View the latest versions of these policies at the urls below:
http://www.macinsiders.com/forums.php?page=terms
http://www.macinsiders.com/forums.php?page=privacy


MacInsiders Terms Of Service

MacInsiders ("we" or "us") is a community for McMaster University undergraduate students. We provide news, information, discussion boards, services, entertainment, and tools for students to use throughout their university life as well as events held on or off campus for our members. The MacInsiders service and network (collectively, "MacInsiders" or "the Service") is run and managed by a group of McMaster University students under the McMaster Students Union (MSU). By accessing or using our web site at www.macinsiders.com (the "Site"), you (the "User") signify that you have read, understand and agree to be bound by these Terms of Use ("Terms of Use" or "Agreement"), whether or not you are a registered member of MacInsiders. We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to change, modify, add, or delete portions of these Terms of Use at any time without further notice. If we do this, we will post the changes to these Terms of Use on this page and will indicate at the top of this page the date these terms were last revised. Your continued use of the Service or the Site after any such changes constitutes your acceptance of the new Terms of Use. If you do not agree to abide by these or any future Terms of Use, do not use or access (or continue to use or access) the Service or the Site. It is your responsibility to regularly check the Site to determine if there have been changes to these Terms of Use and to review such changes. USING THIS WEBSITE INDICATES THAT YOU ACCEPT THESE TERMS. IF YOU DO NOT ACCEPT THESE TERMS, DO NOT USE THE SERVICE OR SITE. PLEASE READ THESE TERMS OF USE CAREFULLY AS THEY CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS, REMEDIES, OBLIGATIONS, VARIOUS LIMITATIONS AND EXCLUSIONS. You can reach us by email at support@macinsiders.com

1. Our Free Service MacInsiders is a free, non-profit service. We only require that you follow these terms and conditions as you use our site. You may register to be a User on our Service, which will give you additional benefits such as creating a profile, posting in our many discussion boards, and viewing information about other members. Some areas of our site are viewable to guests and unregistered users, but their abilities are limited. If you do register as an official user of the Site, you may not authorize anyone else to use MacInsiders with your account or password. You may communicate with other individuals through MacInsiders, use our services and tools, or participate in promotions. We are not responsible or liable for anything related to these activities because you communicate and participate in such activities at your own risk.

2. Warranties We provide MacInsiders "as is," without warranties of any kind (including the implied warranties of any kind (including the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement), unless such warranties cannot be legally excluded. This means that you use MacInsiders at your own risk and we are not promising that you will obtain any specified type of information or any minimum level of service.

3. Limitation of Liability You agree that we, and those parties that help us to create, maintain or deliver MacInsiders content, are not liable for any indirect, incidental, consequential, special or exemplary damages (including for example, lost profits and damages from loss of use) resulting from using MacInsiders, unless the law requires us to be liable for such damages. You agree to assume all risk and liability arising from the use of our online services, including the risk of breach in the security of our system. If your information is stolen as the result of a breach in our system, or items meant to be private, such as private messages and private journal entries, somehow become public, this is part of the inherent risk you take in using our services. On the other hand, if you fail to follow these terms at any time, we can immediately stop you from ever using MacInsiders again and you will be responsible for any damages that we may suffer.

4. MacInsiders Content Except for items that you have marked as private or confidential, anytime you send us anything and specify it as publically available (pictures, graphics, information, articles, postings, or data, all of which we will generally refer to as "content") you are giving us the right to edit, duplicate, and/or delete it. If we decide to use your content for website promotions, we will notify you and ask your permission first. If you send us content, it is your responsibility to make sure that you have permission to use it and to send it to us so that we can use it. You can continue to use the content even after you send it to us, so long as you either own the content yourself or the person owning the content gave you the right to use it.

