Terms of Service | News Banner

News-Banner Publications, Inc.

Your use of our Internet sites or any of the products or services offered on those sites (collectively, the “Services”) is subject to these Terms of Use (these “Terms” or TOS).

ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS

News-Banner Publications, Inc. provides its User Portals, including its websites, forums, message boards, comment lines, photo, video and information submission portals as services to you, the visitor, based on its Terms of Service outlined here.

We may modify these Terms at any time without notice to you by posting revised Terms on our sites. Your use of our sites constitutes your binding acceptance of these Terms, including any modifications that we make.

Some of the Services may be subject to additional posted conditions. Your use of those Services is subject to those conditions, which are incorporated into these Terms by reference. In the event of an inconsistency between these Terms and any additional posted conditions, the provisions of the additional conditions shall control.

When using the forums provided by News-Banner Publications, inc, you are subject to these posted terms. Usage of the services on this site denotes acceptance of these terms. The TOS may be changed at any time and without direct notice to individual visitors, so it is recommended that you check back with this page at any time you have questions or concerns.

We have the right, but not the obligation, to take any of the following actions in our sole discretion at any time and for any reason without giving you any prior notice.

Restrict, suspend, or terminate your access to all or any part of our Services;

Change, suspend, or discontinue all or any part of our Services;

Refuse, move, or remove any material that you submit to tour sites for any reason;

Refuse, move, or remove any content that is available on our sites;

Deactivate or delete your accounts and all related information and files in your account;

Establish general practices and limits concerning use of our sites.

REGISTRATION REQUIREMENTS

In order to view messages on the News-Banner Publications, Inc. message boards or Forums without user restrictions, no registration is required or necessary. In order to post messages on Forums or boards, view boards with level restrictions, and use other advanced services, you must register with News-Banner Publications, Inc. using a valid email address.

Access to some content or archives may require a subscription that is different than the registration for the Forums.

CONTENT NOTICE

By viewing the site content, you agree that all content on the News-Banner Publications, Inc. message boards is the responsibility of the person from which the content originated. You agree that neither News-Banner Publications, Inc. nor its sponsors or affiliates are responsible for all content that you personally post or upload. News-Banner Publications, Inc. does not directly control any content posted on the boards, and does not guarantee the truthfulness or quality of any content. You agree that while using the News-Banner Publications, Inc. message boards, you may be exposed to content that is offensive or objectionable, and that you will in no way hold News-Banner Publications, Inc. nor its sponsors or affiliates liable in any way, shape, or form for any harm or loss that may come to you or others as a result of viewing this content.

News-Banner Publications, Inc. is not responsible for screening content before it is posted.

ACCOUNT RESPONSIBILITY

Users are solely responsible for protecting their accounts from access by others. You are strongly encouraged to select a hard-to-guess password and not re-use that password on any other sites where it may be read by the owners or administrators of that site.

While it is acceptable for users to maintain multiple accounts, News-Banner Publications, Inc. can and does track multiple shared accounts from a single or multiple computers as one account in terms of TOS violations. If the TOS is violated severely enough to warrant the banning of one account, all known accounts shared between a single or multiple users who use the same computer may also be banned for the actions of the violating account at the administrators’ discretion.

Because of this rule, it is highly recommended that board users do not share their accounts with others, nor share their computers used to access the site with others, as the actions of some other person could easily directly impact all known shared message board accounts.

PRIVACY AND RELEASE OF INFORMATION

Under normal circumstances, News-Banner Publications, Inc. will not release your provided information to any third party without your consent.

However, in cases of certain severe and/or repeated TOS violations or illegal activities, we reserve the right to forward any and all known information about you and your accounts to your ISP (including libraries, schools, and places of employment), email service provider, your ISP account owner (if someone else is actually paying for it), and any parties whose copyright has clearly been infringed by your actions on the boards or law enforcement authorities.

