Terms and conditions

§ 1 Scope and contracting party

These general terms and conditions apply to all contracts between Ingo Christ, sole proprietorship, Luisenstraße 15, 44787 Bochum, Germany (trading under the brand picjoy; hereinafter “Scanready”) and the customer concerning the testing, remediation and monitoring of digital services.

The services are aimed exclusively at businesses within the meaning of § 14 of the German Civil Code. Consumers within the meaning of § 13 of that Code are not supplied; there is therefore no consumer right of withdrawal. By placing an order the customer confirms that they are acting in the exercise of their trade or profession.

Terms of the customer that deviate from these become effective only if Scanready expressly agrees to them in text form.

§ 2 Conclusion of contract

The presentation of the services on this website is not a binding offer but an invitation to the customer to make an offer.

For the paid services the contract comes into being when Scanready confirms the customer's offer in text form or begins performance. Before work starts, Scanready records scope, effort and price in text form. That recorded scope determines what is owed.

The free instant check does not create a paid contract. There is no claim to have it carried out.

§ 3 The three services and what separates them

1. The free instant check. Anyone entering an address on this website receives a non-binding technical snapshot. No fee is owed for it and no paid contract comes into being. Scanready promises neither a particular result nor completeness, accuracy or continuous availability and may discontinue the service at any time. No warranty claims can be derived from the free check.

2. Paid remediation. For a fee, Scanready works through the automatically detectable violations set out in the report, within the agreed scope, in the customer's website and re-tests afterwards. What is owed is the remediation of the expressly named findings — not the achievement of full accessibility and not the legal compliance of the entire site. Scope, effort and price are recorded in text form before work begins.

3. The subscription (Monitoring and All-round). Under Monitoring, Scanready owes the recurring automated test, a report per run and a template for the accessibility statement. The All-round offer adds the ongoing remediation of the automatically detectable violations found, within the agreed scope. The subscription is a continuing obligation and is billed monthly.

§ 4 What Scanready owes — and what it does not

What is owed is a test carried out according to the state of the art against a named set of criteria: those success criteria of EN 301 549 in conjunction with WCAG 2.1 Level AA that can be checked automatically. Owed is the careful performance of that test and a comprehensible presentation of its results — not a particular test result.

For remediation, what is owed is the professional treatment of the findings named in the report and listed in the agreed scope, and a re-test of the outcome. Not owed are the achievement of full accessibility, a particular score, a particular assessment by third parties, or the conformity of the site with legal provisions.

Every report describes the state of the website at the moment it was retrieved. It is a snapshot and is overtaken by later changes — by the customer, by their service providers, by updates to their content management system or by embedded third-party content. No performance is owed in respect of barriers that arise in this way after a test or remediation has been completed.

Scanready assumes a guarantee in the legal sense, in particular a guarantee of quality or durability, only where it is expressly designated as a guarantee in text form. Statements in advertising, reports, test seals or conversations are not guarantees.

§ 5 Limits of automated testing

The automated test covers only part of the criteria of EN 301 549 in conjunction with WCAG 2.1 Level AA. A report with no findings is not proof of accessibility, not a certification and not an assurance of legal compliance. The same applies to the test seal under § 11.

Among the things that cannot be tested automatically, or only to a limited extent, are:

• the keyboard operability of forms, sign-ins and checkout flows
• the visibility and traceability of the keyboard focus
• reading order and tab order
• the factual correctness of alternative texts, labels and headings
• the comprehensibility of error messages, help texts and instructions
• subtitles, audio description and sign language in videos
• content behind a sign-in, inside payment flows or in embedded third-party systems

Scanready can therefore miss barriers. The fact that a barrier does not appear in a report does not mean it is not there. Anyone needing a complete assessment additionally needs a manual audit by qualified people and, where possible, testing with disabled users.

The website is tested as an automated retrieval sees it. Content that appears only after a sign-in, after consent, after user input or only on certain devices is covered only where that has been expressly agreed.

§ 6 The customer's responsibility; no legal advice

The duties under the German Accessibility Strengthening Act and the related provisions fall on the customer as the economic operator. Placing an order does not make Scanready an addressee of those duties, and Scanready does not assume them. Whether a site meets the legal requirements is decided by the customer on their own responsibility and by the competent authorities.

Scanready does not provide legal advice and is not permitted to do so. References to legal provisions, deadlines or fine levels — in reports, on this website or in communication — are general information and do not replace review by a lawyer.

Scanready is not an authority, not a notified or designated body and not a state-recognised testing or certification body. Reports and test seals are private technical findings with no official effect; they do not bind market surveillance authorities or courts.

Scanready owes no particular outcome towards authorities, courts or third parties and does not warrant that third parties will assess the customer's site as accessible.

§ 7 The customer's cooperation

The customer warrants that they are entitled to commission the testing of the website they specify. They indemnify Scanready against third-party claims based on that warranty being incorrect, to the extent the customer is responsible for it.

For remediation work the customer grants the necessary access and maintains backups of their systems and data. Scanready carries out changes according to the state of the art; responsibility for backups remains with the customer.

The customer informs Scanready without delay of changes to their website that affect the scope of testing.

If, after a remediation, the customer changes content, templates, extensions or settings of their website, remediated barriers may return. Scanready has no influence over this. Recurring testing is the means of noticing such regressions — without it, nobody notices them.

