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Terms of Service

This policy was last updated on February 20, 2009.

1. Acceptance of Terms

The following terms and conditions govern all use of the Thotswap.com website and all content, services and products available at or through the website ("Thotswap", or the "Website"). The Website is offered subject to your acceptance without modification of all of the terms and conditions contained herein and all other operating rules, policies (including, without limitation, Thotswap's Privacy Policy) and procedures that may be published from time to time on the Website (collectively, the “Agreement”).

Please read this Agreement carefully before accessing or using the Website. By accessing or using any part of the web site, whether you are a member account holder (a "Member") or not (a "Visitor"), you agree to become bound by the terms and conditions of this agreement. If you do not agree to all the terms and conditions of this agreement,then you may not access the Website or use any services. If these terms and conditions are considered an offer by Thotswap, acceptance is expressly limited to these terms.

2. Description of Service

Thotswap is a free web publishing service that allows, among other benefits, Members to publish product reviews and blog posts, which are hosted on the Website for viewing by other Members or Visitors (the "Services"). Services shall include, but not limited to, any service and content Thotswap performs for you, including correspondence via facilities on the Website or via email, as well as the offering of any materials displayed, transmitted, or performed on the Website or through the Services. Thotswap may change, suspend or discontinue the Services for any reason, at any time, including the availability of any feature or content. Thotswap may also impose limits on certain features and services or restrict your access to parts or all of the Services without notice or liability.

3. Eligibility

You must be 13 years or older to use the Website. If you are between the ages of 13 and 17, we strongly recommend that you seek and receive parental consent before you access and use the Website. You may not use the Website if you are required to register as a sex offender in any jurisdiction.

4. Your Obligations as a Member

In order to access some portions and features of the Website, you must become a Member by completing the membership application form and verifying your email address. You shall provide Thotswap with accurate, complete, and updated information about yourself and agree to inform Thotswap immediately of any updates or other changes to such information. You may not (i) enter, select, or use a false name or an email address owned or controlled by another person with the intent to impersonate that person; (ii) enter, select or use a username subject to any rights of a person other than you without appropriate authorization, or (iii) use as a username that is otherwise offensive, vulgar, or obscene. You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account, and you are fully responsible for all activities that occur under the account and any other actions taken in connection with the account. You will notify Thotswap immediately of any unauthorized use of your account. Each person is allowed a maximum of one (1) member account on Thotswap.

Failure to comply with the terms of this section shall constitute a breach of the Agreement, which may result in immediate termination of your Thotswap account. In addition, Thotswap reserves the right to refuse registration of, or cancel a Member account in its sole discretion and without prior warning.

5. The Content You Submit

If you publish a product review or blog post, comment or rate on a product review, blog post or a Member's profile, post material to the Website, post links on the Website or otherwise make (or allow any third party to make) material available by means of the Website (any such material, “Content”), you are entirely responsible for the content of, and any harm resulting from, that Content. That is the case regardless of whether the Content in question constitutes text, graphics, audio, video, computer software, or other materials. Thotswap does not control the Content posted on the Website and, as such, does not guarantee the accuracy, integrity or quality of such Content. By making Content available, you represent and warrant that:

  1. the downloading, copying and use of the Content will not infringe the proprietary rights, including but not limited to the copyright, patent, trademark, or trade secret rights, of any third party;
  2. if your employer has rights to intellectual property you create, you have either (i) received permission from your employer to post or make available the Content, including but not limited to any software, or (ii) secured from your employer a waiver as to all rights in or to the Content;
  3. you have fully complied with any third-party licenses relating to the Content, and have done all things necessary to successfully pass through to end users any required terms;
  4. the Content does not contain or install any viruses, worms, malware, Trojan horses or other harmful or destructive content;
  5. the Content is not spam, is not machine- or randomly-generated, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites, or to further unlawful acts (such as phishing) or mislead recipients as to the source of the material (such as spoofing);
  6. the Content is not getting advertised via unwanted electronic messages such as spam links on newsgroups, email lists, other blogs and web sites, and similar unsolicited promotional methods; and
  7. the Content is not named in a manner that misleads your readers into thinking that you are another person or company.

