Terms of Use | The Word for This

These Terms of Use ("Terms") apply to your access to, submissions to, comments on, and/or any other use of the website, blog, social media accounts, and/or any other online products and services (collectively, the "Services") provided by The Word for This (“TWFT” or “we,” “us,” “our,” as appropriate) and its owners, operators, partners, vendors, and any third parties associated therewith. By accessing or using our Services, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree to these Terms, you may not access or use our Services.

1. YOUR ACCESS TO THE SERVICES

You must be 13 or older to use the Services, including account creation, submission of information via website form, or subscription to receive updates from TWFT. Additionally, if you are outside the United States, you must be over the age required by the laws of your location to use the Services in any way, or provide verifiable consent from your parent or legal guardian. If you are accepting these Terms on behalf of another legal entity, including a business or a government, you represent that you have full legal authority to bind such entity to these terms.

2. YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES

TWFT grants you a personal, non-transferable, non-exclusive, revocable, limited license to use and access the Services solely as permitted by these Terms, except as otherwise stated explicitly herein. TWFT reserves all rights not expressly granted to you by these Terms. Except as permitted through the Services or as otherwise permitted by us in writing, your license does not include the right to (a) license, sell, transfer, assign, distribute, host, or otherwise commercially exploit the Services or the Content as defined herein; or (b) modify, prepare derivative works of, disassemble, decompile, or reverse engineer any part of the Services or Content.

TWFT reserves the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue the Services (in whole or in part) at any time, with or without notice to you. Any future release, update, or other addition to existing or future functionality or platforms of the Services will be subject to these Terms, which may be updated from time to time. You agree that TWFT will not be liable to you or to any third party for any modification, suspension, or discontinuation of the Services or any part thereof.

3. YOUR ACCOUNT AND ACCOUNT SECURITY

To use certain features of our Services, you may be required to create an account (an "Account") and provide a username, password, and certain other information about yourself as set forth in the Privacy Policy below. You are solely responsible for the information associated with your Account and any activity initiated by or related to your Account. You must maintain the security of your Account and promptly notify TWFT if you discover or suspect that someone has accessed your Account without your permission. We recommend that you use a strong, unique password for use only with the Services. You will not license, sell, or transfer your Account without our prior written approval.

4. THE CONTENT

The Services may contain information, text, links, graphics, photos, videos, or other materials (“Content”), including Content created with or submitted directly to the Services by you via email, contact form, private message, your Account, or other non-public manner (“Your Content”).

BY SUBMITTING YOUR CONTENT TO THE SERVICES, YOU REPRESENT AND WARRANT THAT (A) ANY EVENTS DESCRIBED IN YOUR CONTENT ARE FACTUAL AND CONTAIN NO IDENTIFYING INFORMATION REGARDING ANY OTHER INDIVIDUAL(S), EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT THAT YOU CHOOSE TO IDENTIFY YOURSELF, AND (B) THAT YOU HAVE ALL RIGHTS, POWER, AND AUTHORITY NECESSARY TO GRANT THE RIGHTS TO YOUR CONTENT CONTAINED WITHIN THESE TERMS. YOU ARE SOLELY LIABLE FOR ADHERING TO THESE PROVISIONS, AND TWFT EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY LIABILITY FOR ANY FAILURE ON YOUR PART TO DO SO.

You retain any ownership rights you have in Your Content, but you grant TWFT the following license to use Your Content:

(a) When Your Content is created with or submitted to the Services, you grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable, and sublicensable license to use, copy, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display Your Content in all media formats and channels now known or later developed. This license includes the right for us to make Your Content available for syndication, broadcast, distribution, or publication by other companies, organizations, or individuals who partner with TWFT. However, note that whenever possible, due to the nature of Your Content and the Services, TWFT will make reasonable efforts to contact you and secure your express consent to make Your Content available in its entirety for such purposes.

(b) Any ideas, suggestions, and feedback about TWFT or our Services you may provide to us are entirely voluntary, and while TWFT may make reasonable attempts to acknowledge your contribution, we will never do so in breach of the Privacy Policy. You agree that TWFT may use such ideas, suggestions, and feedback without compensation or further obligation to you.

(c) Except as otherwise provided herein, we have no obligation to verify, screen, edit, or monitor any Content, regardless of any interaction you may have with us regarding such Content. TWFT may, in our sole discretion, delete or remove Your Content at any time and for any reason, including for a violation of these Terms or if we believe you otherwise create liability for us.

