Access to website dilemma. Where do we stand?

[Lucan Unlordly]

On another thread I've outlined the details of a trade mark dispute with a company that is attempting to challenge our market dominance and am posting here in Legal for some direction regarding a particular issue.

We offer an online service to Sports and Community organisations that allows them to quickly retrieve information that would otherwise require substantial time and effort to secure. The person who runs one of our member clubs is named and being thanked for his contribution in assisting a competitor in the development of a product that seeks to compete with ours. (I can confirm his identity from statements made, screen shots and associated phone numbers).

Continued access to our product by this individual and his club potentially threatens the password protected access to our member list and if not compromised already, the mechanics and copyright aspects of our site.

I can determine that this new product intends to replicate aspects of ours and have taken interim action to prevent the individuals club accessing our site on the basis that misuse for commercial purposes is not allowed. I cannot as of yet prove if this is the case but feel it necessary to prevent access at this stage. Is this considered reasonable in the circumstances?

 

[eteb3]

What is the basis of the relationship? You call them “member clubs”. Are they members of a company you run that is limited by guarantee? “Member” meaning subscriber, like a gym “membership”? Members in some other sense?

Then: what legal form do the “members” have? If theyre incorporated then presumably it’s the body corporate that you have the relationship with, likely a company limited by guarantee. If the clubs are unincorporated then maybe the relationship is with the club as a whole, but that depends on that club’s own rules; more likely the relationship is with a director or trustee of the club personally - at least as far as you’re concerned.

Then: what are the terms governing the relationship, whether that’s the membership contract or the subscription contract? Does it cover this scenario? Normally there would be no duty by a member to your outfit beyond paying the fee, unless this is provided for.

Suspending access may put you in breach of contract, but the worst they could do is sue you pro rata for the subs they wasted.

Longer term, you need to look at any provisions in the contracts that may help you. If none, you could make an argument that good faith use of the product is an implied term. Likelihood of success will depend on all the circumstances.

Last thing is to check that you have any relationship at all with the “person who runs one of our member clubs”. If, eg, he is a director of a corporate body, you would have to sue that corporate body for allowing its agent to breach the contract .

 

[eteb3]

PS or you could try arguing the product is self-evidently confidential info, which would put “member clubs” under a common law duty of confidentiality, even without a contract

PPS are you sure you can’t “prove” what you need to? Standard is only balance of probabilities, and you’ve convinced me!

 

[Lucan Unlordly]

PS or you could try arguing the product is self-evidently confidential info, which would put “member clubs” under a common law duty of confidentiality, even without a contract

PPS are you sure you can’t “prove” what you need to? Standard is only balance of probabilities, and you’ve convinced me!

To clarify.......

Member clubs can mean an individual who runs sessions out of a rented community hall, secures their own premises or ties up with a regular gym or social hub to create a club on their premises. The majority are volunteer led, not for profit set ups. Subscription to our service assists them when putting on events. The information we provide makes it easier for them to engage with each other.

 

[fisicx]

Block their access saying there is a potential data breach saying you have evidence of proprietary information appearing on another website that can only have been obtained if they had illegal access.

Also say you will be reporting the breach to the ICO.

 

[Ozzy]

For what it's worth, we have in our terms of use that our users (customers) are bound by confidentiality and cannot use access to our product to support creating a conflicting product. You find your existing term may have something similar, if they were drafted by a solicitor as it's a pretty standard clause.
Then you have balance of probability as @eteb3 states. I'd suspend access, and if it was of real commercial value, I'd seek an injunction to stop any shared knowledge and data being used by the third part - making it illegal for them to use any of the knowledge and know-how shared by this person.

 

[ctrlbrk]

we have in our terms of use that our users (customers) are bound by confidentiality and cannot use access to our product to support creating a conflicting product.

What if I were to redirect UKBF users to a competing service. Would I be in breach of the following (found in UKBF Terms)?

including but not limited to access or use ofthe Website, Services, Materials or any of the content for any commercial purpose or for any purpose which competes with our business

 

[eteb3]

if I were to redirect UKBF users to a competing service Would I be in breach of the following (found in UKBF Terms)?

Not on the basis of what you quoted, but I would say that’s covered by the whole paragraph:

3.1.
The Services and any content viewed through the Website is provided to you by UKBF solely for your personal and non-commercial use within your business. This means that you may not permit, assist or enable another person to access, copy, reproduce, publish, transmit, distribute, perform, display, post, modify, create derivative works from, sell, license, allow others to copy, or otherwise exploit the Website or Services or any of the Materials or content, including but not limited to access or use of the Website, Services, Materials or any of the content for any commercial purpose or for any purpose which competes with our business.

Alternatively, there may be a common law action for passing off

Edit: depending on how exactly the redirect is working

 

[eteb3]

PS @Ozzy, albeit its probably safely implied, by the strict letter of those terms what’s prohibited is assisting others to do <bad things>. The person bound by the terms is not him/herself prohibited from doing <bad things>

 

[Ozzy]

What if I were to redirect UKBF users to a competing service. Would I be in breach of the following (found in UKBF Terms)?

@eteb3 is correct with regards to UKBF, but I was actually talking about my core business and the online platform we have built and supply. Business Data Group and our eFiling product.

UKBF is a pet sideline of mine, it's not my business I draw from. A TLDR story, after our price comparison venture failed with UKBF a couple of years back, my investors gave the instruction to pull the plug on UKBF and all associated assets, so I bought it from the business to keep it live. So today I self-fund it so it doesn't disappear.