With the exception of email to us that you have marked as private or confidential, you should consider everything posted to MacInsiders sites as public information. The content of chats, discussions, message boards, bulletin boards, calendars, and forums is not endorsed by MacInsiders and we are not responsible for its accuracy. We reserve the right to screen all postings and to monitor all chat discussions, although we are not obligated to do so. We have the right to remove any or all content we receive from users of MacInsiders. We are not responsible for any material on the site that you might find objectionable.

MacInsiders may provide you with links to other sites. We are not responsible for the information or services provided by those sites and the fact that we provided you with a link to them does not mean that we endorse the site or the information or services provided by the site.

5. Conduct on our Site You are responsible for your behavior and conduct while at any MacInsiders site. We retain the right to edit or delete any part of the content that is published, displayed or distributed on the site. The MacInsider forums are to be used for generally informative and constructive discussion. Posts that are highly negative, make accusations without evidence or reasoning, and/or are deemed questionable, are subject to moderation by MacInsiders staff. You also agree that you will not (a) harass or stalk other users, that is, you won't insult them or send them unwanted messages, (b) impersonate any other person or identify yourself as anyone else, such as sending messages identifying yourself as a MacInsiders.com staff member, (c) use vulgar, abusive or offensive language while at MacInsiders, (d) post material that could reasonably be considered defamatory, libelous, threatening, obscene or vulgar, offensive to racial or ethnic sensibilities or otherwise objectionable, (e) use MacInsiders to gather any type of personal information from other people, such as, for example, email addresses, or (f) use MacInsiders to post advertising, promotional or solicitation material (other than in the Marketplace section), or (g) promote binge drinking, keggers, and/or any events that encourage drinking. In addition, MacInsiders will not permit any conduct that it believes will keep others from using or enjoying the site.

Administrators, moderators and other staff are assigned the task of upholding the following regulations. These regulations are subject to change without notice, and it is recommended that you periodically review this document from time to time in order to keep current. You, as a user of this website, maintain full liability for your actions on this website and we reserve the right to terminate your account at anytime and for any reason without notice. The site has the right to take down anybody's content and account at anytime.

5.1) Age All persons who utilize this website must be 13 and older. If you are under 13, please come back to visit us at a later date. Minors are encouraged to exercise caution when using forums and chats due to their unpredictable nature.

5.2) Legal This website assumes no responsibility regarding the things you may or may not say or do. You alone are responsible for what you say and do on this website, and you are responsible for the consequences of your actions.

You may not use this website in any manner other than its intended use.

You may not use this website to promote drugs or any other illegal activities.

You may not link to any other website in the chats, forums, or your personal profile that is deemed inappropriate by the administrators, moderators, or staff of this website.

You must follow all legal policies and regulations set forth by the MSU as well as McMaster University.

5.3) Username and Profile Information If any member of the staff feels that your Username is inappropriate, it can be deleted immediately without warning. Please try and keep the Usernames clean. Your profile information must be kept accurate and up-to-date at all times. All required information must be filled in such as first name, faculty, etc. Keep in mind that if you do not wish to share your last name, you can put "n/a" in that input box. If moderators or other members find that your profile information looks suspicious or is deemed inaccurate by MacInsiders staff, it will be reported to Administration in which case your account will be set to 'limited' mode where your abilities on the website will be highly restricted until you update your profile information. You will be notified when this happens via Private Message. If your profile information is not updated within 48 hours and you have not contacted or replied to Administration within that time period, MacInsiders reserves the right to terminate your account. MacInsiders will make sure this rule is enforced, as we want to keep the website exclusive to McMaster students and make sure that all members are properly identifiable.

5.4) Images Pornographic images, or images containing illegal, inappropriate or images that are otherwise not consistent with the overall goals of the site are not permitted under any circumstances. A majority of the users of this site are under 18. It is against the law for people under 18 to send or receive any pornography. It is against the law for people over 18 to send or receive any pornography from or to people under the age of 18. We do not want anybody using this website to solicit pornography no matter what your age. If both parties are over 18 and want to engage i n sending pornography, we still will not permit our website to be used for that purpose. There are many other online communication vehicles available to you if you wish to engage in such activities.

