Terms of Use

The Daily Northwestern – Terms of Use (Effective Fall 2012)

Welcome to our web site, owned and operated by Students Publishing Company, Inc. (SPC). Please read these Terms of Use, which include our privacy policy, before using the site. By using this site, you signify your agreement to all of these Terms of Use; otherwise, do not use this site.

1. Copyright Notice

All content on this site, including but not limited to text, graphics, photographs, design, code, archived material, etc., is copyrighted to SPC. This includes The Daily Northwestern Student Web site. The names of “The Daily Northwestern” (TDN) and “dailynorthwestern.com” are the trademarks of SPC and are owned or licensed to SPC.

2. Disclaimer (Read This Carefully)

The materials provided on the web site are for informational, educational and/or entertainment purposes only. SPC makes no warranties regarding the reliability, truthfulness, accuracy or completeness of any materials. Unless otherwise stated expressly, any opinion, view or idea expressed in any article, review or story, or any content contributed or published by visitors in comments or otherwise disseminated or sent to SPC or others on or via this web site (“Visitor Content”) is the author’s own and does not reflect the views of SPC or its related entities, or its sponsors, advertisers or content providers. Neither SPC, its related entities, sponsors, advertisers or content providers are liable to any person or entity whatsoever for any loss, damage, injury, liability, claim or any other cause of action of any kind arising from the use, dissemination of or reliance on any materials or Visitor Content provided on this web site. You agree to use this web site entirely at your own risk. SPC and its related entities, its sponsors, advertisers and content providers disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose that the web site will function error free or uninterrupted or that this web site or the servers that make it available for use are free of viruses or defects. SPC and its related entities, its sponsors, advertisers and content providers shall not be held liable for any information, services or products that are provided or offered by web sites that are linked to this web site. The links to other web sites are provided only as a convenience to you and do not constitute any endorsement of the linked web sites. You agree that you use any linked web sites entirely at your own risk.

3. Jurisdiction

By accessing this web site, you agree that the laws of the United States of America and the state of Illinois shall govern jurisdiction and venue for any and all legal actions or disputes against SPC, TDN and any of their employees or volunteers. Any legal action must be commenced in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois in Chicago, IL.

4. Privacy Practices

SPC may use your IP address for technical administration of our web sites or servers. This information is used to gather broad demographic information.

Some information of our web sites may require more detailed contact information, including but not limited to name, age grouping, e-mail address, zip code and gender. This information is typically used to allow us to send out notifications of contest wins, responses to inquiries or requests for information from special events or us. Other uses of this data may be to customize the visitors’ experience so that they can receive the content they prefer.

Our web sites may enable you to communicate with other visitors to our sites through features like blogs, forums and comments. When you subscribe to these services, other visitors may collect your data. This is typically a username or “screen name” that you voluntarily provide.

We do not rent, sell, trade or otherwise give to other parties any information visitors to our site provide us. This includes mailing lists, contest entries, requests for information or any other information on a form on which we ask you to provide information.

We will not “spam” you, and it is our policy not to send unsolicited mail. Although some features will remain unavailable without disclosure of contact information, visitors will be given the opportunity to opt-out.

5. Security

SPC has implemented security policies, rules and technical measures to protect the personal data that we have under our control. This includes protection from unauthorized access, improper use or disclosure, unauthorized modification and unlawful destruction or accidental loss. All our employees and volunteers who have access to and are associated with the processing of personal data are obliged to respect the confidentiality of our visitors’ personal data. We will not disclose your personal information to governmental institutions and authorities, except as required by law or regulation.

6. Children’s Guidelines

If you are under the age of 18, you must obtain the permission of your parent or legal guardian prior to browsing, contributing to, or otherwise using the web sites, which permission you represent you have obtained. The web sites are not intended for persons under 13 years of age. SPC and TDN do not knowingly
solicit or collect personal information from or about children, and do not knowingly market products or services to children.

