

7.1 Sources of moderation action

We act on a user or rights-holder notice; an authority order; automated detection of spam, malware, duplicates, security abuse or likely policy violations; human review; safety, data-quality or legal review; or information from a provider, insurer, charter operator or another reliable source. Automated tools may prioritise or provisionally restrict content; significant or contested decisions about safety or illegality receive human review.

7.2 Measures

Depending on severity and context we may take no action; ask for clarification, coordinates, evidence or a correction; add a warning, date, uncertainty or "unverified" label; reduce visibility or exclude content from recommendations; edit formatting or remove personal data while preserving meaning; reject or remove content; disable a feature, code, invitation or account; preserve evidence and restrict deletion during a lawful investigation; refer a matter to an authority or emergency service; or terminate an account for material or repeated abuse (Terms §18 and §19). We weigh the nature, gravity, frequency, reach and consequences of the conduct, the user's intent and history, the reliability of the notice, the risk of harm, freedom of expression and the rights of others.

7.3 No general monitoring

We do not monitor all content and do not guarantee that prohibited content will be detected. This does not prevent voluntary own-initiative review or action required by law.

8. Notice-and-action procedure

8.1 How to report allegedly illegal content

Send a notice to info@mermaid.navy with the subject "DSA notice", or use the in-product report function where available. A notice should contain a sufficiently substantiated explanation of why the content is illegal, naming the law or right where you can; the exact location (bay, display name and date, link or screenshot); your name and email address, except where the law permits or requires omission for certain offences; a statement of your good-faith belief that the information and allegations are accurate and complete; and, if you act for someone else, evidence of authority where reasonably needed. A complaint that does not allege illegality may use the ordinary report category and needs no legal analysis.

8.2 Acknowledgement and handling

We acknowledge an electronic notice without undue delay and assess it in a timely, diligent, non-arbitrary and objective manner, taking account of severity and urgency. Reports of imminent danger, child sexual abuse material, credible threats or active cyber abuse are handled first and may be referred immediately to the competent authorities. A sufficiently precise and substantiated notice gives us actual knowledge for DSA purposes; we may ask for clarification if the content cannot be located or the allegation is unsupported.

8.3 Decision and statement of reasons

Where required, we inform the affected user of a restriction with a clear and specific statement of reasons: the content or account affected; the facts and circumstances relied on; whether automated means were used; the legal or contractual ground; the territorial scope and duration; and the available complaint and redress options. We may omit information where the law prohibits disclosure, disclosure would impede an investigation, or detail would create a safety or security risk.

9. Intellectual-property notices

A rights holder should identify the protected work, the allegedly infringing content and its location, contact details, the legal basis and a good-faith statement of authority and accuracy; we may ask for evidence of ownership or representation. The affected user may respond with evidence of licence, ownership, public-domain status or another justification. We may restore content where a complaint is withdrawn or appears unfounded, while preserving the records needed for the dispute. We do not adjudicate complex ownership disputes and may require the parties to obtain a court or authority decision.

10. Internal review of moderation decisions

A user whose content, visibility, feature or account has been restricted may ask for a review through the link in the decision or by writing to info@mermaid.navy with the subject "Moderation review", within six months of the decision. Include the decision reference, account email, reasons for disagreement and any supporting evidence; identify the content by reference rather than resubmitting it. A person who did not take the original decision reviews it, may uphold, modify or reverse it, and answers within 14 days with the reasons and any further options. We offer this review although the Regulation's internal complaint-handling obligation does not apply to a small enterprise. A review request does not automatically lift an urgent safety, security or illegal-content restriction.

11. Out-of-court settlement, the Digital Services Coordinator and courts

Where the Regulation provides for it, a user may bring a moderation dispute before a certified out-of-court dispute settlement body; Mermaid engages in good faith as the law requires. You may also complain to the Digital Services Coordinator of Slovakia, the Council for Media Services (Rada pre mediálne služby, Palisády 36, 811 06 Bratislava, rms.sk), or to the coordinator of your own Member State, and you always keep the right to go to court. A consumer may use the consumer alternative-dispute-resolution routes listed in the Legal Notice and Imprint for contractual disputes. The former EU Online Dispute Resolution platform is closed and is not a route for moderation disputes.

12. Repeat misuse

After a prior warning we suspend, for a reasonable period, a user who frequently provides manifestly illegal content, assessing the number, proportion, gravity and consequences of the content, the user's intent where identifiable and the circumstances. After a prior warning we also suspend the processing of notices or review requests from a person or entity that frequently submits manifestly unfounded ones; good-faith mistakes, uncertainty or an unsuccessful complaint are not abuse. A restriction is proportionate, time-limited where appropriate and open to review. Serious coordinated abuse, security compromise or criminal conduct justifies immediate or permanent termination under the Terms.

13. Ranking and recommendation transparency

Mermaid orders and recommends anchorages, marinas, routes, reports and content by relevance to the selected boat, draft, route corridor and charter context; distance and geographic fit; weather, shelter and structured metadata; source age, completeness, confidence and review status; community rating, number and recency of observations; the user's comfort, safety or speed preferences; moderation and quality signals; and plan, coverage or feature availability. Safety context and data confidence outweigh popularity wherever reasonably possible; a high rating is not a safety certification. If paid placement or commercial influence is ever introduced, it will be clearly labelled and kept apart from organic ranking. Users can influence recommendations through the available filters and settings.

14. Advertising and commercial communications

Mermaid does not use community content or boating position for behavioural advertising. Any advertisement must be recognisable as such and identify on whose behalf it is shown. Undisclosed sponsored reviews, self-promotion disguised as an independent observation and manipulative commercial content are prohibited.

15. Protection of minors

Mermaid applies proportionate measures to protect minors who may use the Crew web app: charter-scoped access, no behavioural advertising, privacy by default and no public disclosure of a minor's information. Users must not contact, profile, locate or solicit a minor through community content. Suspected grooming, exploitation or child sexual abuse material is reported to the authorities without notice.

16. Charter bases and business users

Base staff use Mermaid Base under their employer's account and this Policy. Incident threads, handover documents and internal notes between a crew and a base are private business records of that charter, governed by the Terms and the base's agreement with us, not community content. A base may not use crew or captain data obtained through Mermaid for marketing without its own lawful basis.

17. Authority orders and law enforcement

We act on valid orders from judicial and administrative authorities to act against illegal content or to provide information, as Articles 9 and 10 of the Regulation require, verifying the authority, scope, legal basis and territorial reach where reasonably possible, and we inform the user concerned unless the order or the law says otherwise. We preserve content and account records when legally required and promise no confidentiality to a person who submits illegal content or a fraudulent notice.

18. Records

We keep proportionate records of notices, decisions, reasons and reviews for accountability and legal claims (retention in the Privacy Notice). Should Mermaid cease to qualify as a small enterprise, we will publish the transparency information the Regulation then requires.

19. Points of contact

Users and complainants: info@mermaid.navy with the subject "DSA notice", "Moderation review" or "Community policy". Authorities of the Member States, the European Commission and the European Board for Digital Services: the same address with the subject "DSA authority communication", or by post to Krone Consulting s.r.o., Mlynské Nivy 5, 821 09 Bratislava, Slovakia. We communicate in English and Slovak; notices in Croatian, German and Italian are accepted and translated for review. We are established in the Union and therefore have no legal representative in another Member State.

20. Changes

We update this Policy for legal, safety, moderation or product reasons. The version and date at the top tell you which text applies; material restrictions are announced in the app with reasonable advance notice where required, and prior versions are kept.

Appendix 1: what a notice contains

Appendix 2: what a moderation decision contains