The agreement for accessing and using the SPHERE™ social, creative, and learning community in the United Kingdom.
Effective and last reviewed: 17 August 2026
Please read these Terms carefully. By creating an account, paying an applicable verification or membership charge, or continuing to use SPHERE, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the service. Nothing in these Terms removes rights that UK consumer law does not allow a business to exclude.
1. Who provides SPHERE and what these Terms cover
SPHERE is provided by SPHERE Social Media Holdings LLC, a United States limited liability company (“SPHERE”, “we”, “us”, or “our”). The dedicated UK experience serves England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland through the same international platform and database used by the wider SPHERE community. The UK website is not presented as a separately incorporated UK company.
These Terms apply to the website, profiles, social features, messages, uploads, learning areas, OUDI experiences, business areas, events, podcasts, marketplace or advertising features, and other SPHERE services that link to them. Additional rules or transaction terms may apply to a particular feature and become part of this agreement when shown to you.
You must be at least 16 years old to create or use a SPHERE account.
You must provide accurate, current registration information and must not impersonate another person or organisation.
You may maintain only accounts you are authorised to control and must keep your password and sign-in information confidential.
You are responsible for activity performed through your account unless you promptly tell us that it has been compromised.
SPHERE may use reasonable age, identity, email, telephone, payment, or anti-fraud checks. A verification badge means that specified checks were completed; it is not an endorsement of a member or everything that member says.
Ages 16 and 17: SPHERE may apply additional safety settings, restrictions, or review measures to protect younger members. A parent or guardian should help a young person understand online safety, but must not misrepresent the young person's age or operate an account deceptively.
3. Verification charge, payments, and refunds
Where a one-time verification or membership charge applies, the exact amount, currency, taxes, and payment provider will be displayed before payment. The currently advertised charge may be US $5, and a UK customer's bank or PayPal may show a converted sterling amount or charge a currency-conversion fee. SPHERE will not charge a recurring subscription unless recurring terms are clearly presented and separately agreed.
PayPal or another payment provider may process the transaction under its own terms and privacy notice. SPHERE may receive the transaction status, amount, currency, payer details, or reference needed to activate or reconcile membership, but does not need to store full card or bank credentials.
A successful payment does not excuse fraud, false registration information, or breaches of these Terms. If activation fails, a payment is duplicated, or you believe a charge is incorrect, contact us promptly with the transaction reference.
UK consumer rights: Any statutory cancellation, refund, repair, repeat-performance, or price-reduction right that applies remains available. Different rules can apply depending on whether a purchase is treated as a service or digital content and whether performance began immediately at the consumer's request. Contact SPHERE so the circumstances can be reviewed; these Terms do not label every payment automatically non-refundable.
Subject to these Terms, SPHERE grants you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable permission to access and use the service for its intended social, learning, creative, or business purposes. You may not sell access, bypass security, scrape or harvest information, reverse engineer protected systems, introduce malicious code, automate activity without written permission, or use SPHERE in a way that interferes with others or the platform.
SPHERE and its licensors retain all rights in the platform, software, layout, databases, original materials, SPHERE™, OUDI branding, and other protected intellectual property. No ownership is transferred to you.
5. Member conduct and prohibited activity
You must use SPHERE lawfully and with respect. You must not create, upload, request, promote, organise, or distribute content or conduct involving:
child sexual abuse or exploitation, grooming, sexual contact with minors, or access by anyone under 16;
credible threats, incitement to violence, terrorism, trafficking, stalking, or instructions intended to cause serious harm;
non-consensual intimate content, sexual exploitation, or coercion;
bullying, targeted harassment, hateful abuse, or malicious exposure of private information;
fraud, impersonation, phishing, scams, deceptive commercial activity, or manipulation of platform systems;
illegal goods, unlawful services, malware, or infringement of copyright, trade marks, privacy, or other rights;
spam, artificial engagement, unauthorised advertising, or repetitive disruptive activity; or
anything else prohibited by applicable law or SPHERE's published safety and community rules.
Context matters, including legitimate education, news, documentary, artistic, or public-interest discussion, but context does not make illegal or exploitative material acceptable. Report concerns through Report a Concern. In an emergency, contact the appropriate emergency service rather than waiting for SPHERE.