7. Terms of Use

This site includes interactive features such as Weblogs, comment tools and e-mail services. Responsibility for what is posted using these features lies with each user. You are entirely responsible for the material you post or send. SPC does not edit or control the material you or others provide. Conditions for your use of the site assume that you will not:

• Use the site to post or transmit unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, profane or indecent information.
• Use the site to violate or infringe upon the rights of others, including interference with servers or networks used to provide the site.
• Restrict or inhibit other users from enjoying the site, including interference with servers or networks used to provide the site.
• Use the site to commit illegal activities or encourage others to do so, including hacking or password mining.
• Use the site to post or transmit harmful software or other material such as a virus.
• Use the site to harass any other contributors to the web sites or other third parties.
• Use the site to personally attack any individual whose identity can be easily learned from what you post (an example of a personal attack is posting negative comments about an individual in a way meant to demean that person. Note that posting your opinion about someone’s ideas or actions is not a personal attack.).
• Use the site to reveal private or personal matters concerning any person.
• Use the site to violate the property rights of others, including unauthorized copyrighted music, images or programs, trade secrets or other confidential or proprietary information, and trademarks or service marks used in an infringing fashion.
• Use the site to post advertisements or other Content focused on the promotion of commercial events or businesses, or any request for or solicitation of money, goods, or services for private gain (except the classifieds);
• Use the site to disclose content that you do not have a right to make available under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships (such as inside information or proprietary and confidential information learned or disclosed as part of employment relationships or under nondisclosure agreements).
• Use the site to propagate content that contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment; or
• Use the site to contact or directly or indirectly solicit responses from anyone under 18 years of age.
• Use the site for commercial purposes, including solicitation to anyone to buy or sell products or services or make donations of any kind without or written permission.
• Use information posted by other users to gather information for marketing purposes.

SPC has no obligation to monitor any bulletin boards, chat rooms, Weblogs or other interactive areas of the site. We reserve the right to disclose any information to satisfy any law, regulation or governmental request. We may also remove or refuse to post information or material that is objectionable or in violation of our Terms of Use. Violation of our Terms of Use may result in denial of services.

Some features of this site require that you provide demographic information about yourself or that you register with us using a form to provide personally identifiable information. You agree to provide accurate, true and current information about yourself. Providing inaccurate, false or outdated information may result in suspended or terminated access to our site and its services. Our use of your information is governed by our Privacy Practices. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials. You are also responsible for activities that occur using your account, including any loss or damage arising from your failure to protect your information.

Comments are not monitored or moderated. Comments are intended by SPC for constructive commentary on stories on this site. SPC reserve the right to remove any remark found to violate the terms of use policies. To advise us of comments that may be in violation of our terms of use policy, site user may click on the “Report” advisory that is at the top right of each posted comment.

SPC and TDN reserve the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, the web sites (or any part thereof) with or without notice. You agree that SPC and TDN will not be liable to you or to any third party for any modification, suspension or discontinuance of the web sites or any content thereon. As a result of changes to the web sites (or changes in the law), SPC may need to update or revise these Terms of Use. Accordingly, SPC reserves the right to update or modify these Terms of Use at any time, without prior notice, by posting any such revised version of the Terms of Use behind the link marked “Terms of Use’ at the bottom of each page of this web site. Your continued use of the web sites after SPC has posted the revised Terms of Use constitutes your agreement to be bound by the revised Terms of Use.

We advertise third-party linked websites from which you may purchase or otherwise obtain certain sample goods, freebie offerings or free trial services. You understand that we do not operate or control the products, free offerings or services offered by third-party linked websites. You agree that use of such thirdparty linked websites is at your sole risk and is without warranties of any kind by us, expressed, implied or otherwise. Under no circumstances are we liable for any damages arising from the transactions between you and third-party linked websites or for any information appearing on third-party linked websites or any other site linked to or from our site.

8. Hold Harmless Agreement

By visiting and using this web site, you signify your agreement to save SPC, its related entities, its officers, directors, employees and volunteers harmless from any and all damages, legal actions or causes of action that may now or hereinafter arise as a result of your use of the web site and your breach of these Terms of Use and/or any representations and warranties related to the visitor content.

Submission of online comments constitutes permission to use those comments in whole or in part in other media of the SPC without compensation.

SPC will be entitled to use any comments you submit, and any ideas, concepts, know-how or techniques therein, for any purpose whatsoever, including but not limited to developing, manufacturing and marketing products and services using such comments without restriction and without providing any notice to you.

9. Advertising

All housing advertised is subject to the Federal Fair Housing Act which makes it illegal to advertise preference, limitations, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin, or intention to make any such reference, limitation or discrimination. We will not accept any advertising for housing which is in violation of the law. All persons are hereby informed that all dwellings advertised are available on an equal opportunity basis.

10. Accessing or Correcting Information

You can access all your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain by logging into your account and adjusting your account settings and profile information. You can correct factual errors in your personally identifiable information by sending us a request that credibly shows error in facts (as opposed to poor judgment). To protect your privacy and security, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access or making corrections.

11. Contact Information

Should you have other questions or concerns about these terms of use or privacy policies, please call us at (847) 492-3222 or send us an email at [email protected].