Additionally, the following is a partial list of the kind of Content that is illegal and/or is prohibited on or through Thotswap. You may NOT post any Content that:

  1. is known by you to be false, inaccurate, or misleading;
  2. uses Thotswap as a forwarding service to another website;
  3. employs tactics to prevent the full and complete display of advertisements on Thotswap pages. These include, but are not limited to, making webpage style changes, customizations, or overrides that effectively block or substantially impair the display of advertisements pages within the Website.
  4. violates any law, statute, ordinance or regulation including, but not limited to, those governing export control, consumer protection, unfair competition, anti-discrimination or false advertising;
  5. is, or may reasonably be considered to be, offensive to users of Thotswap, such as content that is defamatory, libelous, hateful, racially or religiously offensive, unlawfully threatening or unlawfully harassing to any individual or group;
  6. violates the privacy or publicity rights of any third party;
  7. promotes or provides instructional information about illegal activities, promotes physical harm or injury against any governmental entity, group or individual, or promote any act of cruelty to animals. This may include, but is not limited to, providing instructions on how to assemble bombs, grenades, and other weapons or incendiary devices;
  8. is pornographic or sexually explicit in nature; and
  9. seeks, or recommends providers of, material that exploits people under the age of 18 in a sexual or violent manner, or seeks or recommends providers that solicit personal information from anyone under 18;

By submitting Content to Thotswap, you retain your rights as owner of the Content, but you grant Thotswap a world-wide, perpetual, royalty-free, irrevocable, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, adapt and publish the Content for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting the Website. If laws prevent such licensing, the volunteer agrees never to sue Thotswap for the use of said Content. If you delete Content, Thotswap will use reasonable efforts to remove it from the Website, but you acknowledge that caching or references to the Content may not be made immediately unavailable.

Without limiting any of those representations or warranties, Thotswap has the right (though not the obligation) to, in Thotswap's sole discretion (i) refuse or remove any content that, in Thotswap's reasonable opinion, violates any Thotswap policy or is in any way harmful or objectionable, or (ii) terminate or deny access to and use of the Website to any individual or entity for any reason, in Thotswap's sole discretion.

6. Earning Money Through Thotswap

As a Member in good standing, you have the option to receive a share of the advertising impressions generated on webpages that contain your Content (the "Revenue Program"), such as your product reviews, blog posts and your public profile pages (your "Content Pages"). Note that Content Pages include webpages which you are the primary author of and does not include webpages where your only contributions are in comments or ratings. Should you participate in this program, you agree to these additional terms and conditions.

You can opt-in to the Revenue Program by entering your Google AdSense ID ("AdSense ID") into your member account, which can be obtained by registering for the Google AdSense program found at http://adsense.google.com ("AdSense"). By entering your AdSense ID, you certify that you are the rightful owner of the AdSense account or that you have received expressed permission from the owner of the account to use with Thotswap. Additionally, you hereby provide permission for Thotswap to input your AdSense ID into the webpages you create or are related to you on the Website. Thotswap integrates with AdSense to provide you with the Revenue Program but does not warrant or guarantee the accuracy of such integration. It is your responsibility to ensure that your AdSense ID is accurate and properly displayed on the Website.

The splitting of advertisement impressions under the Revenue Program is subject to the following schedule, based on a random rotation:

  1. 60% of all impressions are AdSense advertisements served with your AdSense ID and
  2. 40% of all impressions are Thotswap's advertisements.

Due to the random nature of the rotation, you may often see deviations from the 60/40 ratio in your advertisement impressions.

As a Member of Thotswap, you agree to maintain compliance with the policies and requirements imposed by Thotswap in this Agreement, as well as those that may be imposed by third parties like AdSense with whom you may engage in the course of your participation in the Revenue Program. For your convenience, the AdSense Terms and Conditions can be found at https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms.

As part of the Revenue Program, you agree that you will NOT:

  1. directly or indirectly generate queries, impressions, or clicks on any Ad or Link through any automated, deceptive, fraudulent or other invalid means, including but not limited to through repeated manual clicks, the use of robots or other automated query tools and
  2. authorize or encourage any third party to any of the above.

If Thotswap determines, in its sole and absolute discretion, that any user is in violation of the above or a third party agreement, Thotswap reserves the right to terminate such user's account at any time without prior notice.

Because the Revenue Program involves sharing impressions linked to third party accounts, Thotswap does not track revenues associated with your third party accounts and does not handle payment of funds. Such third party accounts will hold any revenues generated and deliver all payments to you in accordance with your agreement with such third party.