MacInsiders recognizes the privacy concerns pertaining to posting a picture on this website, and encourages individuals who do not feel comfortable with posting images of themselves to either leave the image section blank, or to use some other image that is not a photo of a person. If you place a picture of a person in your profile or anywhere associated with your username, it must be of you. Do NOT steal other people's pictures at anytime for any use.

You must have the rights to use any image that you submit to this website.

5.5) Personal Attacks Do not personally attack any other user in the forums, the chatrooms, the guestbooks, or anywhere else on the site. If you don't like somebody, simply ignore them.

5.6) Language If any admin or staff of the site feels that you have used inappropriate, disrespectful, or hateful language, MacInsiders administration will review the post in question and take appropriate measures outlined in this policy. Try to keep the language on our site as clean as possible. Hate speech is also not permitted in any form. This includes racism, gay bashing, and anti-Semitism. Anything deemed inappropriate by the staff will be considered a violation of these rules and regulations and can result in a warning, account suspension, or ban from the website entirely.

No user shall disrespect, threaten or harass another user, an administrator, a moderator or any other staff member. No user shall impersonate another user.

MacInsiders promotes a friendly, positive and constructive discussion environment. MacInsiders Staff reserve the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread or post that disrupts or has a negative impact on the discussion environment and/or MacInsiders community. The user who posted the content in question may also be subject to a warning, account suspension, or ban from the website entirely.

5.7) Staff Any user who disrespects or impersonates any staff, including but not limited to an employee, moderator or administrator shall be in violation of this Code of Conduct.

5.8) Hacking Any attempt to gain illegal access to any computer, file or network is illegal and will be punished by law.

5.9) Spam Any commercial posts are prohibited unless you have been granted the explicit right from a MacInsiders Network employee in writing. You may only create a membership for an individual. It shall be a violation of this document to create an account for a group or company.

5.10) Proxy Servers The use of proxy servers on our site is prohibited. If you use a proxy server to mask your identity and cause any sort of trouble on our site, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) will be contacted and made aware of your actions. In addition, virtually all ISPs have in their user agreement that the use of proxy servers is prohibited.

6. Rules for Club Exec/Leaders MacInsiders provides a forum and a shared calendar for club exec/leaders to use to promote their club and initiate discussion with their members and MacInsiders users. These rules are to be followed by club exec/leaders and/or club forum moderators otherwise MacInsiders staff will be permitted to take action.

6.1) MacInsiders requires you to post in your forum at least once a week to keep members updated with your club status and events. If your forum is found to be 'inactive' by any of the MacInsiders exec staff, it will be removed from the forum directory and 'suspended' until you contact the MacInsiders administrator, at which point we will restore your forum. Nobody likes to see forums that are empty or if users post questions and never get responses from club execs. Keep discussions going!

6.2) Promote your forum! MacInsiders attracts users to our site, and thus bringing you users to read about your club and visit your forum. We ask that in return you promote your forum to all your members and do so actively to get members posting in your forum. You may have a unique URL created for your club (yourclub.MacInsiders.com) to help make promoting easier. If you do not have your own URL, contact us to request one. Do not rely on MacInsiders traffic to make your forum active, you need to tell others it is there!

6.3) Be creative, and have fun. MacInsiders is a positive atmosphere for McMaster students. Some clubs have gotten creative by using their forum to create a poll for t-shirt design contests, for getting ideas on events, to PM users interested in learning more, or to debate topics. Keep things exciting for users to come back and check your forum out for updates!