In the event of a subpoena received by News-Banner according to normal judicial or administrative process requesting information which includes your personal information (such as birth date, ISP address, etc.), and issued by court or government entity with subpoena authority, News-Banner will attempt to notify you for permission to release the requested information, and, at your request, News-Banner will wait for your response to the issuing authority within the permitted time-period. However, under normal circumstances News-Banner will not move to quash a subpoena, and will obey valid orders. News-Banner will attempt to redact from any response personal information not directly required by the request which may be included in the response.

MEMBER CONDUCT

You agree that you will not use this service to perform the following actions:

Offensive Posting
Posts of a patently offensive nature are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:
Using vulgar, profane, or sexually explicit language
Using race, religion, sexual orientation, culture, ethnicity, handicap, nationality, or gender as a means of insult
Using sexual preference terms as a term of insult in any way, shape, or form
Using threatening, harassing, defamatory, hate-speech, or libelous language
Posting or requesting links to or material from pornographic, obscene, or hate-speech web sites
Posting links to web sites with potentially offensive content without a clear warning
Descriptions or details about any sexual act or sexual organs
Flaming (Insulting Other Users)
Posts clearly insulting other board members, individually or as a group, directly or indirectly, are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:
Name-calling (“You’re an idiot”, “You moron”)
Direct insults (“Screw you”)
Offensive orders (“Go kill yourself”)
Insinuations (“Are you stupid or something?”) or insults towards family (“Your mom…”)
Trolling (Inciting Flames)
Posts intended solely to annoy and/or offend other posters by going against the clear nature of a board or topic are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to:
Provoking other users to respond with flames
Provoking fans of a particular team, system or game, especially on boards dedicated to that team, system or game
Making misleading topic titles
Asking obviously useless questions
Posting false information as fact
Illegal Activities
Posts that violate or incite others to violate the law are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to, asking for or providing, in any way, shape, or form:
Illegal copies of copyrighted software (ROMs, Warez)
Methods of circumventing copyright protection (Cracks, No-CD Patches, CD Keys, mod chips)
Illegal copies of copyrighted music (MP3s), movies, videos, or any other type of media
Reprints of material from other web sites (pay or free)
Methods of cheating in online games
Advertising
Posts that clearly advertise a service or product are not allowed.
This includes, but is not limited to:
Unsolicited commercial or personal web site advertisements
For-Sale/For-Trade/For-Auction/Wanted notices
“Make Money Fast” scams, chain letters, and pyramid schemes
Advertising for another message board
Users are allowed to include a web site address in a signature, request comments on their personal site in a social setting, or provide only once an interesting or relevant link to another site.
Disruptive Posting
Posts that disrupt the message boards for other users, intentional or not, are prohibited. This includes, but is not limited, to:
Message posts or topic titles that force browsers to scroll horizontally
Large blank or content-free posts
“Bumping” multiple older topics (posting in them well after the last post)
Posting multiple identical or near-identical messages or topics
Intentionally hard-to-read topic titles (i.e. ALL CAPS, AlTeRnAtE cApS, no spaces, no or excessive punctuation, 1337 speak, et cetera)
Posting multiple hard-to-read or nonsensical messages in a single or multiple topics
Posting large ASCII art (except in social topics specifically calling for it)
Post counting (i.e. “First”, “100th Post”)
Flooding, Invading, and Board Wars
Users may be immediately banned (along with any associated accounts) for:
Flooding a board with multiple disruptive topics or posts
Invading another board (flooding a board as a group with multiple topics or posts)
Instigating, participating in, or retaliating in an invasion of a message board or any other online service
Announcing or inciting a “war” or any conflict with the regular members of another board

Impersonation

Users may be immediately banned (along with any associated accounts) for impersonating other boards users by creating and/or using a message board account with a name clearly intended to impersonate, mock, or antagonize another user, or otherwise falsely claiming to be another message board member.

Harassment/Stalking/Privacy

Continual harassing behavior directed towards a certain individual or group with the intent of creating an intimidating, offensive, or hostile environment on the boards, with or without use of explicit or implicit threats is strictly prohibited. Posting private information without permission is also prohibited.

