Kinja Terms of Use

Welcome to Kinja! By using Kinja (including by simply viewing content on Kinja.com (the “Site”), you are agreeing that you, and each person you allow to access Kinja through your account, will abide by the terms of the following User Agreement, which is summarized here, and set forth in its entirety below. This User Agreement is between you and Kinja (“We” or the “Company”), and it governs your access to and use of the services, websites, and applications offered by Kinja (the "Service"). Your access to and use of the Service is conditioned on your acceptance of and compliance with this agreement.

Summary

Using Kinja, User Conduct, and Your Content

• Anything you post on Kinja is public. So make sure you’re comfortable with the idea that anyone can view anything you post here.
• You shouldn’t post any content or use our service to do anything illegal or malicious.
• If it turns out any of your content or use is illegal or malicious, Kinja is not responsible — you’re responsible.
• Please do not hack, attack, or copy Kinja or our services.
• While we wouldn’t do it without good reason, ultimately Kinja may remove your content or terminate or suspend your account at its sole discretion.
• If disputes arise between you and anyone other than Kinja, we have no obligation to participate or assist either party.

Licensing Agreements
You own the content that you create on Kinja, however Kinja may distribute or use that content in a variety of ways. Examples include:

• Your post may be selected to be featured on another Kinja site by a staff member or editor
• Any Kinja user can repost any content you create to their own Kinja blog, however it will link to your blog
• If you post a favorable review of a company or its product, the company may pay us to feature your post across Kinja

Advertising
You may see advertising in and around Kinja. In each of these cases, we aim to respect your copyright and privacy and ensure you have an uncluttered experience. Examples include:

• We will insert ads in and around the Kinja platform and content experience where it makes sense, however, we will not place any ads on your blog
• We will insert affiliate links into your content where it makes sense, however, if you insert your own affiliate codes then we won’t remove them
• Your content may be used in ads with full credit and link back to you

Privacy
We do our best to protect your personal information, and store it only as long as necessary. We do reserve the right to reveal your personal information if the law requires us to.

Copyright Policy
Kinja respects the intellectual property rights of others and expects users and contributors to do the same. We will respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement where necessary.

Warranty, Disclaimer, Limitations of Liability, and Waivers

• These are exceptions the lawyers make us include to ensure that we are not at risk for significant liabilities. Since we are offering the Service free of charge, we hope you’ll understand.
• Whenever we make any updates to these Terms, we will update them here and do our best to communicate any material changes to our users.

User Agreement

The following agreement (“Terms”) describes the terms on which we offer you access to the Services, defined below. Capitalized terms used in these Terms shall have the meanings set forth below under “Definitions” or in the text of these Terms. Our offer to allow you to access the Service is conditioned on your agreement to all of the terms and conditions contained in these Terms, including your compliance with the policies and terms linked to (via URLs or hyperlinks) from this Agreement, such as our Privacy Policy and our Content Guidelines. If you do not agree to be bound by these Terms in their entirety, you must cease accessing or otherwise using the Services in any way. Your use of any of the services constitutes your agreement to these Terms.

We may amend these Terms at any time in our sole discretion, effective upon posting the amended Terms at this URL where the prior version of these Terms was posted or by communicating these changes through any written contact method we have established with you. Your use of the Services following the date on which such amended Terms are published will constitute consent to such amendments. However, if you cease using the Services upon such publication, your relationship with us will continue to be controlled by the previous version of these Terms. You agree that you will periodically check this page for updates to these Terms, and read the messages we send you to inform you of any changes.

DEFINITIONS

“Company” or “Kinja” or “We” shall mean each of Kinja, Gawker Media, LLC, Blogwire KFT, and/or any of their affiliates, individually and collectively, doing business as Kinja or otherwise.

“Company Parties” shall mean the Company, its affiliates and subsidiaries, and any of their directors, employees, agents, attorneys, third-party content providers, distributors, licensees or licensors.

“Service” or “Services” shall mean any of the internet based or other services offered by the Company, including, but not limited to, those described in this Agreement, whether through a website owned or controlled by the Company, through a social networking system, a mobile application, on your cellphone or otherwise.