7. Privacy It is strongly recommended that you follow common sense in the line of protecting your privacy. Remember not to give out your full real name, address, telephone number, social security number, credit card or other personal information to strangers. The identity to the person you are giving this information to is unknown. It is possible for users of MacInsiders who have met each other online to meet each other offline. We encourage people to do so, but if you ever meet somebody offline, be VERY careful. Get to know them as well as possible before meeting offline. Make sure to meet in a very public place like the food court of a mall. Tell your family and friends beforehand where you will be and have a cell phone with you in case of emergencies. We also highly recommend that you do not meet anybody outside of your age range unless a large number of people from the site are getting together. Remember that there is safety in numbers, so be very careful about meeting somebody alone. MacInsiders Privacy Policy can be found here.

7.1) Under the Age of 13 MacInsiders does not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 13 or knowingly allow such persons to register. If you are under 13, please do not attempt to register on MacInsiders or send any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, or email address. No one under age 13 may provide any personal information to or on MacInsiders. In the event that we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at support@macinsiders.com.

7.1) Children Between the Ages of 13 and 18 We recommend that minors over the age of 13 ask their parents for permission before sending any information about themselves to anyone over the Internet.

8. Account Termination MacInsiders may terminate your membership, delete your profile and any content or information that you have posted on MacInsiders and/or prohibit you from using or accessing MacInsiders for any reason, or no reason, at any time in its sole discretion, with or without notice, including without limitation if it believes that you are under 13, or not a student attending McMaster University. Due to the nature of the Service including discussion boards, you may request your MacInsiders account be disabled which will effectively hide your profile information from other users and no longer allow you to login to the Service or the Site, however certain data contributed to the Service or Site such as your discussion board posts and/or threads will remain intact and visible to users as to not disrupt or terminate ongoing and/or archived discussions or information. To request your account be disabled, e-mail support@macinsiders.com.

9. Disclaimer The views and actions of this club in no way reflect the views of MSU Incorporated.

10. Indemnity You agree to indemnify and hold MacInsiders, its subsidiaries and affiliates, and each of their administrators, directors, officers, agents, contractors, partners and employees, harmless from and against any loss, liability, claim, demand, damages, costs and expenses, including reasonable attorney's fees, arising out of or in connection with any User Content, any Third Party Applications, Software or Content you post or share on or through the Site, your use of the Service or the Site, your conduct in connection with the Service or the Site or with other users of the Service or the Site, or any violation of this Agreement or of any law or the rights of any third party.

11. Copyright We either own everything on this site or have permission to use it. You are not allowed to copy or retransmit anything from our site without MacInsiders' express written permission. If the material is owned or copyrighted by someone else, you must have the copyright owner's permission to use it. You also are not allowed to transmit to MacInsiders any material that you do not own or do not have permission to use. Violating this policy could result in civil or criminal penalties.

MacInsiders is not responsible for the content that is placed on the website by its users. However, content placed on the site by users or by MacInsiders at the request of a user, becomes the property of MacInsiders. If content is found to be breaking this rule, please contact MacInsiders at support@macinsiders.com and the material will be removed by request.

12. Governing Law This Agreement is governed by the laws of the province of Ontario and Canada. If any portion of this Agreement is invalid or unenforceable, it will be considered removed and the remainder of this Agreement will remain in effect. These are all the terms and conditions governing your use of MacInsiders.

This document was intended to protect all of the users of this website, and to fuel a safe, and fun environment for all of our users. Make sure you have fun on MacInsiders, as that is one of the reasons the site was created!

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MacInsiders Privacy Policy

Revised May 1, 2007

General Your privacy is very important to us. It is strongly recommended that you follow common sense in the line of protecting your privacy. Remember not to give out your full real name, address, telephone number, social security number, credit card or other personal information to strangers. The identity to the person you are giving this information to is unknown. Be careful about sharing personal information in public places. If you send personal information through email, or post it on a discussion board or in a chatroom, then other people can collect it and use it. You may end up getting email messages you do not want from people you do not know. It is possible for users of MacInsiders who have met each other online to meet each other offline. We encourage people to do so, but if you ever meet somebody offline, be very cautious and careful. Get to know them as well as possible before meeting offline. Make sure to meet in a very public place like the food court of a mall. Tell your family and friends beforehand where you will be and have a cell phone with you in case of emergencies. We also highly recommend that you do not meet anybody outside of your age range unless a large number of people from the site are getting together. Remember that there is safety in numbers, so be very careful about meeting somebody alone.