(d) You may, at any time and for any reason, request that Your Content, which you have provided and which we have shared via our website, social media platforms, and otherwise, be removed from our website, and we will make all efforts to acknowledge receipt of your request and remove Your Content as soon as is reasonably possible. However, you acknowledge that portions of Your Content, including but not limited to brief portions of text that may be included within social media images, videos, post text, etc., may not reasonably be trackable in light of the anonymity offered by TWFT practices and the Privacy Policy.

5. PRIVACY POLICY

This section is intended to inform you of how TWFT does and does not collect, use, and/or share information about you through your use of the Services or any interactions or communications between you and TWFT.

(a) What We Actively or Inactively Collect or Have Access to View

(i) Information you provide to us. We may collect information you provide to us that we receive directly when you use the Services. This may include any username and/or email address you use when registering to create an Account directly related to the Services, or other email addresses, usernames, user IDs, or other information visible to us via your use of the Services through social media platforms and other channels. We may actively collect, store, and maintain this information for the sole purpose of communicating with you directly regarding Your Content or the Services in general (either individually or as part of any updates you may register to receive), as well as for our administration of the Services. This information is stored only as needed to administer the Services, in private, password protected documents or accounts, and TWFT takes all reasonable and customary measures to ensure that such information is protected.

(ii) Content you submit. We may collect Your Content or other Content you submit to the Services, either privately via contact form, email, direct message, etc., or publicly via website comment, social post comment or response, etc. Any collection of such Content is for the sole purpose of administering or promoting the Services.

(iii) Actions you take. We may collect information about the actions you take when using the Services. This may include your interactions with Content, such as liking, responding, sharing, commenting, etc. It may also include publicly available information about your interactions with other users, such as commenting, following, liking, friending, etc.

(b) What We Do Not Actively or Inactively Collect or Have Access to View

We do not actively or inactively collect personal or identifying information such as real names (in whole or in part), phone numbers, location, or other user IDs or accounts that may incidentally be available to us. We do not collect or have access to any passwords you create in association with your Account or otherwise with your use of the Services.

We may use information about you to: provide, maintain, promote, communicate about, and improve the Services and Content; research and develop Content or expand the Services; help protect the safety of TWFT and our users, which includes addressing and removing if necessary any comments we believe are in violation of our policy regarding respect for other users; blocking suspected spammers, and generally enforcing these Terms for your benefit; send you updates regarding the Content or Services, alerts, or other support and administrative messages; provide customer service or technical support; analyze trends, usage, and activities in connection with our Services; and provide news and information we believe may be of interest to you (for information about how to opt out of these communications, see “Your Choices” below or contact us at speak@thewordforthis.com at any time).

(d) How Information About You Is Shared

TWFT is dedicated to maintaining our users’ privacy and any level of anonymity you wish to maintain in association with Your Content. We do not actively share your information with others, either publicly or privately, without your express written consent. When you use the Services, certain information may be shared with other users and the public, including any username or ID you create or maintain in connection with the Services or your use thereof.

When you submit Your Content to us for publication directly by TWFT, via private method such as email, contact form, chat, direct message, or other non-public means, we maintain and protect your information as private, and will only publish any identifying information you provide to us about yourself to the extent you expressly authorize us to do so.

When you submit other Content publicly to the Services, such as a comment on a blog post or story, or a social media post response, any visitors to and users of our Services will be able to see that Content, the username you have created in association with that Content, and the date and time you originally submitted the Content.

We offer social sharing features that let you share content or actions you take on our Services with other media. Your use of these features enables the sharing of certain information with your friends or the public, depending on the settings you establish with the third party that provides the social sharing feature. For more information about the purpose and scope of data collection and processing in connection with social sharing features, please visit the privacy policies of the third parties that provide these social sharing features (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google+). Please note that, even when if delete any accounts you may have established via the Services or third parties, the posts, comments, and messages you submit through the Services may still be viewable or available on our servers. For more information, see “Your Choices” below.

Otherwise, we do not share, sell, or give away your personal information to third parties unless one of the following circumstances applies:

(i) With our partners. We may share information with hosting services, vendors, consultants, and other service providers who need access to such information to carry out work for us, but will only provide identifying information on a case-by-case basis and to the extent needed to carry out such work. The partner’s use of any personal information will be subject to appropriate confidentiality and security measures.

(ii) To comply with the law. We may share information in response to a request for information if we believe disclosure is in accordance with, or required by, any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, including, but not limited to, meeting national security or law enforcement requirements. To the extent the law allows it, we will attempt to provide you with prior notice before disclosing your information in response to such a request.