§ 8 Defects, subsequent performance and limitation

If a finding that was to be remediated under the agreed scope remains wholly or partly unremediated, that is a defect in performance. The customer notifies it in text form and identifies the finding concerned.

In that case Scanready rectifies it free of charge within a reasonable period. Subsequent performance takes precedence. Only if it fails twice, is impossible or is seriously and finally refused may the customer reduce the fee for the service concerned or withdraw from the contract to that extent. Claims for damages are governed by § 12.

There is no defect where a barrier is reported that was not part of the agreed scope, that automated testing under § 5 cannot detect, or that arose only after performance was completed. Remediating it is a new service to be paid for separately.

Claims based on defects become time-barred after twelve months from acceptance or, where no acceptance takes place, from receipt of the re-test report. This does not apply to claims based on intent, fraudulent concealment or gross negligence, on injury to life, body or health, on a guarantee given, or under the German Product Liability Act; the statutory periods apply there.

§ 9 Prices, revenue band and payment

The instant check is free of charge. For the paid services, the prices published on the pricing page at the time the contract is concluded apply. All prices are net and exclusive of statutory VAT.

Allocation to a revenue band is based on the customer's statement of annual turnover. If the band changes, Scanready adjusts the fee from the beginning of the following billing period.

The subscription fee is payable monthly in advance. Invoices are payable in full within 14 days of receipt. Means of payment: [ payment route open ] — until then invoice and bank transfer.

In the event of late payment, statutory default interest applies. Scanready may suspend ongoing services, after prior notice in text form, for as long as the customer is in default with a not insignificant amount.

§ 10 Term and termination

The subscription runs for an indefinite period and may be terminated by either side with one month's notice to the end of the billing month. There is no minimum term.

The right to terminate for good cause remains unaffected.

Notice of termination must be given in text form.

§ 11 Test seal

For the duration of an active testing contract, Scanready grants the customer a simple, non-transferable right to embed the Scanready test seal on the tested website.

The seal may be used only in the form provided, with the test date and a link to the public report. It states that on the date named the website was tested automatically against EN 301 549 and passed the criteria that can be checked automatically. It does not state that the website is accessible, fully tested, certified or legally compliant.

Advertising it as a certification, as official recognition or as an assurance of full accessibility is prohibited and entitles Scanready to withdraw it immediately. The customer is responsible for the consequences of any use contrary to these requirements.

The right of use ends with the contract; the customer removes the seal without delay. The reason is not a contractual penalty but the requirement that a quality mark may only be carried where there is recurring re-testing.

§ 12 Liability

Scanready is liable without limitation for intent and gross negligence, for fraudulent concealment of a defect, for damage arising from injury to life, body or health, to the extent of a guarantee expressly given, and under the German Product Liability Act.

In cases of ordinary negligence Scanready is liable only for breach of a material contractual obligation — an obligation whose fulfilment makes the proper performance of the contract possible in the first place and on whose observance the customer may regularly rely — and limited in amount to the damage foreseeable at the conclusion of the contract and typical for it.

As a rule, the typical foreseeable damage is taken to be at most the fee the customer paid for the service concerned in the twelve months before the damaging event. Either side remains free to show that the typical damage is higher or lower.

For the free instant check Scanready is liable only for intent and gross negligence.

Where a test misses a barrier that lies outside the automatically testable area described in § 5, there is no breach of duty in the first place and no liability arises. Where, by contrast, something was missed because Scanready did not carry out the test it owed with due care, paragraphs 1 to 3 apply.

Fines, penalty payments, cease-and-desist and legal costs and other disadvantages incurred by the customer as a result of an assessment of their site by authorities, courts or third parties fall on the customer; they arise from the customer's own position of duty under § 6. Scanready is liable for them only in accordance with paragraphs 1 to 3.

The limitations in this section also apply to the personal liability of Scanready's employees, representatives and vicarious agents. No change to the burden of proof to the customer's detriment is associated with them.

§ 13 Data protection and confidentiality

The processing of personal data is governed by the privacy notice.

Where Scanready gains access to personal data of the customer in the course of remediation, the parties conclude a data processing agreement under Art. 28 GDPR.

Test reports linked publicly via the test seal contain technical findings on the tested website. By embedding the seal, the customer consents to that publication.

§ 14 Final provisions

The law of the Federal Republic of Germany applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.

The exclusive place of jurisdiction for merchants, legal persons under public law and special funds under public law is Bochum, Germany (§ 38 of the German Code of Civil Procedure). Scanready remains entitled to sue at the customer's general place of jurisdiction.

The language of the contract is German. The German version of these terms prevails; versions in other languages serve comprehension only.

Amendments and additions to the contract require text form. This also applies to any waiver of this form requirement.

Scanready may amend these terms for running subscriptions where there is an objective reason to do so — for example a change in the law, a new version of the underlying standards, or changed technical procedures. The amendment is communicated in text form at least six weeks before it takes effect. If the customer objects before then, the contract ends at that point; the notice will say so. For individual orders already placed, the version in force when the order was placed remains decisive.

Should any provision be invalid, the validity of the remaining provisions remains unaffected. The statutory rules take the place of the invalid provision.