Under the Age of 13 MacInsiders is for college and university students, adults, and teens. It is not for people under 13. You must be 13 or older to participate in our Services or Site, and if you are under 13, we would prefer that you not participate at all on MacInsiders. MacInsiders does not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 13 or knowingly allow such persons to register. If you are under 13, please do not attempt to register on MacInsiders or send any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, or email address. No one under age 13 may provide any personal information to or on MacInsiders. In the event that we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at support@macinsiders.com.

Between the Ages of 13 and 18 We recommend that minors over the age of 13 ask their parents for permission before sending any information about themselves to anyone over the Internet.

Password If you do register on MacInsiders, you will have a password. MacInsiders will make every reasonable effort to protect your password. You are responsible for keeping your password confidential. Do not share it. If you share a computer with other people, make sure that when you leave, you are not signed on to your MacInsiders account and that you have exited your browser.

Information We Collect When you register at MacInsiders, we collect some information from you, such as your name, year of birth, and email address. You can update your information at anytime by changing your registration or user record on the Edit Profile page.

We will not sell or give out any of your personal information without telling you and giving you an opportunity to refuse.

We may release your personal information if required by law, or if we have cause to believe that it might stop someone from harming others.

Organizations other than MacInsiders may run services and/ or promotions on the site, and may collect personal information. Since they are separate organizations, we are not responsible for how they handle that information. If you are concerned about how they may handle that information, check out their privacy policies. If you do not want your personal information collected, you may decide not to participate in the contest or promotion.

This policy does not cover the information gathering of advertisers or companies that you can link to from MacInsiders. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those advertisers or sites. If you are concerned about how these other sites may handle information you provide, check out their privacy policies. By using MacInsiders, you may be automatically providing information to other sites.

Third Party Advertising We use AdBrite and other third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our Web site. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other Web sites in order to provide advertisements on this site and other sites about goods and services that may be of interest to you.

Cookies Cookies are small text files that are sent to your computer's hard drive. At MacInsiders, cookies allow us to track users to help us provide better service. However, the cookies are only active when a person has logged on to their account. If a person uses MacInsiders without logging on or registering, no cookies are involved. Cookies are used by us to get your account information and to tell us where you like to go on the site, what you participate in, and to determine the number of users on the site.

Third Party Cookies In the course of serving advertisements to the site, our third-party advertisers or their affiliates, or individual advertisers may place or recognize a unique "cookie" on your browser. They are separate companies, so we have no control over their use of cookies.

Surveys MacInsiders may survey or poll our users from time to time for our own use, for our clients or other sites. If you participate, you will be anonymous unless otherwise noted. No personally identifying information on individuals will be released from the surveys.

Copyright We either own everything on this site or have permission to use it. You are not allowed to copy or retransmit anything from our site without MacInsiders' express written permission. If the material is owned or copyrighted by someone else, you must have the copyright owner's permission to use it. You also are not allowed to transmit to MacInsiders any material that you do not own or do not have permission to use. Violating this policy could result in civil or criminal penalties.

MacInsiders is not responsible for the content that is placed on the website by its users. However, content placed on the site by users or by MacInsiders at the request of a user, becomes the property of MacInsiders. If content is found to be breaking this rule, please contact MacInsiders at support@macinsiders.com and the material will be removed by request.

Governing Law This Agreement is governed by the laws of the province of Ontario and Canada. If any portion of this Agreement is invalid or unenforceable, it will be considered removed and the remainder of this Agreement will remain in effect. These are all the terms and conditions governing your use of MacInsiders.