Pursuant to other portions of this Agreement, Thotswap does not warrant or guarantee the performance of the Revenue Program, including, but not limited to, the effective ratio of impressions shared with you or the accuracy of the integration with third parties. You acknowledge and agree that Thotswap will not be responsible for, and will not be obligated in any manner to repay you for any lost earnings or potential lost earnings from your use of the Revenue Program.

7. Referring People

As a Member in good standing, you may ask people to create user accounts on Thotswap as referred members (your "Referrals") using the referral URL given from within your Dashboard and that you may receive additional advertisement impressions on your Referral's Content Pages (collectively the "Referral Program"). You acknowledge that the referral URL assigned to you is your responsibility. You may use the referral URL in any manner you choose, including sending to others via email, instant messaging, or posting in a public place such as on websites or forums, except in a manner that would constitute a failure to comply with the terms of this Agreement or any other relevant third-party agreement.

Examples of prohibited use of the referral URL and Referral Program include, but is not limited to:

  1. transmitting, distributing, or publishing the referral URL on this or other website, service, or entity in a manner that would be constituted as spam or would otherwise hinder another person's use of this or other website, service, or entity; and
  2. using the "Tell a Friend" feature to send unsolicited emails in a manner that would be constituted as spam.

If Thotswap determines, in its sole and absolute discretion, that any user is in violation of the above, Thotswap reserves the right to remove, modify, or otherwise alter referral credits to such user's account, or terminate such user's account at any time without prior notice.

You understand that you will only receive credit for a valid referral if (i) your referral accesses the Website using the referral URL assigned to you; (ii) your referral completes the registration process, not including the email activation phase, before closing their web browser after accessing the referral URL; (iii) your referral has cookies enabled on their web browser; and (iv) your referral activates their Thotswap account.

Thotswap will not be responsible for the loss of a referral credit under any circumstances due to failure to comply with the conditions above or other means, including, but not limited to, typographical or transmission errors in the referral URL.

If you participate in the Revenue Program, you will also receive additional advertisement impressions (your "Bonus Impressions") on your Referrals' Content Pages, such as their product reviews, blog posts, and public profile pages. The amount of Bonus Impressions you receive on your Referrals' Content Pages is subject to the following schedule, based on a random rotation:

  1. 10% of all impressions if you have a total of 1-9 referrals;
  2. 15% of all impressions if you have a total of 10-19 referrals; and
  3. 20% of all impressions if you have a total of 20 or more referrals.

As with the Revenue Program, due to the random nature of the rotation, you may often see deviations from the values above in your Bonus Impressions.

You acknowledge and agree that Thotswap will not be responsible for, and will not be obligated in any manner to repay you for any lost earnings or potential lost earnings from your use of the Referral Program.

8. Your Obligations as a Visitor

Thotswap has not reviewed, and cannot review, all of the material, including computer software, posted to the Website, and cannot therefore be responsible for that material’s content, use or effects. By operating the Website, Thotswap does not represent or imply that it endorses the material there posted, or that it believes such material to be accurate, useful or non-harmful. You are responsible for taking precautions as necessary to protect yourself and your computer systems from viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and other harmful or destructive content. While Thotswap attempts to make sure all Content posted on the Website follows the provisions in this Agreement, the Website may from time to time contain content that is offensive, indecent, or otherwise objectionable, as well as content containing technical inaccuracies, typographical mistakes, and other errors. The Website may also contain material that violates the privacy or publicity rights, or infringes the intellectual property and other proprietary rights, of third parties, or the downloading, copying or use of which is subject to additional terms and conditions, stated or unstated. Thotswap disclaims any responsibility for any harm resulting from the use by visitors of the Website, or from any downloading by those visitors of content there posted.

9. Additional Restrictions and Prohibitions

In addition to and without limiting the generality of other provisions of this Agreement, you agree you will NOT:

  1. download, modify, reproduce, adapt, translate, reverse engineer, create derivative works based upon, publicly display, sell, rent, license or in any way commercially exploit any portion of the Website, except and to the extent expressly permitted under this Agreement;
  2. use any robot, spider, site search/retrieval application, or other device to retrieve, harvest or access any portion of the Website;
  3. harvest, collect or use addresses, phone numbers or email addresses or other contact information (collectively "Contact Information") of users of the Website without consent from such users;
  4. solicit private information (including social security numbers, credit card numbers and passwords) from users of the Website;
  5. reformat or frame any portion of any web pages that are part of the Website;
  6. create user accounts by automated means or under false or fraudulent pretenses;
  7. provide any false personal information in your profile, create more than one profile, transfer your profile, create a profile for anyone other than yourself or create a page without authorization;
  8. create or transmit to other Members unsolicited electronic communications, such as "spam," or otherwise interfere with other Members' enjoyment of the Website;
  9. use the Website to violate the security of or gain unauthorized access to any computer or computer network or other device or system (including unauthorized attempts to discover passwords or security encryption codes);
  10. take any action that imposes, or may impose, in our sole discretion, an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on the Website or the Website's computer and network systems; and
  11. attempt, encourage or facilitate any of the above.