“User Contributed Content” or “Content” shall mean each and every item of content or other material (whether images, links, documents, text, writings, photographs, graphics, videos, or files) uploaded by a user through the Service or otherwise integrated into the Service by a user.

1. Using Kinja, User Conduct, and Your Content

Eligibility: You may use our Services only if you can form a binding contract with Kinja in compliance with the Agreement. In order to become a “Registered User” (by creating an account), Kinja requires an individual to be at least eighteen (18) years old and not have a previous account terminated by Kinja or otherwise have had his or her access to the Services terminated by Kinja . It is a violation of the Agreement to provide false or misleading information to Kinja in connection with the creation of an account. If you would like to report an account registered for a minor, please email help [at] gawker.com.

User Responsibilities: You are solely responsible for your use of our Service, for any Content you submit to us, any interactions with other Kinja users, and for any consequences thereof. Content you submit will be viewable by other users of the Service and through third party services and websites.

You should only provide Content that you are comfortable sharing with others under these Terms, and that does not violate any third-party’s rights of any kind, including without limitation, any intellectual property rights, rights of privacy, or publicity rights. Unless provided otherwise under a separate agreement with Kinja, you agree to abide by the Content Guidelines located here: Content Guidelines.

Kinja reserves the right, but is not obligated, to reject and/or remove any Content that Kinja in its sole discretion, including, but not limited to, violations of these Terms or Content Guidelines. Kinja reserves the right, but has no obligation, to monitor disputes between you and other users. Kinja shall have no liability for your interactions with other users, or for any user’s action or inaction.

User Conduct: In exchange for your being able to use the Services, you agree to be bound by the following obligations:

1. Registration.

• Even if you choose to create an anonymous account, you are still agreeing to all of these Terms.
• You may not:
  • use a false information or an account owned or controlled by another person with the intent to mislead other users maliciously by impersonating that person or for any other reason;
  • use as a User ID a name subject to any rights of a person other than yourself without appropriate authorization or in violation of our Content Guidelines; or
  • otherwise submit false or misleading information to the Company.

2. No Changes to the Software/Prohibited Uses.

You may not and may not allow any third party to:

• modify, adapt, disassemble, decompile, translate, reverse engineer or otherwise attempt to discover the source code or structure, sequence and organization of the Services or any portion of any website on which the Services are offered (except where the foregoing is required by applicable local law, and then only to the extent so required under such laws);
• use the Service in any manner that could damage, disable, overburden, or impair the Service or another user's use of the Service;
• remove, obscure or change any copyright, trademark, hyperlink or other proprietary rights notices (“Notices“) contained in or on the Service or any website on which the Service is offered, Company code embeddable or embedded on a third party web site, and/or Company software;
• submit any content or material that falsely express or imply that such content or material is sponsored or endorsed by the Company; or
• use the Services to violate the security of any computer network or transfer or store illegal material.

3. Usage Rules.

You agree that your use of and conduct on the Service (including any forum, message board, chat or other communication feature), and your User Contributed Content shall be lawful and will not:

• violate the contractual, personal, intellectual property or other rights of any party, or promote or constitute illegal activity;
• be in violation of these Terms, any local, state, federal or international law, rule or regulation or the rules of conduct posted with respect to any individual feature of the Services;
• create user accounts by automated means or under false pretenses or mislead others as to the origins of your communications;
• trick, defraud or mislead the Company or other users, especially in any attempt to learn sensitive account information such as passwords;
• make improper use of the Company’s support services or submit false reports of abuse or misconduct;
• engage in promoting any pyramid schemes or other multi-tiered marketing schemes or engage in promoting any websites or services that are deemed spam, malware, or contain objectionable material in the Company's sole discretion;
• create or transmit unwanted electronic communications such as “spam,” to other users or members of Service or otherwise interfere with other users' or members' enjoyment of the Service;
• disseminate or transmit viruses, worms, Trojan horses, RATs, keyboard loggers, time bombs, spyware, adware, cancelbots, passive collection mechanisms (“PCMs”), or any other malicious or invasive code or program or upload or transmit (or attempt to upload or to transmit) any material that acts as a passive or active information collection or transmission mechanism, including, without limitation, clear graphics interchange formats ("gifs"), 1x1 pixels, web bugs, cookies or other similar devices;
• copy or adapt the Service’s software including but not limited to Flash, PHP, HTML, JavaScript or other code;
• reverse engineer, decompile, reverse assemble, modify or attempt to discover any software (source code or object code) that the Service create to generate web pages or any software or other products or processes accessible through the Service;
• except as may be the result of standard search engine or Internet browser usage, use or launch, develop or distribute any automated system, including, without limitation, any spider, robot (or "bot"), cheat utility, scraper or offline reader that accesses the Service, or use or launch any unauthorized script or other software;
• cover or obscure any notice, banner, advertisement or other branding on the Service;
• disguise the source of your User Contributed Content or other information you submit to the Service;
• interfere with or circumvent any security feature of the Service or any feature that restricts or enforces limitations on use of or access to the Service, Content or the User Content;

4. You agree that you shall be responsible for any consequences (including a responsibility to indemnify the Company for damages it may suffer) arising in the event that any use of and conduct on the Service (including any forum, message board, chat or other communication feature), and your User Contributed Content:

• includes any offensive comments that are connected to race, national origin, gender, sexual preference or physical handicap;
• includes profanity or any obscene, indecent, pornographic, sexual or otherwise objectionable content or language;
• defames, libels, ridicules, mocks, disparages, threatens, harass, intimidates or abuses anyone;
• promotes violence or describes how to perform a violent act;
• reveals any personal information about another individual, including another person's address, phone number, e-mail address, credit card number or any information that may be used to track, contact or impersonate that individual;
• attempts to impersonate any other party;
• or uses tools which anonymize your internet protocol address (e.g. anonymous proxy) to access the Service;

5. The Company does not control or endorse the content, messages or information found in User Contributed Content or external sites that may be linked to or from a Company product or its forum and, therefore, the Company specifically disclaims any responsibility with regard thereto.

6. The Service may contain or deliver advertising and sponsorships. Advertisers and sponsors are responsible for ensuring that material submitted for inclusion is accurate and complies with applicable laws. We are not responsible for the illegality or any error, inaccuracy or problem in the advertiser's or sponsor's materials.

2. Licensing Agreements

User License: You retain your rights to any Content you submit to or through the Service. By posting any Content on the Service, however, you expressly grant, and you represent and warrant that you have all rights necessary to and do grant, to Kinja a royalty-free, sublicensable, transferable, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, worldwide license to use, reproduce, modify, publish, list information regarding, edit, translate, distribute, syndicate, publicly perform, publicly display, and make derivative works of all such Content and your name, voice, and/or likeness as contained in your Content, in whole or in part, and in any form, media or technology, whether now known or hereafter developed, for use in connection with the Service and Kinja’s (and its successors, assignees, or affiliates) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats, whether now known or hereafter developed, and through any media channels or search engines for commercial and noncommercial purposes alike. You also hereby grant each user of the Service a non-exclusive license to access your Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such Content as permitted through the functionality of the Service and under these Terms.

Such additional uses by Kinja, or other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with or use Kinja, may be made with no compensation paid to you with respect to the Content that you submit, post, transmit or otherwise make available through the Service. We may add or insert affiliate and partner code into Content that you submit. We may modify or adapt your Content in order to transmit, display or distribute it over computer networks and in various media and/or make changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to any requirements or limitations of any networks, devices, services or Third Party Services, and you are responsible for reading and understanding those Third Party Services' privacy policies.

Site License: All right, title, and interest in and to the Service (excluding Content provided by users) shall remain the exclusive property of Kinja and its licensors. The Service is protected by copyright, trademark, and other laws of both the United States and foreign countries. Nothing in the Terms gives you a right to use the Kinja name or any of the Kinja trademarks, logos, domain names, and other di