PLEDGIE.COM TERMS OF USE
1. ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS
pledgie.com provides a collection of online campaigns, comment forums, and
messaging systems (referred to hereafter as "the Service") subject to the
following Terms of Use ("TOU"). By using the Service in any way, you are
agreeing to comply with the TOU. In addition, when using particular pledgie.com
services, you agree to abide by any applicable posted guidelines for all
pledgie.com services, which may change from time to time. Should you object to
any term or condition of the TOU, any guidelines, or any subsequent
modifications thereto or become dissatisfied with pledgie.com in any way, your
only recourse is to immediately discontinue use of pledgie.com.
2. CHANGES TO THIS AGREEMENT
We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to change, modify or otherwise
alter these terms and conditions at any time. Such modifications shall become
effective immediately upon the posting thereof. You must review this agreement
on a regular basis to keep yourself apprised of any changes. You can find the
most recent version of the TOU at:
http://www.pledgie.com.org/site/terms_of_use
3. CONTENT
You understand that all campaigns, messages, text, files, images, photos,
video, sounds, or other materials ("Content") posted on, transmitted
through, or linked from the Service, are the sole responsibility of the
person from whom such Content originated. More specifically, you are
entirely responsible for each individual item ("Item") of Content that you
post, email or otherwise make available via the Service. You understand that
pledgie.com does not control, and is not responsible for Content made available
through the Service, and that by using the Service, you may be exposed to
Content that is offensive, indecent, inaccurate, misleading, or otherwise
objectionable. Furthermore, the pledgie.com site and Content available through
the Service may contain links to other websites, which are completely
independent of pledgie.com. pledgie.com makes no representation or warranty as
to the accuracy, completeness or authenticity of the information contained
in any such site. Your linking to any other websites is at your own risk.
You agree that you must evaluate, and bear all risks associated with, the
use of any Content, that you may not rely on said Content, and that under no
circumstances will pledgie.com be liable in any way for any Content or for
any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any Content
posted, emailed or otherwise made available via the Service. You acknowledge
that pledgie.com does not pre-screen or approve Content, but that pledgie.com
shall have the right (but not the obligation) in its sole discretion to
refuse, delete or move any Content that is available via the Service, for
violating the letter or spirit of the TOU or for any other reason.
4. NON AFFILIATED CONTENT, SITES, AND SERVICES
The pledgie.com site and Content available through the Service may contain
features and functionalities that may link you or provide you with access
to third party content which is completely independent of pledgie.com,
including web sites, directories, servers, networks, systems, information
and databases, applications, software, programs, products or services,
and the Internet as a whole.
Your interactions with organizations and/or individuals found on or through
the Service, including payment and delivery of goods or services, and any
other terms, conditions, warranties or representations associated with such
dealings, are solely between you and such organizations and/or individuals.
You should make whatever investigation you feel necessary or appropriate
before proceeding with any online or offline transaction with any of these
third parties.
You agree that pledgie.com shall not be responsible or liable for any loss or
damage of any sort incurred as the result of any such dealings. If there is
a dispute between participants on this site, or between users and any third
party, you understand and agree that pledgie.com is under no obligation to
become involved. In the event that you have a dispute with one or more other
users, you hereby release pledgie.com, its officers, employees, agents and
successors in rights from claims, demands and damages (actual and
consequential) of every kind or nature, known or unknown, suspected and
unsuspected, disclosed and undisclosed, arising out of or in any way related
to such disputes and / or our service. If you are a California resident, you
waive California Civil Code Section 1542, which says: "A general release does
not extend to claims which the creditor does not know or suspect to exist in
his favor at the time of executing the release, which, if known by him must
have materially affected his settlement with the debtor."
5. INFRINGEMENT NOTIFICATIONS
If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes
copyright infringement, or your intellectual property rights have been
otherwise violated, please notify pledgie.com's agent for notice of claims of
copyright or other intellectual property infringement ("Agent"), at
abuse@pledgie.com
or:
Copyright Agent
pledgie.com
6353 Roe Ave.
Prairie Village KS, 66208
Please provide our Agent with the following Notice:
a) Identify the material on the pledgie.com site that you claim is
infringing, with enough detail so that we may locate it on the website;
b) A statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed
use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law;
c) A statement by you declaring under penalty of perjury that (1) the above
information in your Notice is accurate, and (2) that you are the owner of
the copyright interest involved or that you are authorized to act on behalf
of that owner;
d) Your address, telephone number, and email address; and
e) Your physical or electronic signature.