(iii) In an emergency. While we do not have and are not liable for any duty to report, and require all submitted Content to have identifying information redacted prior to submission, we may share information if we believe it's necessary and relevant to prevent imminent and serious bodily harm to a person.

(iv) To enforce our policies and rights. We may share information if we believe your actions are inconsistent with these Terms or to protect the rights, information, property, and safety of ourselves and others.

(v) With your consent. We may share information about you with your consent or at your direction.

(vi) Aggregated or de-identified information. We may share information about you that has been aggregated, randomized, or anonymized such that it cannot reasonably be used to identify you. For example, we may show the total number of times a post containing Content you have submitted to us has been liked without identifying who the visitors were.

(e) Your Choices

As a user of and/or contributor of Content to TWFT, you have choices about how to protect and limit the collection, use, and disclosure of information about you.

(i) Removing Your Content. At any time, for any reason, you may request that we remove Your Content (that you submitted directly to us for publication by TWFT) by contacting speak@thewordforthis.com and we will make all reasonable efforts to do so as quickly as possible upon receipt of your request. Please note that TWFT is a personally administered Service, and as such, we may not be immediately able to respond immediately. Please note that any portion of Your Content that we have shared in conjunction with our policy regarding use in public communications regarding Your Content (such as social media images or text) will not be deleted.

(ii) Accessing and changing your information. You can access and change certain information through the Services. Please contact us at speak@thewordforthis.com with any questions regarding your information on the website, or if you have engaged with the Services via social media platform, please contact administrators of the relevant platform for assistance with this.

(iii) Deleting your Account. You may delete your user account on our website at any time. Please note, however, that any public comments you submitted prior to deleting your account may still be visible to others unless you first delete the specific content. We may also privately retain certain information about you as required by law or for legitimate business purposes after you delete your account.

6. PROHIBITED ACTS

Your use of and access to the Services must be respectful of other users, their rights, and the nature of the subject matter, including by following these Terms and the Privacy Policy contained herein. While TWFT supports thoughtful comments and debate, we reserve the right to remove any comments that insult, attack, demean, troll, or otherwise express lack of respect for representatives of TWFT, contributors of the Content, or other user(s). To report a hacked account or other security issue, please email speak@thewordforthis.com.

When accessing or using our Services, you will not:

(a) Create or submit Content that violates these terms;

(b) Use the Services to violate applicable law or infringe any person or entity's intellectual property or any other proprietary rights;

(c) Attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Services or to another user’s Account (or to other computer systems or networks connected to or used together with the Services);

(d) Upload, transmit, or distribute to or through the Services any computer viruses, worms, or other software intended to interfere with the intended operation of a computer system or data;

(e) Use the Services to harvest, collect, gather or assemble information or data regarding the Services or users of the Services except as permitted in these Terms or in a separate agreement with TWFT;

(f) Use the Services in any manner that could interfere with, disrupt, negatively affect, or inhibit other users from fully enjoying (or TWFT from administering) the Services or that could damage, disable, overburden, or impair the functioning of the Services in any manner;

7. COPYRIGHT

TWFT respects the intellectual property of others and requires that users of our Services do the same. No Content shall be submitted to or posted as a comment or response the Services which violates others’ intellectual property rights. TWFT reserves the right to reject or remove, in its sole discretion, any Content or other user-generated information it believes may be in violation of third-party intellectual property rights.

8. INDEMNITY

Except to the extent prohibited by law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold TWFT, our licensors, our third party service providers and our officers, employees, licensors, and agents (“TWFT Entities”) harmless, including costs and attorneys’ fees, from any claim or demand made by any third party due to or arising out of (a) your use of the Services, (b) your violation of these Terms, (c) your violation of applicable laws or regulations, or (d) your Content. We reserve the right to control the defense of any matter for which you are required to indemnify us, and you agree to cooperate with our defense of these claims.

9. DISCLAIMERS

THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. TWFT, ITS LICENSORS, AND ITS THIRD PARTY SERVICE PROVIDERS DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICES ARE ACCURATE, COMPLETE, RELIABLE, CURRENT, OR ERROR FREE. TWFT DOES NOT CONTROL, ENDORSE, OR TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY CONTENT AVAILABLE ON OR LINKED TO THE SERVICES OR THE ACTIONS OF ANY THIRD PARTY OR USER. WHILE TWFT ATTEMPTS TO MAKE YOUR ACCESS TO AND USE OF OUR SERVICES SAFE, WE DO NOT REPRESENT OR WARRANT THAT OUR SERVICES OR SERVERS ARE FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS.

10. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

IN NO EVENT AND UNDER NO THEORY OF LIABILITY, INCLUDING CONTRACT, TORT, NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, WARRANTY, OR OTHERWISE, WILL TWFT ENTITIES BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR LOST PROFITS ARISING FROM OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS OR THE SERVICES, INCLUDING THOSE ARISING FROM OR RELATING TO CONTENT MADE AVAILABLE ON THE SERVICES THAT IS ALLEGED TO BE DEFAMATORY, OFFENSIVE, OR ILLEGAL. ACCESS TO, AND USE OF, THE SERVICES IS AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK, AND YOU WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR DEVICE OR COMPUTER SYSTEM, OR LOSS OF DATA RESULTING THEREFROM. IN NO EVENT WILL THE AGGREGATE LIABILITY OF TWFT ENTITIES EXCEED THE GREATER OF ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS ($100). THE LIMITATIONS OF THIS SECTION WILL APPLY TO ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, INCLUDING THOSE BASED ON WARRANTY, CONTRACT, STATUTE, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE) OR OTHERWISE, AND EVEN IF TWFT ENTITIES HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF ANY SUCH DAMAGE, AND EVEN IF ANY REMEDY SET FORTH HEREIN IS FOUND TO HAVE FAILED ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE. THE FOREGOING LIMITATION OF LIABILITY WILL APPLY TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW IN THE APPLICABLE JURISDICTION.

11. GOVERNING LAW AND VENUE

TWFT is meant to provide a supportive, non-judgmental, safe, and (to the extent requested by a user submitting Content) anonymous platform. If you have have an issue or dispute relating to Content you have submitted OR to Content you believe falsely depicts you or your actions, you agree to raise the concern by contacting TWFT, and we will make reasonable efforts to try to resolve the matter with you informally. You can contact us with feedback and concerns by emailing us at speak@thewordforthis.com.

Any claims arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Services will be governed by the laws of the state of Maryland, other than its conflict of laws rules; all disputes related to these Terms or the Services will be brought solely in federal or state courts located in the state of Maryland; and you consent to personal jurisdiction in these courts.

12. CHANGES TO THESE TERMS

We may make changes to these Terms from time to time. If we make changes, we will post the amended Terms to our Services and update the Effective Date below. If the changes, in our sole discretion, are material, we may also notify you by sending an email to the address associated with your Account (if you have chosen to provide an email address) or by otherwise providing notice through our Services. By continuing to access or use the Services on or after the Effective Date of the revised Terms, you agree to be bound by the revised Terms. If you do not agree to the revised Terms, you must stop accessing and using our Services before the changes become effective.

13. TERMINATION

You may terminate these Terms at any time and for any reason by deleting your Account and discontinuing your use of all Services. If you stop using the Services without deactivating your Account, your Account may be deactivated due to prolonged inactivity. We may suspend or terminate your Account or ability to access or use the Services in whole or in part at any time for any or no reason, including for a violation of these Terms.

The following sections will survive any termination of these Terms or your Accounts, or any discontinuation of the Services: 4 (The Content), 5 (Privacy Policy), 6 (Prohibited Acts), 8 (Indemnity), 9 (Disclaimers), 10 (Limitation of Liability), 11 (Governing Law and Venue), 13 (Termination), and 14 (Miscellaneous).

14. MISCELLANEOUS

These Terms constitute the entire agreement between you and us regarding your access to and use of the Services. Our failure to exercise or enforce any right or provision of these Terms will not operate as a waiver of such right or provision. If any provision of these Terms is, for any reason, held to be illegal, invalid or unenforceable, the rest of the Terms will remain in effect. You may not assign or transfer any of your rights or obligations under these Terms without our consent. We may freely assign these Terms.

We may change or update these Terms from time to time. If we do, we will let you know by revising the date at the bottom of these Terms. If we make a change to these Terms that, in our sole discretion, is material, we will provide you with additional notice (such as adding a statement a blog post or social media account or the front page of the Services, or notification via email). We encourage you to review these Terms whenever you access or use our Services or otherwise interact with us to stay informed about our practices and the ways you can help protect your privacy. By continuing to use our Services after changes go into effect, you agree to be bound by the revised Terms.

Effective Date: October 7, 2018