Terms and conditions of use

PLATEOUT

Introduction

Plateout is an information portal that collects and organises publicly accessible information about Italian dining venues for the benefit of people looking for somewhere to eat.

These conditions govern access to and use of the portal available at https://plateout.com (the Portal). The Portal does not provide registration or accounts: browsing it constitutes acceptance of the rules of use described here. Anyone who does not intend to comply with them is invited not to use the Portal.

1. Owner of the Portal

The Portal is owned and operated by Plateform S.r.l., with registered office at Via Andrea Costa 202/6, 40134 Bologna (BO), tax code, VAT number and registration number in the Bologna Business Register 03953561200, REA number BO-558327, fully paid-up share capital of EUR 100,000.00, email address supporto@plateout.com.

Plateform S.r.l. is also the company that develops and provides the booking and restaurant marketing management platform of the same name, used by some of the venues listed on the Portal. The connection between Plateout and Plateform S.r.l. is openly disclosed on the Portal.

2. Definitions

• Portal: the website available at https://plateout.com, in all its pages and language versions.
• Plateform: the booking and restaurant marketing management platform developed and provided by Plateform S.r.l.; when this document refers to the company, it always uses the name Plateform S.r.l.
• User: anyone who accesses the Portal and browses its content.
• Venue: the dining establishment to which a Listing is dedicated.
• Listing: the Portal page dedicated to an individual Venue.
• Venue with online booking: a Venue that manages its bookings using Plateform and whose Listing provides a link to its booking page.
• Third-party Content: publicly sourced information, ratings and photographs reproduced on Listings.
• Descriptions: descriptive texts about Venues generated automatically using artificial intelligence systems.

3. Nature of the service

The Portal is an information and browsing service. It allows Users to search for Venues by city, name or category, consult their Listings and, for Venues with online booking, reach the page where a table can be booked.

For all purposes, the following is specified:

a) browsing the Portal is free and does not require registration; there are no restricted areas or personal accounts, either for Users or for Venues;

b) the Portal does not receive, manage or confirm bookings, collect money or charge commissions;

c) the Portal does not act as an intermediary, agent, mandatary or representative of Venues, and does not provide dining services;

d) a Venue's presence on the Portal is free. Venues with online booking are given priority in the results, as described in section 10; no other forms of paid placement, visibility or prominence are provided;

e) the Portal does not host content published by Users: no areas for comments, reviews or uploading materials are provided. All published content is selected and made available by Plateform S.r.l.

4. Requirements and rules of use

The Portal is intended for people aged fourteen or over, the age provided by Italian law for consent relating to information society services. Children under fourteen are invited to use it with the assistance of a parent or a person exercising parental responsibility.

The User undertakes to use the Portal lawfully and in accordance with these conditions. In particular, the following are not permitted:

a) systematically extracting, copying or reusing, even in part, the Portal's content and database by any means, including automated data collection programs;

b) using the Portal for the User's own commercial purposes, resale or reconstruction of directories;

c) interfering with the Portal's operation, overloading its infrastructure, attempting to access non-public areas or circumventing security measures;

d) sending false, offensive or unlawful content, or content infringing third-party rights, through the contact forms.

Plateform S.r.l. reserves the right to restrict or prevent access to the Portal by anyone who violates these rules, without prejudice to any further remedies.

5. Booking at Venues

5.1 Venues with online booking. For Venues that manage their bookings using Plateform, the Listing contains a link to the Venue's booking page. By selecting the link, the User leaves the Portal and continues to the booking page managed by Plateform S.r.l. on behalf of the Venue, which is subject to its own conditions and privacy notice.

Any booking is concluded exclusively between the User and the Venue. Plateout is not a party to this relationship, does not confirm the booking and is not responsible for the availability, performance or quality of the service booked. Booking conditions, including those relating to changes, cancellations and any penalties, are set by the individual Venue.

5.2 Venues without online booking. For all other Venues, the Portal does not allow any booking. When available, the Listing displays the Venue's public telephone number, which the User can contact directly. In this case too, the relationship is established exclusively between the User and the Venue.

5.3 No costs for the User. Browsing the Portal and using links to Venues are free. Any amounts due for dining services are settled directly with the Venue.

6. Origin of information, updates and ratings

6.1 Origin. Information, ratings and photographs published on Listings are obtained from publicly accessible sources, in particular business listings published on Google Maps.

6.2 Updates. Acquisition does not take place in real time: information is collected at specific times and may be updated periodically, even only in part. The Portal does not query sources when it is viewed. Each Listing displays the date of its last update and its content reflects the situation existing on that date.

It follows that:

a) information may be incomplete, outdated or inconsistent with the Venue's current situation, as it may have changed its opening hours, contact details, offering or prices, or ceased operating;

b) opening hours, price ranges, contact details, services offered and operating status are purely indicative and do not constitute an offer to the public or a commitment by the Venue or Plateform S.r.l.;

c) before visiting a Venue, the User is invited to check any information of interest directly with the establishment, particularly opening hours, availability and prices.

Anyone who notices incorrect information may report it under section 9. Plateform S.r.l. checks the report and, if it is substantiated, corrects or removes the information.

6.3 Ratings. For each Venue, the Listing and search results may show the average rating and total number of reviews published on Google Maps, recorded as of the Listing's update date and identified as coming from that source. The Portal does not publish review texts or their authors' names and does not collect its own reviews; Plateform S.r.l. does not modify or select the acquired data. Plateform S.r.l. does not verify that the reviews underlying the rating come from people who have actually visited the Venue: the rating reflects what is published on the source platform, under that platform's rules, and does not constitute an assessment of the Venue by Plateform S.r.l.

