Terms

Terms of service

The agreement between your organisation and Conference Desk. It covers the free Starter plan and paid plans, and includes the data processing agreement in Schedule 1.

Last reviewed 27 October 2026. In force from 27 October 2026.

1. Who we are

1.1 Conference Desk is a trading name of Dr Turan Mutallimov, sole trader, 53 Linksfield Gardens, Aberdeen AB24 5PF (“we”, “us”). Our contact details are on the Legal and company details page.

1.2 These terms are between us and the organisation you act for (“you”), such as a university, department, learned society, company or professional conference organiser. They apply from the moment you tick the box at sign-up or sign an order form.

2. Who can use Conference Desk

2.1 Conference Desk is a service for organisations, not for consumers. By creating an account or a conference you confirm that you are 18 or over, that you act for the organisation you name, and that you have its authority to accept these terms for it.

2.2 Delegates, authors, reviewers and committee members you invite use Conference Desk as part of your conference. You are responsible for their use of it under your account as if it were your own, but these terms do not make them liable to us.

3. Accounts and security

3.1 Give accurate details when you sign up, including your organisation’s name, and keep them up to date.

3.2 Each person has their own sign-in. Do not share sign-ins, and give committee roles only to people who need them. You decide who joins your committee and what each person can see.

3.3 Tell us at [email protected] straight away if you think someone has used an account without permission.

4. The Starter plan

4.1 Starter is free. Each Starter conference edition includes up to 150 delegates and 50 submissions, and committee review, decisions and votes. Your organisation can run one live Starter edition a year. Drafts and test editions are unlimited.

4.2 A delegate is a person registered for the edition. A submission is an abstract or paper that has been submitted; drafts an author has not yet sent do not count, and nor do withdrawn submissions.

4.3 The limits are soft. When an edition reaches a limit, new registrations or new submissions pause until you move to a paid plan or the limit is otherwise lifted. Nothing already in is ever locked: everyone keeps access to what they have, and you can still review, decide, export and run the conference.

4.4 Starter is provided as it is, without any promise about availability or support response times, although we take the same care over it as over paid plans.

4.5 We may change what Starter includes, or stop offering it, by giving you at least 30 days’ notice by email. A change never removes access to data already in an edition, and you can always export it.

5. Paid plans

5.1 Paid plans are sold by quote. When you accept a quote, we send an order form setting out the plan, the edition or period it covers, the price and the payment terms. The order form and these terms together are the contract for that plan.

5.2 We invoice when the order form is signed, unless it says otherwise. Invoices are payable within 30 days by bank transfer, and we can quote a purchase order number on them. We may charge interest and compensation on late payments under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998.

5.3 We are not VAT registered, so no VAT is charged. If that changes, we will tell you at least 30 days before VAT is added to any invoice.

5.4 We never take a share of ticket income. If a plan includes delegate payments, the payment provider’s own fees apply as set out in the order form.

5.5 If an invoice is overdue, we will contact you and agree a way forward. We never lock you, your committee, authors or reviewers out of a conference in progress over a bill.

6. Going public

6.1 A new conference starts as a draft. Drafts are private: only the committee you invite can see them, and search engines cannot.

6.2 Before anything goes public, including the hosted conference page at conferencedesk.app/c/ and listing in the app, you request a review and we check the conference. We look at whether it appears to be genuine and to be run by the organisation named. We may ask for evidence, such as an email from the organisation’s own domain.

6.3 We may refuse to publish a conference, or ask for changes, if we are not satisfied it meets these terms. We will tell you why unless that would help someone cause harm.

6.4 Our approval is a check against abuse, not an endorsement. You remain responsible for your conference, its content and how it is run.

7. Acceptable use

7.1 You must not use Conference Desk, or let anyone use it, to:

• phish, or collect passwords, sign-in details or other credentials;
• impersonate a person, conference, society, university or company, or suggest a connection that does not exist;
• run a fake conference, or a predatory one that takes fees or papers without the editorial review, programme or event it promises;
• collect card or bank details on a conference page or in any field we provide for other purposes;
• add HTML, scripts, tracking code or embedded content to pages, or try to get round the limits on what pages can show;
• send spam or unsolicited marketing, or email people without a lawful basis;
• upload anything unlawful, defamatory, infringing, or harmful to others, or malware;
• test, probe or overload the service, or get round its security or plan limits, except through a security report agreed with us.

7.2 Conference Desk sends email only from its own templates, and only once a conference has been approved, apart from committee invitations and sign-in emails. You are responsible for having a lawful basis for the people you invite and for following the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations when you contact them.

7.3 You are responsible for your conference itself: its content, fees, refunds to delegates, venue, safety and accessibility, and any letters or certificates you issue.

8. Suspension

8.1 We may suspend a conference or an account immediately, without notice, if we reasonably believe it is being used for phishing, fraud, impersonation or another serious breach of section 7, or if we must do so by law. A suspended conference goes back to draft and its public page and app listing are switched off.

8.2 For other breaches, we will first tell you what is wrong and give you a reasonable time to put it right.

8.3 We will tell you why we suspended you unless that would help someone cause harm or the law prevents it, and lift the suspension once the problem is resolved. Unless the suspension is for fraud or a similar serious abuse, you can still export your data while suspended.

9. Your data and content

9.1 Your conference’s data and content belong to you or the people who supplied them. You give us a licence to host, copy, display and process them only as needed to run Conference Desk for you and to keep it secure.

9.2 When we process personal data in your conference, we do so as your processor under the data processing agreement in Schedule 1. For account and sign-in data we are a controller, as the privacy notice explains.

9.3 You can export your data at any time, in spreadsheet files, and that does not depend on your plan or on any bill.

9.4 We may use counts and statistics about how Conference Desk is used, provided they cannot identify you, your conference or any person. If you send us ideas or feedback, we may use them freely.

9.5 We own Conference Desk itself, including its software, design and name. These terms give you a right to use it, not ownership of it.

10. The service

10.1 We will provide Conference Desk with reasonable skill and care. We do not promise it will be free of errors or always available, and planned maintenance will avoid the days of your conference where we can.

10.2 We improve Conference Desk all the time. We may change features, but we will not remove a core feature you rely on during an edition you have paid for.

10.3 Features marked as a preview or beta are offered as they are and may change or stop.

11. Confidentiality

11.1 Each of us will keep the other’s confidential information confidential and use it only for this agreement. That includes your unpublished submissions, reviews and committee discussions. This does not apply to information that is public, already known, or that must be disclosed by law.

12. Liability

12.1 Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot be limited or excluded by law.

12.2 Subject to 12.1, neither of us is liable for loss of profit, revenue or conference income, loss of goodwill, or any indirect or consequential loss.

12.3 Subject to 12.1, each party’s total liability under or in connection with these terms in any 12 months is limited to the greater of £100 and the fees you paid or must pay us for the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.

12.4 You will compensate us for claims by third parties arising from content you or your committee put into Conference Desk, or from personal data you had no right to give us, within the same limits.

13. Ending the agreement

13.1 You can close your account at any time from the dashboard or by emailing us. Fees already paid for an edition are not refunded unless the order form says so.

13.2 We can end a Starter account with 30 days’ notice. Either of us can end the agreement at once if the other seriously breaches it and does not put the breach right within 14 days of being asked, or becomes insolvent. A paid plan otherwise runs for the term in its order form.

13.3 When the agreement ends, you have 30 days to export your data. We then delete it as set out in Schedule 1. Sections 9, 11, 12, 16 and 17, and Schedule 1 for as long as we hold conference data, continue after the agreement ends.

14. Transfer to a company

14.1 We intend to run Conference Desk through a limited company. You agree that we may transfer this agreement, including the data processing agreement and any order form, to a company that Dr Turan Mutallimov controls. The company will then take over all our rights and duties to you, and you will not need to sign anything new.

14.2 We will email you at least 30 days before the transfer with the company’s name, number and registered address. If you object, you can end the agreement and export your data before the transfer.

14.3 You may not transfer this agreement without our written agreement, which we will not unreasonably refuse.

15. Changes to these terms

15.1 We may update these terms. For a change that affects you materially, we will email the account holder at least 30 days before it takes effect. A change does not alter the price or plan in an order form already signed.

15.2 If you do not accept a change, you can close your account before it takes effect.

16. General

16.1 If there is a conflict, the order form comes first, then Schedule 1 for anything about personal data, then the rest of these terms.

16.2 These terms, Schedule 1 and any order form are the whole agreement between us about Conference Desk. Your own purchase order terms do not apply unless we agree in writing.

16.3 Neither of us is liable for delay caused by events beyond reasonable control, but we will each do what we reasonably can to limit the effect.

16.4 Notices under these terms may be sent by email: to you at the account holder’s address, and to us at [email protected].

16.5 Nobody other than you and us has any right to enforce these terms under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

16.6 If a court finds part of these terms invalid, the rest continues to apply.

17. Law and courts

17.1 These terms and any dispute about them are governed by the law of England and Wales. The courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.

17.2 Before going to court, please email us so that we can try to settle the matter between us.