Terms of Service

Updated April 16th, 2014

This Service Agreement ("Agreement") for eLuminary.org and all its content and services (collectively, the "Service") provided by eLuminary ("the Company") governs the Company’s relationship with you (the "User") in connection with the Service. By using or accessing the Service, whether through a logged in account or passively browsing, you agree to this Agreement, as updated from time to time as stated at the end of this Agreement.

Access to and use of eLuminary.org are subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement and all applicable laws and regulations, including laws and regulations governing copyright and trademark. The Company grants User a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the Service, solely under the conditions of this Agreement.

The Privacy Policy. As a condition of your access to or use of the Service, you consent to the collection, use, disclosure and other handling of information described in the Service’s Privacy Policy. You acknowledge that you have read the Privacy Policy.

Intellectual Property:

• General Usage. The term "Content" refers to all data, materials and marks that are submitted to or published, displayed, distributed, performed through or made available on the Service, including but not limited to all text, software, images, audio, video, and code, as well as all names, logos, trademarks and service marks. Company or its affiliates or licensors are the owners or exclusive licensees of all Content, which is protected by copyright, trademark and other laws. You may use the Content to which Company grants you access solely for your own individual, personal, non-commercial use. Except for promotional activities approved by the Company in writing, you agree not to reproduce, retransmit, distribute, disseminate, sell, publish, perform, broadcast or circulate any such Content without the written permission of the Company.
• User Content. Content you submit to the Service in any manner (such as by creating it on or uploading it to the Service, whether in draft, final, public or non-public form, and regardless of the settings associated with the Content), including any modifications and updates to other Content, is called “User Content” in this Agreement. All User Content must be original to you and non-infringing. You may not plagiarize the work of any other individual or entity, and you may not violate any copyright, trademark or intellectual property rights, or any other rights, including, without limitation, rights of privacy or publicity, of any other person or entity. You may not submit Content that has appeared in any other publication, in whole or in part, unless that Content is in the public domain. When you submit pre-published Content that is permitted by the preceding sentence, you must include attribution of the source.
• License Grant. By submitting User Content to the Service, you (i) grant the Company and its successors and assigns a perpetual, exclusive, world-wide, royalty free, fully sub-licensable license of all rights in and to the User Content, which includes without limitation the right for the Company or any third party the Company designates, to use, copy, transmit, excerpt, publish, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, undelete, create derivative works of, host, index, cache, tag, encode, modify, adapt (including without limitation the right to adapt to streaming, downloading, broadcast, thumbnail, scanning or other technologies) and otherwise exploit in any form or media now known or hereinafter developed, the User Content, and (ii) represent that you have all rights necessary to grant such license.
• Intellectual Property Issues. The Company takes claims of copyright infringement seriously. It is our policy in appropriate circumstances to disable and/or terminate the accounts of users who are repeat infringers. You may wish to reach out to the user posting the content before you report a claim of copyright infringement to the Company because you may be able to resolve the issue amicably and quickly simply by bringing it to the attention of the person who posted the content. You can escalate the issue to the attention of the Company by submitting a DMCA notice here. (link to Reporting Copyright Violations, below)

Service Usage. The Service includes interactive elements and other User maintained pages which allow Users and members to post information, share feedback, and interact. You, the User, may use the Service only for lawful purposes and in accordance with this Agreement. You agree not to share with anybody your username and password for the Service, and you agree not to let anybody else use the Service while logged in under your account. You agree never to use the same username or password for the Service that you use or have used for any other website or service; you acknowledge that violating this rule may increase the risk that your accounts will be hacked. You accept full responsibility for all acts or omissions that occur, including any submission of User Content, through your account.

You agree not to use the Service:

• In any way that violates any applicable federal, state, local or international law or regulation (including, without limitation, any laws regarding the export of data or software to and from the United States or other countries).
• For the purpose of exploiting, harming or attempting to exploit or harm minors in any way by exposing them to inappropriate content, asking for personally identifiable information or otherwise.
• To send, knowingly receive, upload, download, use or re-use any material which does not comply with the Content Standards [link] set out in this Agreement.
• To transmit, or procure the sending of, any advertising or promotional material, including any "junk mail", "chain letter" or "spam" or any other similar solicitation.
• To distribute or otherwise publish any solicitation of funds, solicitation for goods or services, or offers to provide goods or services.
• To impersonate or attempt to impersonate the Company, any agent of the Company, another User, or any other person or entity (including, without limitation, by using e-mail addresses or screen names associated with any of the foregoing).
• To engage in any other conduct that restricts or inhibits anyone's use or enjoyment of the Service, or which, as determined by us, may harm the Service or users of the Service or expose them to liability.
• To post or transmit any fraudulent, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, libelous or defamatory, vulgar, obscene, profane, hateful, racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable material of any kind including, but not limited to, any material which encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, constitute hate speech, violate the rights of others, or otherwise violate any applicable local, state, national or international law to which you or the Company is subject.
• To post information that unless you have a good faith belief such information is true and accurate in light of current knowledge.