pledgie.com will remove the infringing posting(s), subject to the the procedures
outlined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
6. PRIVACY POLICY
You acknowledge and agree that pledgie.com may, in its sole discretion, preserve
or disclose your Content, as well as your information, such as email addresses,
IP addresses, time-stamps, and other user information, if required to do so by
law or in the good faith belief that such preservation or disclosure is reasonably
necessary to: comply with legal process; enforce the TOU; respond to claims that
any Content violates the rights of third-parties; respond to claims that contact
information (e.g. phone number, street address) of a third-party has been
posted or transmitted without their consent or as a form of harassment;
protect the rights, property, or personal safety of pledgie.com, its users or
the general public.
7. ACCEPTABLE CONTENT
You agree not to post, email, or otherwise make available Content:
a) that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory,
libelous, invasive of another's privacy, or is harmful to minors in any way;
b) that is pornographic or depicts a human being engaged in actual sexual conduct
including but not limited to (i) sexual intercourse, including genital-genital,
oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or
opposite sex, or (ii) bestiality, or (iii) masturbation, or (iv) sadistic or
masochistic abuse, or (v) lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area
of any person;
c) that harasses, degrades, intimidates or is hateful toward an individual or
group of individuals on the basis of religion, gender, sexual orientation,
race, ethnicity, age, or disability;
d) that impersonates any person or entity, including, but not limited to, a
pledgie.com employee, or falsely states or otherwise misrepresents your
affiliation with a person or entity (this provision does not apply to Content
that constitutes lawful non-deceptive parody of public figures.);
e) that includes personal or identifying information about another person
without that person's explicit consent;
f) that is false, deceptive, misleading, deceitful, misinformative, or
constitutes "bait and switch";
g) that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other
proprietary rights of any party, or Content that you do not have a right to
make available under any law or under contractual or fiduciary
relationships;
h) that constitutes or contains "affiliate marketing," "link referral code,"
"junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes," or unsolicited
commercial advertisement;
i) that constitutes or contains any form of advertising or solicitation if:
posted in areas of the pledgie.com sites which are not designated for such
purposes; or emailed to pledgie.com users who have not indicated in writing that
it is ok to contact them about other services, products or commercial interests.
j) that includes links to commercial services or web sites, except as allowed
in "services";
k) that advertises any illegal service or the sale of any items the sale of
which is prohibited or restricted by any applicable law, including without
limitation items the sale of which is prohibited or regulated by California
law.
l) that contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or
programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any
computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment;
m) that disrupts the normal flow of dialogue with an excessive amount of
Content (flooding attack) to the Service, or that otherwise negatively
affects other users' ability to use the Service; or
n) that employs misleading email addresses, or forged headers or otherwise
manipulated identifiers in order to disguise the origin of Content
transmitted through the Service.
Additionally, you agree not to:
o) contact anyone who has asked not to be contacted;
p) "stalk" or otherwise harass anyone;
q) collect personal data about other users for commercial or unlawful
purposes;
r) use automated means, including spiders, robots, crawlers, data mining
tools, or the like to download data from the Service - unless expressly
permitted by pledgie.com;
s) post non-local or otherwise irrelevant Content, repeatedly post the
same or similar Content or otherwise impose an unreasonable or
disproportionately large load on our infrastructure;
t) post the same item or service in more than one classified category or
forum, or in more than one metropolitan area;
u) attempt to gain unauthorized access to pledgie.com's computer systems or
engage in any activity that disrupts, diminishes the quality of, interferes
with the performance of, or impairs the functionality of, the Service or the
pledgie.com website; or
v) use any form of automated device or computer program that enables the
submission of postings on pledgie.com without each posting being manually
entered by the author thereof (an "automated posting device"), including
without limitation, the use of any such automated posting device to submit
postings in bulk, or for automatic submission of postings at regular intervals.
8. NO SPAM POLICY
You understand and agree that sending unsolicited email advertisements to
pledgie.com email addresses or through pledgie.com computer systems, which is
expressly prohibited by these TOU, will use or cause to be used servers
located in California. Any unauthorized use of pledgie.com computer systems
is a violation of the TOU and certain federal and state laws, including
without limitation the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030 et
seq.), Section 502 of the California Penal Code and Section 17538.45 of the
California Business and Professions Code. Such violations may subject the
sender and his or her agents to civil and criminal penalties.