6. Your content and permissions
You keep any ownership rights you have in content you create and upload. You are responsible for ensuring you have the rights, permissions, and lawful basis needed to post it.
To operate SPHERE, you grant SPHERE a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, format, transmit, display, and otherwise use your content only as reasonably needed to provide, secure, moderate, improve, and promote the SPHERE service in accordance with your settings and these Terms. This licence allows technical operations such as resizing an image, delivering a post to followers, backing up data, or showing content you chose to make public. It does not transfer ownership of your content to SPHERE.
The licence ends when the content is deleted from our systems, subject to reasonable technical backup periods, content shared by others, legal retention duties, dispute preservation, and safety or enforcement needs. Feedback or suggestions you voluntarily send may be used without an obligation to pay you, but we will not claim ownership of your unrelated inventions or creative works merely because you use SPHERE.
7. Other people, links, and business activity
Members and third parties are responsible for their own statements, offers, products, services, events, advertisements, and links. SPHERE does not automatically endorse, verify, or guarantee them. Use good judgement before sharing information, meeting someone, sending money, or entering a separate transaction.
Business users, advertisers, sellers, and creators must comply with all laws relevant to their activity, including advertising, intellectual-property, consumer, tax, and product requirements. Additional commercial terms may apply. External websites and payment services operate under their own terms.
8. Service operation and changes
We aim to provide SPHERE with reasonable care and skill. Online services nevertheless require maintenance and may experience faults, security events, capacity limits, or interruptions outside reasonable control. We may add, improve, replace, restrict, or retire features for legitimate operational, safety, legal, or business reasons. Where a change materially affects a paid consumer service, we will provide information or remedies as required by applicable law.
SPHERE does not promise that every feature will always be available, that member content is accurate, or that the service is suitable for every particular purpose not agreed with us. Nothing here excludes responsibility that cannot lawfully be excluded, including responsibility for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud, or breach of applicable statutory consumer rights.
9. Suspension, termination, and account closure
You may stop using SPHERE and request account closure by contacting us or using an available account-setting tool. Closure does not automatically reverse completed transactions, erase information that must lawfully be retained, or cancel obligations already incurred.
SPHERE may remove content or restrict, suspend, or close an account for a material or repeated breach, unlawful activity, significant safety or security risk, fraud, non-payment, or misuse of the service. Immediate action may be taken where reasonably necessary to prevent harm or protect the platform. Where appropriate and lawful, we may explain the reason or provide a route to ask for review.
Terms that by their nature must continue—including ownership, permissions needed for retained material, unpaid obligations, dispute provisions, and lawful limitations—survive account closure.
10. Responsibility and resolving problems
You are responsible for losses reasonably caused by your unlawful conduct or material breach of these Terms. SPHERE is responsible for loss or damage that is a foreseeable result of our breach or failure to use reasonable care and skill, subject to applicable law. We are not responsible for loss caused solely by another member, an independent third party, your own breach, or an event outside our reasonable control where we were not at fault.
Nothing in these Terms limits any mandatory protection available to a UK consumer. Before beginning formal proceedings, please contact us with a clear description and the outcome requested so we can try to resolve the matter. The laws and courts applicable to a dispute depend on the circumstances, including mandatory rights associated with where a UK consumer lives; these Terms do not require a consumer to surrender a court or legal protection that cannot lawfully be waived.
11. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms to reflect service, safety, business, or legal changes. We will update the effective date and, where required, give reasonable notice of a material change. Changes do not retrospectively remove rights already accrued. If you do not accept revised Terms, you should stop using SPHERE and request closure of your account.
If any provision is found unenforceable, it will be applied or adjusted only to the minimum extent permitted, and the remaining provisions continue. A delay in enforcing a provision is not a permanent waiver. These Terms and any clearly incorporated additional terms form the agreement concerning the service.
These public-facing Terms are intended to be clear and fair. They are not a claim of approval by the UK Government, CMA, Ofcom, ICO, or any other regulator. Because the service and law may change, SPHERE should obtain qualified legal review before taking UK payments at scale.