7. Automatically generated descriptions

Venue Descriptions are generated automatically using an artificial intelligence system, based on the Venue's name and address.

The Descriptions:

a) are not verified by Plateform S.r.l. and may contain inaccurate, generic statements or statements inconsistent with the Venue's actual characteristics;

b) are solely for informational purposes and do not constitute an assessment, review, rating, ranking or recommendation by Plateform S.r.l.;

c) do not express any commercial preference or any appraisal of the quality of the offering.

A Venue that considers its Description inaccurate or harmful may request its correction or removal under section 9; Plateform S.r.l. will do so without requiring reasons for the request.

8. Presence of Venues on the Portal, reports by rights holders and removal

8.1 Listings are published on the basis of publicly accessible information about commercial activities, for informational purposes. A Venue's presence on the Portal does not, in itself, imply any contractual relationship with Plateform S.r.l., any participation by the Venue, or any sponsorship or partnership.

8.2 Venues' trademarks, distinctive signs and names remain the property of their respective owners and are reproduced solely to identify the establishment.

8.3 Removal at the Venue's request. A Venue's owner or manager may at any time request the correction, update or removal of its Listing by writing to the addresses indicated in section 9. To fulfil the request, Plateform S.r.l. may ask for evidence of the connection with the establishment. Plateform S.r.l. provides an initial response within 72 working hours of receipt and resolves the request within thirty days.

8.4 Reports concerning third-party rights. Anyone who considers that content published on the Portal, particularly a photograph, infringes their copyright, industrial property, image or other right may report it to the addresses indicated in section 9, specifying the content, the Listing where it appears and the right claimed to have been infringed. Plateform S.r.l. removes the reported content immediately and in any event within 72 working hours of receipt of the report, without this constituting an acknowledgement of liability.

8.5 A Venue's Listing without online booking contains the prompt “Are you the owner of this restaurant? Contact us”, which links to the pages of Plateform S.r.l.'s website dedicated to restaurateurs. From that point, the conditions and privacy notice published on that website apply.

9. Contacts and reports

The Portal provides a form through which Users can report errors, inconsistencies or malfunctions relating to a Listing or the Portal in general, and request the correction or removal of a Listing or individual content.

Reports can also be sent to supporto@plateout.com. Plateform S.r.l. responds within 72 working hours of receipt. Processing of the data entered in the form is described in the Portal's privacy notice.

10. Criteria for ordering results

Search results are ordered according to two criteria, applied in the following sequence:

a) Venues with online booking, which use Plateform, a paid service provided by Plateform S.r.l., the Portal's owner, are shown before all other Venues;

b) within each of the two groups, Venues are ordered by distance from a geographical reference point in the city searched for by the User or, if the User uses the “Use my location” function, from the User's location.

The priority referred to in point a) depends exclusively on the Venue's use of Plateform. No other forms of paid placement are provided, nor payments enabling a Venue to obtain a specific position. Venues with online booking are marked in the results with a specific indication.

When the User applies a filter, for example by Venue category (pizzeria, bar, restaurant and similar), price range, Google rating or whether the Venue is currently open, the results show only Venues that meet the selected criterion, ordered according to the criteria above. Each Venue's category, also shown on its Listing, is assigned using the same criteria for all Venues, based on the information obtained under section 6 and independently of the Venue's use of Plateform. The same ordering criteria apply to sections of the Portal suggesting Venues near the one being viewed, including Venues in the same category; in this case, distance is calculated from the Venue being viewed.

11. Intellectual property

The Plateout trademark, the Plateform trademark, logos, graphics, page organisation, editorial texts and the structure of the Portal belong to Plateform S.r.l. or are used under licence, and are protected by copyright and industrial property law.

Third-party Content remains the property of its respective authors or rights holders. Point 8.4 applies to reports concerning it.

Browsing the Portal and sharing links to individual pages are permitted. Any other use, particularly reproduction, translation, adaptation and systematic extraction of content, requires the written consent of Plateform S.r.l.

12. Links to third-party websites

The Portal contains links to websites and services managed by third parties, including Venues' booking pages and mapping services. Plateform S.r.l. has no control over these websites and is not responsible for their content, operation or data processing. Access is at the User's responsibility and subject to each website's own conditions.

13. Portal availability and limitations of liability

Plateform S.r.l. takes such measures as can reasonably be expected to keep the Portal accessible and its information correct, without being able to guarantee that the service is always available, free from errors or uninterrupted. The Portal may be suspended or modified for maintenance, updates or technical reasons.

To the extent permitted by law, Plateform S.r.l. is not responsible for:

a) the services provided by Venues, their quality, compliance or the outcome of bookings;

b) the accuracy, completeness and currency of Third-party Content and Descriptions, subject to the conditions in sections 6 and 7;

c) damage arising from the inability to access the Portal or from the User's use of it;

d) the content and services of third-party websites reachable from the Portal.

Liability for wilful misconduct and gross negligence and the mandatory consumer rights recognised by Legislative Decree no. 206 of 6 September 2005 remain unaffected; no clause of these conditions is intended to limit or exclude them.

14. Changes to these conditions

Plateform S.r.l. may change these conditions, for example following regulatory changes or changes to the Portal's functionality. The applicable version is the one published on this page when it is viewed, indicating the date of the last update.

15. Applicable law and jurisdiction

These conditions are governed by Italian law.

The courts of Bologna have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute, unless the User qualifies as a consumer, in which case exclusive jurisdiction lies with the court of the consumer's place of residence or elected domicile, under Article 66-bis of Legislative Decree no. 206 of 6 September 2005.

The consumer may also contact alternative dispute resolution bodies included in the list maintained by the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy under Part V, Title II-bis of Legislative Decree no. 206 of 6 September 2005.