Terms of Service

Eligibility and accounts

You must have legal capacity to agree to these terms. To list a vessel, represent a business, contact sellers for transactional purposes, or enter a transaction, you must have reached the age of majority where you live. You must provide accurate information, protect your credentials, and promptly update information that changes. You are responsible for activity under your account and must notify us if you suspect unauthorized use.

Our role as a marketplace

Vessel Star provides tools that help buyers, sellers, and marine businesses find and communicate with one another. Unless we expressly state otherwise for a particular transaction, Vessel Star is not the buyer, seller, broker, dealer, service provider, inspector, insurer, lender, carrier, or payment processor. We do not take title to listed vessels and are not a party to agreements between users.

Users are responsible for investigating listings and counterparties, inspecting vessels, confirming ownership and liens, reviewing documents, obtaining professional advice, agreeing on payment and delivery, and complying with registration, tax, licensing, safety, export, import, and other legal requirements. Never send funds or disclose sensitive information until you have independently verified the transaction.

Listings and business profiles

You agree that content you submit will:

• Be accurate, current, and not misleading.
• Describe a vessel, service, qualification, price, location, and availability truthfully and with sufficient authority to post it.
• Include only media and information you own or have permission to use and disclose.
• Comply with applicable consumer, advertising, competition, privacy, intellectual-property, and marketplace laws.

You remain responsible for reviewing any text, price guidance, geographic result, or other output produced by an AI-assisted feature. AI output may be incomplete or inaccurate and is not a valuation, survey, appraisal, legal opinion, or professional advice.

Prohibited conduct

You may not:

• Post fraudulent, stolen, unlawful, or unavailable inventory.
• Misrepresent identity, affiliation, ownership, qualifications, or a vessel's condition, history, specifications, or price.
• Harass others, send spam, scrape the service, harvest personal information, or use inquiries for unrelated solicitation.
• Upload malware, interfere with security or availability, evade access controls, probe systems without authorization, or use automated access in a way we have not approved.
• Copy, reverse engineer, resell, or exploit the service except as permitted by law or with our written authorization.
• Use Vessel Star for unlawful, harmful, or deceptive activity.

User content and licence

You retain ownership of content you submit. You grant Vessel Star a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, format, adapt for technical delivery, display, distribute, and promote that content as reasonably necessary to operate, secure, and market the service and your listing or profile. This licence lasts while the content is available through the service and for a reasonable period afterward for backups, legal records, and content already used in service promotion. You represent that you have all rights necessary to grant this licence.

Moderation and enforcement

We may review, refuse, limit, correct formatting, unpublish, or remove content and may restrict, suspend, or terminate accounts when we reasonably believe it is necessary to enforce these terms, protect users or the service, respond to legal obligations, or prevent harm. We are not obligated to pre-screen every listing or communication. Moderation does not amount to an endorsement or verification of a listing, business, user, or transaction.

Third-party services and links

The service may display or rely on third-party maps, videos, websites, authentication services, data, or other technology. Third-party terms and privacy practices may apply. Vessel Star does not control and is not responsible for third-party services, content, availability, or transactions.

Fees and taxes

Features that are currently free may become paid features. Before charging a new fee, we will disclose the applicable price and obtain any agreement required by law. Users are responsible for taxes, fees, and costs arising from their own listings, services, and transactions.

Intellectual property

Vessel Star and its licensors own the service, software, design, branding, and content supplied by us. These terms do not transfer ownership to you. Subject to these terms, we grant you a limited, revocable, non-transferable right to use the service for its intended marketplace purposes.

Disclaimers

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the service is provided “as is” and “as available.” Vessel Star does not guarantee uninterrupted availability or that listings, users, businesses, qualifications, locations, prices, AI output, or third-party content are accurate, complete, safe, or suitable. You use the service and transact with other users at your own risk. Nothing in these terms excludes a warranty or consumer right that cannot lawfully be excluded.

Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Vessel Star and its directors, officers, employees, contractors, and service providers will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, loss of profits or data, or losses arising from a transaction between users, unauthorized access, third-party conduct, or reliance on marketplace or AI-generated content. Any aggregate liability arising from the service will not exceed the greater of the amount you paid Vessel Star in the 12 months before the claim and CAD $100. These limits do not apply where prohibited by law.

Indemnity

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold Vessel Star harmless from third-party claims and reasonable costs arising from your content, your transaction or business activity, your breach of these terms, or your violation of another person's rights or applicable law.

Changes and termination

We may change or discontinue service features and may update these terms. We will post updated terms with a new effective date and give additional notice when required. Continued use after updated terms take effect constitutes acceptance to the extent permitted by law. You may stop using the service at any time. Provisions that by their nature should survive termination will survive.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada applicable there, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Subject to rights you cannot waive under applicable consumer law, the courts located in Ontario have exclusive jurisdiction over disputes relating to these terms or the service.

General terms

If a provision is unenforceable, it will be limited or removed only to the extent necessary and the remaining provisions will continue. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these terms without our consent; we may assign them as part of a reorganization, financing, merger, acquisition, or sale. These terms and any policies or additional terms expressly incorporated into them are the entire agreement concerning the service.

Contact us

Questions about these terms may be sent to hello@vesselstar.com.