Copyright Notice

VillageSoup.com is Copyright 2011 VillageSoup, Inc, all rights reserved.

VillageSoup.com ("Site") is provided for your personal use only. VillageSoup.com hosts posting of content from professional journalists, individual and business and organized community members ("Service"). Users of VillageSoup.com may not reproduce, republish or redistribute material from the web site in any form without permission of the Aiken Leader or the original copyright holder VillageSoup, Inc. ("Providers")

User-provided Content

Copyright on materials contributed by VillageSoup.com members is held by the individual creators.

All postings, messages, text, files, images, graphics, photos, audio clips, sounds, video or other materials ("Content") posted on, transmitted through, or linked from the Site, are the sole responsibility of the person from whom such Content originated. You are entirely responsible for all Content that you post, email or otherwise make available through the Site. For all Content provided by you, you agree to indemnify Provider as stated below.

By uploading or otherwise posting any Content on the Site, you represent and warrant: (i) you own or otherwise have all necessary rights, including but not limited to copyrights, to the content you provide and the rights to use it as provided in this Terms of Service; (ii) all information you provide is true, accurate, current and complete, and does not violate these Terms of Service; and, (iii) the content will not cause injury to any person or entity.

License

For all such information and material, you grant VillageSoup.com, its affiliates and related entities, and its affiliated newspaper, a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to use, copy, modify, display, archive, store, distribute, reproduce and create derivative works from such information, in any form, media, software or technology of any kind now existing or developed in the future.

No Pre-Screening or Editing

This is a community Site. As such, there are weblogs, member stories, comments, forums, photo galleries, bizBriefs, bizOffers, orgBriefs, orgOffers, and inventories of goods and services. VillageSoup.com cannot and does not monitor all of the material posted or transmitted to the Site. Additionally, VillageSoup.com does not control, and is not responsible for, Content made available through the Site by members.

By using the Site, you may be exposed to Content that you may find offensive, indecent, inaccurate, misleading, or otherwise objectionable. You agree that you must evaluate, and bear all risks associated with, the use of the Site and any of its Content, including but not limited to whether you should rely on said Content.

You also agree that under no circumstances will VillageSoup.com or its affiliates be liable in any way for any Content or for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any Content posted, emailed or otherwise made available via the Site. You acknowledge that Provider does not pre-screen or approve Content, but that VillageSoup.com shall have the right (but not the obligation) in its sole discretion to refuse, delete or move any Content that is available via the Site, for violating the letter or spirit of the Terms or for any other reason. VillageSoup.com reserves the right to delete any posting, message or photograph at any time, for any reason or no reason.

Online behavior, posting rules

You agree not to post, email, or otherwise make available Content:

• that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, pornographic, libelous, or invasive of another's privacy, or harms minors in any way;
• that harasses, degrades, intimidates or is hateful toward an individual or group of individuals on the basis of religion, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, age, or disability;
• that purports to be from any person or entity, including but not limited to a Provider employee, or falsely states or otherwise misrepresents your affiliation with a person or entity;
• that includes personal or identifying information about another person without that person's explicit consent.
• that is false, deceptive, misleading, deceitful, mis-informative, or constitutes "bait and switch";
• that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party, or Content that you do not have a right to make available under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships.
• that constitutes or contains "affiliate marketing," "link referral code," "junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes," or unsolicited commercial advertisement.
• that constitutes or contains any form of advertising or solicitation if (1) posted in areas which are not designated for such purposes; or (2) emailed to VillageSoup.com users who have requested not to be contacted about other services, products or commercial interests.
• that advertises any illegal services or the sale of any items the sale of which is prohibited or restricted by applicable law, including without limitation items the sale of which is prohibited or regulated by South Carolina or Georgia law;
• 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;
• that disrupts the normal flow of dialogue with an excessive number of messages (flooding attack) to the Service, or that otherwise negatively affects other users' ability to use the Service; or
• that employs misleading email addresses, or forged headers or otherwise manipulated identifiers in order to disguise the origin of Content transmitted through the Service.

Additionally, you agree not to:

• contact anyone who has asked not to be contacted;
• "stalk" or otherwise harass anyone;
• collect personal data about other users for commercial or unlawful purposes;
• use automated means, including scripts, spiders, robots, crawlers, data mining tools, or the like to download data from or upload data to the Service;
• post irrelevant Content, repeatedly post the same or similar Content or otherwise impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure;
• attempt to gain unauthorized access to VillageSoup, Inc.'s or its affiliates and related entities, and its affiliated newspapers computer systems or any other user's computer systems, or engage in any activity that disrupts, diminishes the quality of, interferes with the performance of, or impairs the functionality of, the Service or the Site.

Membership and registration

By registering as a Member of VillageSoup.com, you warrant that the information you provide to us, including the personally identifying information, is true and accurate. You accept responsibility for all activities that occur under your account or password, and agree not to sell, transfer or assign your Membership or any Membership rights. We reserve the right to terminate your Membership at any time for any reason. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password and for restricting access to your computer so others outside your household may not access VillageSoup.com using your name in whole or in part without our permission. If you believe someone has accessed VillageSoup.com using your user name and password without your authorization, e-mail us immediately at thecommunityleader@yahoo.com.

VillageSoup.com Privacy Policy

VillageSoup.com is committed to protecting consumer privacy online. We believe that greater protection of personal privacy on the Web will not only protect consumers, but also increase consumer confidence and ultimately their participation in online activities. We intend to give you as much control as possible over your personal information.