Additionally, you agree not to:

• Use the Service in any manner that could disable, overburden, damage, or impair the Service or interfere with any other party's use of the Service, including their ability to engage in real time activities through the Service.
• You agree not to "scrape" or disaggregate data from the Service (whether by manual or automated means), for any commercial, marketing, or data compiling or enhancing purpose. Use any manual process to monitor or copy any of the material on the Site or for any other unauthorized purpose without our prior written consent.
• Use any device, software or routine that interferes with the proper working of the Service.
• Introduce any viruses, trojan horses, worms, logic bombs or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful.
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to, interfere with, damage or disrupt any parts of the Service, any servers on which the Service is stored or operated on, or any server, computer or database connected to the Service.
• Attack the Service via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of-service attack.
• Otherwise attempt to interfere with the proper working of the Service.

Charitable donations. The Service may allow you to advise the Company of your preferences regarding whether or how the company donates a portion of its revenue to charity. You acknowledge that you have no ownership of or other right relating to such revenue. You agree that the preferences you indicate are advisory only and that the company may, at any time, in its sole discretion, (i) choose to terminate the charitable donation program, (ii) decide which organizations are eligible to participate in the program, and (iii) determine the size of the pool from which donations will be made. If the Company makes donations based in whole or in part on advertising revenue or other factors, the Company has sole discretion to calculate the revenue or other factors in a manner of its choosing. You will not be entitled to an accounting of such revenue or factors.

Communications Decency Act Notice. Pursuant to 47 U.S.C. Section 230(d), we notify you that parental control protections (such as computer hardware, software or filtering services) are commercially available that may assist you in limiting access to material that is harmful to minors. Information identifying current providers of such protections is available by searching for “parental control software” on Yahoo.com, Google.com or Bing.com. Please note that the Company itself does not provide these parental control tools, has not evaluated them and does not endorse them. Any use of such tools is at your sole risk.

Indemnification of the Company. You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless the Company and its information providers, affiliates, licensors and licensees, as well as all of such parties’ officers, directors, owners, agents, and employees (collectively, the "Indemnified Parties") from and against any and all liability and costs, including, without limitation, reasonable attorneys' fees, incurred by the Indemnified Parties in connection with any claim arising out of (b) any User Content, or (b) any breach by you or another user of your account of this Agreement or any representations, warranties and covenants contained in these terms and conditions. You shall cooperate fully and reasonably in the defense of any such claim. The Company reserves the right, at its own expense, to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter subject to indemnification by you.

Information Published:

• Control of Information. Although the Company and its affiliates may from time to time monitor Content on and use of the Service, it is under no obligation to do so. You acknowledge that Company need not control the Content available on the Service and that any opinions, advice, services, offers, information or other Content disseminated through the Service reflect the views of their contributors, who are solely liable for their content, and not of the Company. However, the Company reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to edit, refuse to publish, or remove any User Content. You acknowledge that the Company may modify or forever destroy any User Content without notice to you and without your approval, and you waive any moral rights you may have in relation to User Content.
• Within Terms. User Content must comply within the full terms of this Agreement. You represent, warrant and covenant that no User Content of any kind will (a) violate, plagiarize, or infringe upon the rights of any third party, including copyright, trademark, privacy or other personal or proprietary rights; (b) contain libelous or otherwise unlawful material or (c) violate any other terms of this Agreement.
• Accuracy of Information. The Company does not represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any Content. You acknowledge and agree that communications with other users and other content providers through the Service are not confidential and not subject to any confidentiality privilege, such as attorney-client or doctor-patient. All communication between you and any other user is at your own risk. The Company does not represent or warrant the accuracy of the credentials or identity of users or other contributors to the Service. You acknowledge that any reliance upon this or any other aspect of the Service is at your sole risk.
• Reliance on Information and Credentials. You agree not to rely on any user’s claimed "Professional" advice, claimed credentials, terms like "Expert", or any other term. Content on the Service may highlight users with descriptive terms regarding their level of contribution and participation on the Service. However, the Service is an open platform that allows anyone to join, contribute, and self-publish their credentials, as well as other Content, and the Company does not verify nor makes any claims of the accuracy of such information. As such no inference on the accuracy or suitability of any Content, including advice, should be made based on user credentials published on or generated by the Service. Ultimately it is up to each individual user to judge the value and merit of given Content and the users that created it. The Service and the Content published under it is provided on a purely informational basis, and you must evaluate each on their own merit. Therefore, Content available on the Service is to be used for general informational purposes only and never as a substitute for in person evaluation or professional advice including without limitation regarding medical, legal, tax, financial, veterinary, safety, risk avoidance or other issues.
• Further Professional Medical and Therapeutic Advice Disclaimer. This section is provided to be extra clear even though it is redundant to prior terms in this Agreement. The Service may offer health, fitness and nutritional Content but it is designed for informational purposes only and may not be accurate, up-to-date, or be suitable all or any users. You should consult your physician before beginning a new health, nutritional or fitness program. Furthermore, you should not rely on any information on the Service as, or as a substitute for, professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.If you have any concerns or questions about health, fitness or nutrition, you should always consult with a physician or other health-care professional directly, outside of the Service. Do not disregard, avoid or delay obtaining medical or health related advice from your health-care professional because of something you may have read on the Service (or any online service, for that matter).
• The use of any information provided on the Service is solely at your own risk. The information on the Service should not be relied on as, or as a substitute for, professional counseling care – including without limitation, psychiatry, psychotherapy, or other mental health or rehabilitation treatment, diagnosis or advice. Further, as medical research, science, and all other areas evolve, you cannot assume that the Content includes the most recent findings or developments with respect to the particular subject matter.
• Content Standards. These content standards apply to any and all User Content and use of Services. User Content must in its entirety comply with all applicable federal, state, local and international laws and regulations. Without limiting the foregoing, User Content must not:
  • Contain any material which is defamatory, obscene, indecent, abusive, offensive, harassing, violent, hateful, inflammatory or otherwise objectionable.
  • Promote sexually explicit or pornographic material, violence, or discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age.
  • Infringe any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other intellectual property or other rights of any other person.
  • Violate the legal rights (including the rights of publicity and privacy) of others or contain any material that could give rise to any civil or criminal liability under applicable laws or regulations or that otherwise may be in conflict with these Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
  • Be likely to deceive any person.
  • Promote any illegal activity, or advocate, promote or assist any unlawful act.
  • Cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety or be likely to upset, harass, embarrass, alarm or annoy any other person.
  • Impersonate any person, or misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person or organization.
  • Give the impression that they emanate from or are endorsed by us or any other person or entity, if that is not the case.
  • Promote commercial activities or sales, such as contests, sweepstakes and other sales promotions, barter or advertising.

"As Is" Basis. The Service is provided on an "As Is" and “With All Faults” basis without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of title or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose, other than those warranties which are imposed by and incapable of exclusion, restriction or modification under the laws applicable to this agreement. We do not endorse and are not responsible for the accuracy or reliability of any opinion, statement or other Content on the Service. The Content is no substitute for offline professional advice.

Further Disclaimers: Your use of the Service is at your own risk. Neither the Company, nor any of its subsidiaries, divisions, affiliates, agents, representatives or licensors shall be liable to you or anyone else for any loss or injury or any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, special, punitive or similar damages arising out of your access or use of, or your inability to access or use, the Service or its Content or arising out of any action taken in response to or as a result of any Content. You hereby waive any and all claims against the Company and its subsidiaries, divisions, affiliates, agents, representatives and licensors arising out of your use of the Service and its Content.

Third Party Links, Advertisements, Websites and Content: We do not commit to review or monitor any websites or other media linked to or available through the Service and are not responsible for the content of any such linked websites or other media. Prior to purchasing any third party products or services described or featured on the Service, you are advised to independently (without using the Service) verify pricing, product quality and other information necessary to make an informed purchase. Neither the Company, nor any of its subsidiaries, divisions, affiliates, agents, representatives or licensors shall have any liability arising from your purchases of third party products or services based upon the information provided on the Service, and we shall not receive or review complaints regarding such purchases.

