I'm having a problem with Yahoo, and it's photosharing website, Flickr and was wondering if I had any recourse under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations.

After two and a half years, Flickr decided without warning, to delete the account for which I pay approximately £15 per annum. Fair enough, on that occasion I had been pushing the boundaries a bit, so didn't complain. I knew that it was a risk I took.

I set up my reserve account as a paid for account, ensuring that this time, I was complying fully with their Terms of Service in regard to content, moderation etc.

Six days later, that account is also deleted, again without warning or redress. This time I have queried it, and have so far waited seven days for a response other than a holding "we have elevated your query to a senior representative".

The problem is that Flickr have a clause in their contract which states:

Flickr expressly reserves the right to immediately modify, delete content from, suspend or terminate your account and refuse current or future use of any Yahoo! service, including Flickr pro, if Flickr, in its sole discretion believes you have: (i) violated or tried to violate the rights of others; or (ii) acted inconsistently with the spirit or letter of the TOS, the Community Guidelines or these Additional Terms. In such event, your Flickr pro account may be suspended or cancelled immediately in our discretion, all the information and content contained within it deleted permanently and you will not be entitled to any refund of any of the amounts you’ve paid for such account. Flickr accepts no liability for information or content that is deleted.

In other words, even if they think you tried to violate their terms, without actually doing do, they can delete you, and any deletion is a at their sole discretion without recourse. The other problem is that they will not provide any hard and fast guidelines as to what content they consider within their ToS, nor how it should be moderated. It is up to the individual to guess, and hope that they don't see fit to take offence.

Looking at the UTCCR, the following key phrase comes to mind, regarding this clause.

“A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated shall be regarded as unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties’ rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer."

Does anyone else think that the clause in Flickr's ToS contravenes the UTCCR, and if so, do I have any recourse, considering Yahoo's global nature?