I'm creating a project in Firebase and it's asking me to confirm this statement:
☐ I confirm that I will use Firebase exclusively for purposes relating to my trade, business, craft, or profession
What does it mean? What am I not allowed to do?
I can only think of using Firebase for someone else's business, disallowing companies to make use of Firebase without a license.
This distinguishes you as a business user as opposed to a consumer. The specific wording comes from EU consumer rights law.
Consumers - ordinary members of the public who buy products and services - have certain legal rights that businesses don't. The theory is that what's going on when you buy a TV for your house is different from what's going on when you buy 1000 TVs for your hotel chain. The appropriate remedies and processes if you're dissatisfied are different. By asking you to identify yourself as not a consumer, the idea is that you wouldn't be able to use consumer rights law in the event you find Google's services to be defective, too expensive, not matching the advertising, etc.
In the UK's transposition of EU law, the onus is on the trader (Google) to prove that you are not a consumer, in any legal proceedings. If they can point to you ticking a box saying that you are not a consumer, the argument is much easier for them to make.
EU legislation using this phrase, or nearly, includes -
Council Directive 93/13/EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts, Article 2
‘consumer’ means any natural person who, in contracts covered by this Directive, is acting for purposes which are outside his trade, business or profession;
‘seller or supplier’ means any natural or legal person who, in contracts covered by this Directive, is acting for purposes relating to his trade, business or profession, whether publicly owned or privately owned.
‘consumer’ means a natural person who, in transactions covered by this Directive, is acting for purposes which can be regarded as outside his trade or profession;
‘trader’ means a natural or legal person who, for the transaction in question, acts in his commercial or professional capacity, and anyone acting in the name or on behalf of a trader.
Directive 2011/83/EU on consumer rights, the main current directive on this topic, Article 2
‘consumer’ means any natural person who, in contracts covered by this Directive, is acting for purposes which are outside his trade, business, craft or profession;
‘trader’ means any natural person or any legal person, irrespective of whether privately or publicly owned, who is acting, including through any other person acting in his name or on his behalf, for purposes relating to his trade, business, craft or profession in relation to contracts covered by this Directive
Directive 2019/770 of 20 May 2019 on certain aspects concerning contracts for the supply of digital content and digital services, specially relevant to the Google service, makes the same definitions as in the Directive of 2011.
National legislation implementing these directives uses the same phrases in English. For example:
