PLEASE READ THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS CAREFULLY. THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS MAY HAVE CHANGED SINCE YOUR LAST VISIT TO THIS WEBSITE. BY ACCESSING OR USING THIS WEBSITE, YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO ALL OF THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, DO NOT USE THIS WEBSITE.
Effective Date: These Terms and Conditions were last updated on November 27, 2012.
We at Small Business Trends LLC provide this Site for the benefit of our users. We have created these Terms and Conditions to address commenting, content submission, and other practices governing the Site. (For privacy matters, please visit our Privacy Policy.)
These Terms and Conditions apply to all the Small Business Trends family of Websites, including Small Business Trends, TrendTracker, SMB TrendWire, Small Business CEO, Selling to Small Businesses and any Sites subsequently added. Any reference to "Site" includes all Sites within the Small Business Trends family.
We reserve the right to change any of the terms, conditions or policies of the Site, at any time in our sole discretion. If we decide to change these Terms and Conditions, we will post a new version on the Site. Any such changes will be effective upon posting of the revisions. Your continued use of the Site following posting of any changes constitutes your acceptance of such changes.
The following applies to article submissions for which no monetary compensation is paid to you by us.
By posting to or otherwise engaging in any communication within the Site, you are granting Small Business Trends LLC (and its assignees) the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, create derivative works from, transfer, and sell your submissions to the Site (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate your submissions in other works in any form, media, or technology whether now known or later developed.
The following applies to certain submissions for which monetary compensation is paid to you by us.
If we have entered into a signed, written agreement with you specifying that your submissions are a "work made for hire," then the issues related to ownership of copyright of your submissions are specified in that agreement and that agreement shall prevail on those issues. In the absence of such written agreement, you agree that you are granting Small Business Trends LLC (and its assignees) the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, create derivative works from, transfer, and sell your submissions to the Site (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate your submissions in other works in any form, media, or technology whether now known or later developed.
The following applies to all submissions, whether compensated or uncompensated.
You are solely responsible for the content of your submissions. We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to edit, refuse to post or remove any content for any reason, including but not limited to, that we believe the content: (i) is in need of editing for grammar, spelling or overall readability; (ii) is inaccurate, false, misleading or defamatory; (iii) is offensive, abusive or uncivil in tone; (iv) is harmful, threatening or intimidating; (v) contains personal attacks, profanity or hate messages; (vi) constitutes spam, phishing or any form of advertising or solicitation; (vii) is used in conjunction with any automated or other means to artificially drive user traffic to the Site; (viii) disguises the origin of any user content transmitted to the Site; (ix) impersonates another person or misrepresents your affiliation with a person or entity; (x) violates another person's or entity's intellectual property rights, publicity or privacy rights or other legal rights; (xi) contains software viruses or any other malicious code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment; (xii) is off topic; or (xiii) is inappropriate or undesirable for the Site.
We welcome high-quality, on-topic articles for publication; however, we do not pay compensation for unsolicited article submissions. Important: we get a high volume of email - please contact the Editor first via email before submitting any written material. Should we decide to publish a submission, we will give attribution to the submitting writer through an article byline or similar designation. Send email to: admin@smallbiztrends.com.
By submitting comments, audio interviews, podcasts, polls, surveys, trackbacks, forum posts and other content to the Site, you are granting Small Business Trends LLC the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, create derivative works from, transfer, and sell your submissions to the Site (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate your submissions in other works in any form, media, or technology whether now known or later developed.
We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to edit, refuse to post or remove any comments, forum posts and user-generated content that we believe: (i) is offensive, abusive or uncivil in tone; (ii) contains profanity, hate messages or personal attacks against others; (iii) constitutes spam; (iv) is off topic; (v) is prohibited under the All Submissions section of these Terms and Conditions; or (vi) is otherwise inappropriate or undesirable for the Site.
"Small Business Trends," "PowerBlog Review," "TrendTracker," "SellingtoSmallBusinesses.com" and "SmallBizTrends," are trademarks of and owned by Small Business Trends LLC. The "Small Business Trends," "PowerBlog Review," "TrendTracker" and "SellingtoSmallBusinesses.com," logos are also trademarks of and owned by Small Business Trends LLC.
All third-party trademarks and other third-party intellectual property rights remain the property of their respective third-party owners.
We respect the intellectual property rights of others. Pursuant to 17 USC § 512 as amended by Title II of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the "DMCA"), the Site has instituted procedures to receive written notification of claimed infringements and to process such claims in accordance with the DMCA. If you believe your copyrights are being infringed, you may file a notification of such infringement with the following Designated Agent:
Anita Campbell
3593 Medina Rd. #160
Medina, OH 44256
(888) 842-1186
admin@smallbiztrends.com
To be effective, your notification of claimed infringement must be in writing, provided to the Designated Agent and include substantially the following information:
Any notification of a claimed infringement that fails to substantially comply with the above provisions will not be considered as providing actual knowledge or an awareness of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent.
Please file a notice of infringement each time you wish to report alleged acts of infringement.
Please note that we will terminate, in appropriate circumstances, the account of any user who repeatedly posts infringing material on the Site.
Please also note that the information provided in your notification, including any personal information contained therein, may be forwarded to the person who has provided the allegedly infringing content, and sending us such notification constitutes your consent to share this information with the alleged infringer.
Please also note that if you make any material misrepresentation in your notification that the material or activity is infringing, you will be liable for all damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, incurred by us, the alleged infringer, the copyright owner or any authorized licensee of the copyright owner as the result of our relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it.
We may give notice of a claim of copyright infringement to our users by means of a general notice on the Site, electronic mail to a user's email address in our records, or by written communication sent by first-class mail to a user's address in our records.
You agree not to: (i) contact anyone who has asked not to be contacted; (ii) collect personal data about other users for commercial or unlawful purposes; (iii) use automated means, including scripts, spiders, robots, crawlers, data mining tools, etc., to download or upload data to or from the Site; (iv) attempt to gain unauthorized access to our computer system or to any other user's computer system; (v) forge any TCP/IP packet header or part thereof in any email or posting; or (vi) engage in any activity that disrupts, diminishes the quality of, interferes with the performance of, or impairs the functionality the Site.
We reserve the right, without notice and in our sole discretion, to revoke your right to use the Site and block or prevent your future access to the Site.
We also reserve the right to fully cooperate with any law enforcement authorities or court order requesting or directing us to disclose any information as necessary to satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process, or governmental request.
The Site includes unmoderated information containing the personal opinions and other expressions of the persons who post entries on a wide range of topics. Such entries are the opinions of the specific authors and are not statements of advice, opinion, or information of the Site or any or any Site-affiliated person or entity. You should use the content on the Site in the same manner as any other educational medium and you should not rely on the content to the exclusion of your own judgment.
We do not guarantee or warrant that files available for downloading from the Internet will be free of viruses, worms, Trojan horses or other code that may manifest contaminating or destructive properties.
You are responsible for implementing sufficient procedures and checkpoints to satisfy your particular requirements for accuracy of data input and output, and for maintaining a means external to this Site for the reconstruction of any lost data. We do not assume any responsibility or risk for your use of the Internet.
We are not liable for any loss or damages incurred as a result of the use of the Site or any links, including but not limited to claims: relating to your reliance upon information obtained on this Site or any links thereto; for errors, loss of data, interruption in availability of data, viruses or other harmful components; or for any other legal claims.
If you have any questions about these Terms and Conditions, please contact us at admin@smallbiztrends.com.
Updated: February 21, 2012