Self Disclosure Warning: If you voluntarily disclose personal information (e.g., email address, Instant Message name, LinkedIn account) on the Service, such as publishing that information in your profile, or other Content, then you should be aware that such information can be viewed in search engines, collected and used by others and may result in unsolicited contact from other parties. We advise that you not post any personal or other sensitive information on the Service. Furthermore, attempting to collaborate, interact, or make contact with other individual users via other means, such as email, will potentially expose personal information to those users.

Monitoring and Enforcement of Service Standards and Legal Compliance. The Company cannot and does not undertake to review all Content before it is published on the Service, and cannot ensure prompt removal of objectionable material after it has been published. Accordingly, the Company assumes no liability for any action or inaction regarding transmissions, communications or Content provided by any user or third party. The Company has no liability or responsibility to anyone for performance or nonperformance of the activities described in this section.
The Company has the rights to:

• Remove or refuse to publish any Content for any or no reason in our sole discretion.
• Take any action with respect to any Content that we deem necessary or appropriate in our sole discretion, including if we believe that such Content violates the Agreement, including the Content Standards, infringes any intellectual property right or other right of any person or entity, threatens the personal safety of users of the Service or the public or could create liability for the Company.
• Disclose your identity or other information about you to any third party who claims that material published by you violates their rights, including their intellectual property rights or their right to privacy.
• Take appropriate legal action, including without limitation, referral to law enforcement, for any illegal or unauthorized use of the Service.
• Terminate or suspend your access to all or part of the Service for any or no reason, including without limitation, any violation of this Agreement.
• Without limiting the foregoing, the Company has the right to fully cooperate with any law enforcement authorities or court order requesting or directing us to disclose the identity or other information related to anyone publishing any Content on or through the Site. You waive and hold harmless the Company and its subsidiaries, affiliates, licensees and service providers from any claims resulting from any action taken by any of the foregoing parties during or as a result of its investigations and from any actions taken as a consequence of investigations by either the Company/such parties or law enforcement authorities.

Disputes. This Agreement and any disputes arising out of or related to the Service (including any disputes as to the validity or enforceability of this Agreement) shall be governed by, and construed and enforced in accordance with, the laws of the State of New York (without regard to conflict of law principles). In the event of any such dispute, you irrevocably consent to exclusive jurisdiction and venue in the courts located in the State of New York, County of Westchester.

Limitation on time to file claims. Any cause of action or claim you may have arising out of or relating to this user agreement or the service must be commenced within one (1) year after the cause of action accrues, otherwise, such cause of action or claim is permanently barred.

Modifications. The Company reserves the right at any time, and from time to time, to modify, suspend or discontinue (temporarily or permanently) the Service, or any part of the Service, with or without notice. You agree that The Company shall not be liable to you for any such action.

Waiver and severability. No waiver of by the Company of any term or condition set forth in this Agreement shall be deemed a further or continuing waiver of such term or condition or a waiver of any other term or condition, and any failure of the Company to assert a right or provision under this Agreement shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. If any provision of this Agreement is held by a court or other tribunal of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, illegal or unenforceable for any reason, such provision shall be eliminated or limited to the minimum extent such that the remaining provisions of the Terms of Use will continue in full force and effect.

Entire Agreement. This Agreement constitutes the sole and entire agreement between you and the Company with respect to the Service and supersedes all prior and contemporaneous understandings, agreements, representations and warranties, both written and oral, with respect to the Service.

Survival. The following sections survive termination of this Agreement: The Privacy Policy, License Grant, Charitable Donations, Indemnification of Company, Further Disclaimers, Monitoring and Enforcement of Service Standards and Legal Compliance, Disputes, Limitation on time to file claims, Modifications, Waiver and severability, Entire Agreement, Survival.

Updates to this Agreement. We may propose an update to this Agreement at any time in our sole discretion by posting the updated version on the Service. The update will come into effect 10 days after the date of its posting (i.e., 10 days after the “Updated” date at the top of the Agreement), unless we choose to secure your immediate acceptance of revised Agreement via a click-through confirmation, acceptance button or other mechanism. Your continued use of the Service after the 10-day notice period or after you have accepted the updated Agreement at an earlier date, regardless of whether we have separately contacted you regarding such changes and regardless of whether you have read the changes we have made available to you, will constitute your acceptance of the Terms. To reject the proposed update, you must send us an email to tos_rejection@eluminary.org with the phrase “Terms of Service Update Rejected” in the subject line within the 10-day period described above; this rejection will immediately terminate your permission to use the Service, and you must immediately cease all such use. Your use of the Service after sending such a rejection shall be deemed your unconditional acceptance of the revised Agreement that we posted.