Unauthorized Access

Accessing or attempting to access any News-Banner Publications, Inc. user account not belonging to the user in question without permission is prohibited. Accessing another user’s account in this manner is grounds for immediate loss of all known accounts.

Bugs and Exploits

Using exploits or tricks in the News-Banner Publications, Inc. code to gain privileges, access, or abilities not clearly intended by the board design are prohibited. Making exploits public or using them for personal benefit is grounds for immediate loss of all known accounts.

Usernames, Profiles, and Forms

Violating any of the above rules with a username, any part of the user profile (signature, quote, email, IM), or via feedback forms (such as the Mark for Moderation function) is considered a severe violation.

Other

Any other activity that is clearly detrimental to the flow of conversation and normal activities of the boards and its users may also be deleted.

CONTENT OF OUR SITES

Our sites include a combination of content that we create, that our partners create, and that our users create. All materials published by News-Banner Publications, Inc. on our sites, including, but not limited to: written content, photographs, graphics, images, illustrations, marks, logos, sound or video clips, and Flash animation, are protected by our copyrights or trademarks or those of our partners. You may not modify, publish, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce, create derivative works of, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, or in any way exploit any of the materials or content on our sites in whole or in part. If you would like to request permission to use any of the content on our sites, please review our copyright notice and visit our Permissions and Reprints page.

You are solely responsible for all materials, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, that you upload, post, e-mail, transmit, or otherwise make available on our sites (“Your Content”). You certify that you own all intellectual property rights in Your Content. You hereby grant us, our affiliates, and our partners a worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free, nonexclusive, sub-licensable license to use, reproduce, create derivative works of, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, transfer, transmit, distribute, and publish Your Content and subsequent versions of Your Content for the purposes of (i) displaying Your Content on our Sites, (ii) distributing Your Content either electronically or via other media, to users seeking to download or otherwise acquiring it, and/or (iii) storing Your Content in a remote database accessible by end users, for a charge. This license shall apply to the distribution and the storage of Your Content in any form, medium, or technology now known or later developed, including print publication.

Our site contains content that we create as well as content provided by third parties. We do not guarantee the accuracy, the integrity, or the quality of the content on our sites, and you may not rely on any of this content. Without limitation, we are not responsible for postings by Users in the Forums, feedback, Comments, or Guest Book sections of our sites.

You may be exposed to content that you find offensive, indecent or objectionable or that is inaccurate, and you bear all risks associated with using that content. We have the right, but not the obligation, to remove any content that may, in our sole discretion, violate these Terms or that is otherwise objectionable.

THIRD PARTY SITES, PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Our sites contain links to other Internet sites owned by third parties. Your use of each of those sites is subject to the conditions, if any, that each of those sites has posted. We have no control over sites that are not ours, and we are not responsible for any changes to or content on them. Our inclusion on our sites of any third-party content or a link to a third-party site is not an endorsement of that content or third-party site.

With the exception of products clearly noted as News-Banner Publications, Inc. product and News-Banner photo reprints, we do not sell, resell, or license any of the products or the services that we review, list, or advertise on our sites, and we disclaim any responsibility for or liability related to them. Your correspondence or related activities with third parties, including payment transactions and goods-delivery transactions, are solely between you and that third party. You agree that we will not be responsible or liable for any loss or damage of any sort incurred as the result of any of your transactions with third parties. Any questions, complaints, or claims related to any product or service should be directed to the appropriate vendor.

FEE-BASED SERVICES

Some of the Services require you to pay a fee, as described in the specific conditions included where those Services are offered. You agree to pay all fees and charges that you incur. Unless otherwise noted, all currency references are in U.S. dollars. We may, upon notice if required by applicable laws, at any time change the amount of, or basis for determining, a fee or charge, or institute new fees or charges. All fees and charges are payable in accordance with payment terms in effect at the time the fee or the charge becomes payable.

All of the information that we collect from you, such as registration and credit card information, is subject to our privacy policy. Please click here to see our full Privacy Policy.