9. PAID POSTINGS
We may charge a fee to post Content in some areas of the Service. The fee
is an access fee permitting Content to be posted in a designated area.
Each party posting Content to the Service is responsible for said Content
and compliance with the TOU. All fees paid will be non-refundable in the
event that Content is removed from the Service for violating the TOU.
10. SERVICE LIMITATIONS
You acknowledge that pledgie.com may establish limits concerning use of the
Service, including the maximum number of days that Content will be retained
by the Service, the maximum number and size of postings, email messages, or
other Content that may be transmitted or stored by the Service, and the
frequency with which you may access the Service. You agree that pledgie.com
has no responsibility or liability for the deletion or failure to store any
Content maintained or transmitted by the Service. You acknowledge that
pledgie.com reserves the right at any time to modify or discontinue the
Service (or any part thereof) with or without notice, and that pledgie.com
shall not be liable to you or to any third party for any modification,
suspension or discontinuance of the Service.
11. SERVICE ACCESS
pledgie.com grants you a limited, revocable, nonexclusive license to access
the Service for your own personal use. This license does not include:
(a) access to the Service by Posting Agents; or (b) any collection,
aggregation, copying, duplication, display or derivative use of the Service
nor any use of data mining, robots, spiders, or similar data gathering and
extraction tools for any purpose unless expressly permitted by pledgie.com.
A limited exception to (b) is provided to general purpose internet search
engines and non-commercial public archives that use such tools to gather
information for the sole purpose of displaying hyperlinks to the Service,
provided they each do so from a stable IP address or range of IP addresses
using an easily identifiable agent and comply with our robots.txt file.
"General purpose internet search engine" does not include a website or
search engine or other service that specializes in classified listings
or in any subset of classifieds listings such as jobs, housing, for sale,
services, or personals, or which is in the business of providing classified
ad listing services.
pledgie.com permits you to display on your website, or create a hyperlink
on your website to, individual postings on the Service so long as such use
is for noncommercial and/or news reporting purposes only (e.g., for use in
personal web blogs or personal online media). If the total number of such
postings displayed or linked to on your website exceeds one hundred (100)
postings, your use will be presumed to be in violation of the TOU,
absent express permission granted by pledgie.com to do so. You may also
create a hyperlink to the home page of pledgie.com sites so long as the
link does not portray pledgie.com, its employees, or its affiliates in a
false, misleading, derogatory, or otherwise offensive matter.
pledgie.com offers various parts of the Service in RSS format so that users
can embed individual feeds into a personal website or blog, or view postings
through third party software news aggregators. pledgie.com permits you to
display, excerpt from, and link to the RSS feeds on your personal website
or personal web blog, provided that (a) your use of the RSS feed is for
personal, non-commercial purposes only, (b) each title is correctly linked
back to the original post on the Service and redirects the user to the
post when the user clicks on it, (c) you provide, adjacent to the RSS
feed, proper attribution to 'pledgie.com' as the source, (d) your use or
display does not suggest that pledgie.com promotes or endorses any third
party causes, ideas, web sites, products or services, (e) you do not
redistribute the RSS feed, and (f) your use does not overburden
pledgie.com's systems. pledgie.com reserves all rights in the content of
the RSS feeds and may terminate any RSS feed at any time.
Use of the Service beyond the scope of authorized access granted to you by
pledgie.com immediately terminates said permission or license. In order to
collect, aggregate, copy, duplicate, display or make derivative use of the
the Service or any Content made available via the Service for other
purposes (including commercial purposes) not stated herein, you must first
obtain a license from pledgie.com.
12. SERVICE TERMINATION
You agree that pledgie.com, in its sole discretion, has the right (but not
the obligation) to delete or deactivate your account, block your email or IP
address, or otherwise terminate your access to or use of the Service (or any
part thereof), immediately and without notice, and remove and discard any
Content within the Service, for any reason, including, without limitation,
if pledgie.com believes that you have acted inconsistently with the letter or
spirit of the TOU. Further, you agree that pledgie.com shall not be liable
to you or any third-party for any termination of your access to the Service.
Further, you agree not to attempt to use the Service after said termination.
Sections 2, 4, 6 and 12-18 shall survive termination of the TOU.
13. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES
YOU AGREE THAT USE OF THE Pledgie.Com SITE AND THE SERVICE IS ENTIRELY AT YOUR
OWN RISK. THE Pledgie.Com SITE AND THE SERVICE ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" OR
"AS AVAILABLE" BASIS, WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND. ALL EXPRESS AND
IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT OF
PROPRIETARY RIGHTS ARE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY
LAW. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, Pledgie.Com DISCLAIMS ANY
WARRANTIES FOR THE SECURITY, RELIABILITY, TIMELINESS, ACCURACY, AND PERFORMANCE
OF THE Pledgie.Com SITE AND THE SERVICE. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY
LAW, Pledgie.Com DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTIES FOR OTHER SERVICES OR GOODS RECEIVED
THROUGH OR ADVERTISED ON THE Pledgie.Com SITE OR THE SITES OR SERVICE, OR
ACCESSED THROUGH ANY LINKS ON THE Pledgie.Com SITE. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT
PERMITTED BY LAW, Pledgie.Com DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTIES FOR VIRUSES OR OTHER
HARMFUL COMPONENTS IN CONNECTION WITH THE Pledgie.Com SITE OR THE SERVICE.
Some jurisdictions do not allow the disclaimer of implied warranties. In such
jurisdictions, some of the foregoing disclaimers may not apply to you insofar
as they relate to implied warranties.
14. LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHALL Pledgie.Com BE LIABLE FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT,
INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES (EVEN IF Pledgie.Com
HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES), RESULTING FROM ANY ASPECT
OF YOUR USE OF THE Pledgie.Com SITE OR THE SERVICE, WHETHER THE DAMAGES ARISE
FROM USE OR MISUSE OF THE Pledgie.Com SITE OR THE SERVICE, FROM INABILITY TO
USE THE Pledgie.Com SITE OR THE SERVICE, OR THE INTERRUPTION, SUSPENSION,
MODIFICATION, ALTERATION, OR TERMINATION OF THE Pledgie.Com SITE OR THE SERVICE.
SUCH LIMITATION SHALL ALSO APPLY WITH RESPECT TO DAMAGES INCURRED BY REASON OF
OTHER SERVICES OR PRODUCTS RECEIVED THROUGH OR ADVERTISED IN CONNECTION WITH THE
Pledgie.Com SITE OR THE SERVICE OR ANY LINKS ON THE Pledgie.Com SITE, AS WELL
AS BY REASON OF ANY INFORMATION OR ADVICE RECEIVED THROUGH OR ADVERTISED IN
CONNECTION WITH THE Pledgie.Com SITE OR THE SERVICE OR ANY LINKS ON THE
Pledgie.Com SITE. THESE LIMITATIONS SHALL APPLY TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED
BY LAW. In some jurisdictions, limitations of liability are not permitted.
In such jurisdictions, some of the foregoing limitation may not apply to you.
15. INDEMNITY
You agree to indemnify and hold pledgie.com, its officers, subsidiaries,
affiliates, successors, assigns, directors, officers, agents, service providers,
suppliers and employees, harmless from any claim or demand, including
reasonable attorney fees and court costs, made by any third party due to or
arising out of Content you submit, post or make available through the Service,
your use of the Service, your violation of the TOU, your breach of any of the
representations and warranties herein, or your violation of any rights of
another.
16. GENERAL INFORMATION
The TOU constitute the entire agreement between you and pledgie.com and govern
your use of the Service, superseding any prior agreements between you and
pledgie.com. The TOU and the relationship between you and pledgie.com shall be
governed by the laws of the State of California without regard to its conflict
of law provisions. You and pledgie.com agree to submit to the personal and
exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located within the county of Los Angeles,
California. The failure of pledgie.com to exercise or enforce any right or
provision of the TOU shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision.
If any provision of the TOU is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be
invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavor to give
effect to the parties' intentions as reflected in the provision, and the other
provisions of the TOU remain in full force and effect. You agree that regardless
of any statute or law to the contrary, any claim or cause of action arising out
of or related to use of the Service or the TOU must be filed within one (1) year
after such claim or cause of action arose or be forever barred.
17. LIQUIDATED DAMAGES AND VIOLATION OF TERMS
Please report any violations of the TOU, by flagging the posting(s) for
review, or by emailing to:
abuse@pledgie.com
Our failure to act with respect to a breach by you or others does not waive our
right to act with respect to subsequent or similar breaches.
