Terms of use

1. Purpose and acceptance

These terms govern access to aubeactu.fr and aubeactu.com and the use of their features. Browsing the site means accepting them. The site is published by Adnan TOURAK EI, 5 rue Michelet, 10000 Troyes.

2. Free of charge, and no paywall

Articles are free, unlimited and uncounted. AubeActu offers no subscription, no reserved content, no premium article and no paid reading tier of any kind. No change to these terms may introduce paid access to the news: this is a structural constraint of the project, not a commercial policy open to revision.

3. Reader account: optional, deletable

Reading requires no account. An account is needed only to comment, follow a municipality, subscribe to the newsletter or submit content. It is created with an e-mail address and a pen name, and can be deleted at any time from your personal space or on request to donnees@aubeactu.fr. Deletion takes effect within thirty days; data that the law requires us to retain is described in the privacy policy.

4. Conduct in contribution spaces

Comments, article submissions, photographs, listings and tributes are personal contribution spaces. The following are prohibited:

• insult, defamation or denigration of a named or identifiable person;
• incitement to hatred, violence or discrimination, in particular on grounds of origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation or disability;
• glorification of crime, denial of crimes against humanity, threats;
• disclosure of a third party's personal data: address, telephone number, workplace, vehicle registration;
• sexual content, and any content involving a minor;
• publication of copyright-protected material without permission;
• infringement of the presumption of innocence of a person charged but not convicted;
• advertising, canvassing, affiliate links and repetitive messages;
• impersonation and multiple accounts used to weight a discussion.

5. Licence you grant on your contributions

By posting a comment you grant AubeActu the non-exclusive right to display it on the site, in its mobile application and in its feeds, for as long as the related article is published. You keep your rights and may ask for your message to be removed.

By sending a photograph you declare that you are its author or hold the necessary permissions, including those of any recognisable person, and you grant AubeActu the right to publish it with your credit. Editorial contributions by volunteers fall under a separate regime set out in the contributor charter: under article L131-1 of the French intellectual property code, accepting that charter does not assign future works, and each submission opens its own licence.

6. Moderation: after publication, and why

AubeActu exercises no prior control over comments. A posted message appears immediately, without human reading. This is not convenience: reading a message before it goes live would forfeit the protection of article 93-3 paragraph 5 of the French law of 29 July 1982, and would make the publisher liable as principal author of a third party's words.

An automated word-list filter, purely mechanical and involving no human reading, holds back certain messages before publication. The rule triggered is recorded. This filter is the only mechanism applied before a message goes live.

After publication, any reported message is reviewed and promptly removed if manifestly unlawful. The crime, justice, health and politics sections are closed to comments by default: closing a space is lawful, pre-reading it is not.

7. Reporting and appeals

A "Report content" link appears at the foot of every page and under every article. The reporting form collects the elements listed in article 16(2) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065. Every decision to remove, hide or refuse is explained in writing to its author, with the rule applied and the available remedies, as required by article 17 of the same regulation: details on the Moderation page.

Manifestly unlawful content is handled promptly, as soon as we become aware of it; any other report is handled as soon as possible, and as a rule within twenty-four working hours.

8. Intellectual property of the site

The AubeActu name, logo, visual identity, site architecture and editorial content are protected. The legal notice sets out the conditions for reuse and the short-quotation regime.

9. External links

The site links to third-party sites, notably the sources of a story and the websites of the municipalities of the Aube. AubeActu exercises no control over their content and is not answerable for it. A link is neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

10. Limitation of liability

AubeActu takes reasonable steps to publish accurate, verified information and corrects its mistakes visibly and with a date, under its corrections policy. The site is provided as is: no guarantee of continuous availability is given. The publisher cannot be held liable for a technical outage, for the use a reader makes of a piece of information, or for the content of a third-party site.

11. Changes to these terms

These terms may change. The date of the latest update appears at the foot of the page and every version is kept. Account holders are notified by e-mail at least fifteen days before a substantial change takes effect, and may delete their account without condition.

12. Governing law and jurisdiction

These terms are governed by French law. Failing amicable settlement, disputes fall to the competent French courts. A consumer retains the right to bring proceedings before the court of his or her place of residence.