10. Links to Third Party Websites

Thotswap, or relevant third parties, may provide links to other web sites or resources. Because Thotswap has no control over such sites and resources, you acknowledge and agree that Thotswap is not responsible for the availability of such external sites or resources, and does not endorse and is not responsible or liable for any content, advertising, products, or other materials on or available from such sites or resources. You further acknowledge and agree that Thotswap shall not be responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with use of or reliance on any such content, goods or services available on or through any such site or resource.

11. Privacy Policy

Thotswap's current privacy is available at http://www.thotswap.com/privacy (the "Privacy Policy"), which is incorporated by this reference.

12. Intellectual Property

This Agreement does not transfer from Thotswap to you any Thotswap or third party intellectual property, and all right, title and interest in and to such property will remain (as between the parties) solely with Thotswap. The Thotswap logo, and all other trademarks, service marks, graphics and logos used in connection with the Website are trademarks or registered trademarks of Thotswap or Thotswap's licensors. Other trademarks, service marks, graphics and logos used in connection with the Website may be the trademarks of other third parties. Your use of the Website grants you no right or license to reproduce or otherwise use any Thotswap or third-party trademarks.

13. Changes

Thotswap reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to modify or replace any part of this Agreement. It is your responsibility to check this Agreement periodically for changes. Your continued use of or access to the Website following the posting of any changes to this Agreement constitutes acceptance of those changes. Thotswap may also, in the future, offer new services and/or features through the Website (including, the release of new tools and resources). Such new features and/or services shall be subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

14. Termination

Thotswap may terminate your access to all or any part of the Website at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice, effective immediately. If you wish to terminate this Agreement or your Thotswap account (if you have one), you may simply discontinue using the Website. All provisions of this Agreement which by their nature should survive termination shall survive termination, including, without limitation, ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, indemnity and limitations of liability.

15. Disclaimer

The Website is provided “as is”. Thotswap and its suppliers and licensors hereby disclaim all warranties of any kind, express or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. Neither Thotswap nor its suppliers and licensors, makes any warranty that the Website will be error free or that access thereto will be continuous or uninterrupted. You understand that you download from, or otherwise obtain content or services through, the Website at your own discretion and risk.

16. Limitation of Liability

In no event will Thotswap, or its suppliers or licensors, be liable with respect to any subject matter of this agreement under any contract, negligence, strict liability or other legal or equitable theory for: (i) any special, incidental or consequential damages; (ii) the cost of procurement or substitute products or services; or (iii) for interruption of use or loss or corruption of data. Thotswap shall have no liability for any failure or delay due to matters beyond their reasonable control. The foregoing shall not apply to the extent prohibited by applicable law.

17. General Representation and Warranty

You represent and warrant that (i) your use of the Website will be in strict accordance with the Thotswap Privacy Policy, with this Agreement and with all applicable laws and regulations (including without limitation any local laws or regulations in your country, state, city, or other governmental area, regarding online conduct and acceptable content, and including all applicable laws regarding the transmission of technical data exported from Canada or the country in which you reside) and (ii) your use of the Website will not infringe or misappropriate the intellectual property rights of any third party.

18. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Thotswap, its contractors, and its licensors, and their respective directors, officers, employees and agents from and against any and all claims and expenses, including attorneys’ fees, arising out of your use of the Website, including, but not limited to, out of your violation this Agreement.

19. Miscellaneous

This Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between Thotswap and you concerning the subject matter hereof, and they may only be modified by a written amendment signed by an authorized executive of Thotswap, or by the posting by Thotswap of a revised version. Except to the extent applicable law, if any, provides otherwise, this Agreement, any access to or use of the Website will be governed by the laws of the Province of British Columbia, Canada, excluding its conflict of law provisions, and the proper venue for any disputes arising out of or relating to any of the same will be the provincial and federal courts located in British Columbia, Canada.

20. Violations

Please report all violations of this Agreement to webmaster@thotswap.com.