You understand and agree that, because damages are often difficult to quantify,
if it becomes necessary for pledgie.com to pursue legal action to enforce the
TOU, you will be liable to pay pledgie.com the following amounts as liquidated
damages, which you accept as reasonable estimates of pledgie.coms' damages for
the specified breaches of the TOU:
a. If you post a message that (1) impersonates any person or entity; (2)
falsely states or otherwise misrepresents your affiliation with a person or
entity; or (3) that includes personal or identifying information about
another person without that person's explicit consent, you agree to pay
pledgie.com one thousand dollars ($1,000) for each such message.
This provision does not apply to messages that are lawful non-deceptive
parodies of public figures.
b. If pledgie.com establishes limits on the frequency with which you may
access the Service, or terminates your access to or use of the Service, you
agree to pay pledgie.com one hundred dollars ($100) for each message posted
in excess of such limits or for each day on which you access pledgie.com in
excess of such limits, whichever is higher.
c. If you send unsolicited email advertisements to pledgie.com email addresses
or through pledgie.com computer systems, you agree to pay pledgie.com twenty
five dollars ($25) for each such email.
d. If you post Content in violation of the TOU, other than as described above,
you agree to pay pledgie.com one hundred dollars ($100) for each Item of Content
posted. In its sole discretion, pledgie.com may elect to issue a warning before
assessing damages.
e. If you aggregate, display, copy, duplicate, reproduce, or otherwise exploit
for any purpose any Content (except for your own Content) in violation of the
TOU without pledgie.com's express written permission, you agree to pay
pledgie.com three thousand dollars ($3,000) for each day on which you engage in
such conduct.
Otherwise, you agree to pay pledgie.com's actual damages, to the extent such
actual damages can be reasonably calculated. Notwithstanding any other
provision of the TOU, pledgie.com retains the right to seek the remedy of
specific performance of any term contained in the TOU, or a preliminary or
permanent injunction against the breach of any such term or in aid of the
exercise of any power granted in the TOU, or any combination thereof.
18. Prohibited Use of Paypal
You may not use the PayPal service for activities that:
1. violate any law, statute, ordinance or regulation
2. relate to sales of (a) narcotics, steroids, certain controlled substances or
other products that present a risk to consumer safety, (b) drug paraphernalia,
(c) items that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal
activity, (d) items that promote hate, violence, racial intolerance, or the financial
exploitation of a crime, (e) items that are considered obscene, (f) items that infringe
or violate any copyright, trademark, right of publicity or privacy or any other proprietary
right under the laws of any jurisdiction, (g) certain sexually oriented materials or
services, or (h) ammunition, firearms, or certain firearm parts or accessories, or
(i) ,certain weapons or knives regulated under applicable law
3. relate to transactions that (a) show the personal information of third parties in
violation of applicable law, (b) support pyramid or ponzi schemes, matrix programs,
other “get rich quick” schemes or certain multi-level marketing programs, (c) are
associated with purchases of real property, annuities or lottery contracts, lay-away
systems, off-shore banking or transactions to finance or refinance debts funded by a
credit card, (d) are for the sale of certain items before the seller has control or
possession of the item, (e) are by payment processors to collect payments on behalf
of merchants, (f), are associated with the following Money Service Business activities:
the sale of traveler’s checks or money orders, currency exchanges or check cashing,or
(g) provide certain credit repair or debt settlement services
4. involve the sales of products or services identified by government agencies to have
a high likelihood of being fraudulent
5. violate applicable laws or industry regulations regarding the sale of
(a) tobacco products, or (b) prescription drugs and devices
6. involve gambling, gaming and/or any other activity with an entry fee and a prize, including,
but not limited to casino games, sports betting, horse or greyhound racing, lottery tickets,
other ventures that facilitate gambling, games of skill (whether or not it is legally defined
as a lottery) and sweepstakes unless the operator has obtained prior approval from PayPal and
the operator and customers are located exclusively in jurisdictions where such activities are
permitted by law.
19. Refunds
Pledgie makes no guarantees regarding any aspect Paypal's decision to transact donations between
the campaign creator and the donor. Additionally, Pledgie does not guarantee full receipt of the
pledged amount because it does not control the financial transaction.
Campaign creators are the only party that can initiate refunds, and it is at their own discretion
to do so. Pledgie is not responsible for refunding any funds collected by the campaign creators through
the use of Pledgie.com or by any other means.
Pledgie reserves the right to cancel, suspend or disable a campaign for any reason at any time.
20. FEEDBACK
We welcome your questions and comments on this document through the pledgie.com
contact page.