The purpose of our policy is to inform you about the types of information we gather about you when you visit our Site(s), how we may use that information, whether we disclose it to anyone, and the choices you have regarding our use of, and your ability to correct, the information.

Our Site(s) may contain links to other Web sites, including Web sites directed to children. We have no control over the privacy practices or the content of any of our business partners, advertisers, sponsors or other sites to which we provide links from our sites. You should check the applicable privacy policy of the Web site sponsor when linking to other Web sites.

VillageSoup.com strives to offer its visitors the many advantages of Internet technology and to provide an interactive and personalized experience. We may use Personally Identifiable Information (your name, e-mail address, street address, telephone number and other information) subject to the terms of this privacy policy. Please note this policy applies only to information collected by VillageSoup.com online and does not impact information collected or used by VillageSoup.com or its affiliates through other means.

How we gather information from users

How we collect and store information depends on the page you are visiting, the activities in which you elect to participate and the services provided. You can visit many pages on our site without providing any information. Other pages may prompt you to provide information, such as when you register for access to portions of our site, sign up for membership, request certain features (e.g., newsletters, news updates and other products) or make a purchase. You may also provide information when you participate in contests, voting and polling activities, photo galleries, comments, forums, blogs and other interactive areas of our site.

Like most Web sites, VillageSoup.com also collects information automatically and through the use of electronic tools that may be transparent to our visitors. For example, we may log the name of your Internet Service Provider or use "cookie" technology. Among other things, the cookie may store your user name and password, sparing you from having to re-enter that information each time you visit, or may control the number of times you encounter a particular advertisement while visiting our site. As we adopt additional technology, we may also gather information through other means. In certain cases, you can choose not to provide us with information, for example by setting your browser to refuse to accept cookies, but doing so may inhibit site functionality.

What we do with the information we collect

We will use your information only as permitted by law. Aggregated Information (information that does not personally identify you) may be used in many ways. As one example, we may combine information about your usage patterns with similar information obtained from other users to learn which pages are visited most or what features are most attractive. Aggregated Information may occasionally be shared with our advertisers and business partners, but cannot be used to contact you individually.

We also collect information to enhance your visit and deliver more individualized content and advertising.

We may use Personally Identifiable Information collected on VillageSoup.com to communicate with you regarding something you have posted, our Terms of Service and privacy policy, products and services offered by VillageSoup.com and other VillageSoup, Inc. affiliates and partners, administration of contests, processing e-commerce transactions and other topics we think you might find of interest. We reserve the right to share this information with other VillageSoup, Inc. business units and affiliates, including for example our affiliated newspapers and entities which are members of VillageSoup Common (collectively, "Affiliates"). This policy does not apply to any Affiliate's use of such information.

Personally Identifiable Information collected by VillageSoup.com may also be used for other purposes including but not limited to site administration and troubleshooting. Certain third parties who provide technical support for the operation of our site (our Web hosting service and our newsletter provider, for example) may access such information.

As we continue to develop our business, we may sell, buy, merge or partner with other companies or businesses. In such transactions, user information may be among the transferred assets. We may also disclose your information in response to a court order, at other times when we believe we are reasonably required to do so by law, in connection with the collection of amounts you may owe to us, and/or whenever we deem it appropriate or necessary to give such information to law enforcement authorities. Please note we may not provide you with notice prior to disclosure in such cases.

Affiliated sites, linked sites and advertisements

VillageSoup.com expects its partners, advertisers and third-party affiliates to respect the privacy of our users. However, third parties, including our partners, advertisers, affiliates and other content providers accessible through our Site, may have their own privacy and data collection policies and practices. For example, during your visit to our Site you may link to, or view as part of a frame on a VillageSoup.com page, certain content that is actually created or hosted by a third party. Also, through VillageSoup.com you may be introduced to, or be able to access, information, Web sites, advertisements, features, contests or sweepstakes offered by other parties. VillageSoup.com is not responsible for the actions or policies of such third parties. You should check the applicable privacy policies of those third parties when providing information on a feature or page operated by a third party.

While on our Site, our advertisers, promotional partners or other third parties may use cookies or other technology to attempt to identify some of your preferences or retrieve information about you. For example, some of our advertising may be served by third parties and may include cookies that enable the advertiser to determine whether you have seen a particular advertisement before. Through features available on the Site, third parties may use cookies or other technology to gather information. VillageSoup.com does not control the use of this technology or the resulting information and is not responsible for any actions or policies of such third parties.

Please be careful and responsible whenever you are online. Should you choose to voluntarily disclose Personally Identifiable Information in public areas on our site, such as in message boards, chat areas or in advertising or notices you post, that information can be viewed publicly and can be collected and used by third parties without our knowledge and may result in unsolicited messages from other individuals or third parties. Such activities are beyond the control of VillageSoup.com and this policy.

Children

VillageSoup.com does not knowingly collect or solicit Personally Identifiable Information from or about children under the age of 13 except as permitted by law. If we discover we have received any information from a child under the age of 13 in violation of this policy, we will delete that information immediately. If you believe VillageSoup.com has any information from or about anyone under the age of 13, please contact us at thecommunityleader@yahoo.com. Children under the age of 13 are specifically prohibited from registering as Members of VillageSoup.com.