Last updated: November 7, 2018
These Terms and Conditions (“Terms”, “Terms and Conditions”) govern your use of this website (“Site”), our products and our services (the Site, products and services collectively being, the “Services”) which are owned, operated and provided by Operation Black Vote Canada (“OBVC”, “the Association”, “us”, “we”, or “our”).
Please read these Terms of Use carefully before using our Services. Any person who wishes to use our Services must accept these Terms and Conditions without change. BY USING OUR SERVICES, YOU ARE INDICATING YOUR ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND ACCEPTANCE OF THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND ALL RELATED POLICIES AND GUIDELINES OF THIS SITE, INCLUDING THE PRIVACY POLICY, AS INDICATED IN THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS ARE INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE.
These Terms and Conditions or any other policies or guidelines governing our Services are subject to change by the Association at any time in its sole discretion. Any changes will be effective upon the posting of the revisions on our Site. Your use of our Services will be subject to the most current version of the Terms and Conditions posted on our Site at the time of such use. If a change is material we will try to provide at least 30 days notice prior to any new terms taking effect. What constitutes a material change will be determined at our sole discretion. Your continued use of our Services after such changes are implemented constitutes your acknowledgement and acceptance of the changes. Please consult these Terms and Conditions regularly. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO ANY CHANGES TO THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, PLEASE IMMEDIATELY DISCONTINUE YOUR USE OF OUR SERVICES.
1. Your Registration Obligations
We may at times require that you register and/or set up an account to use certain portions of our Services. In order to do so, you may be provided, or required to choose, a password, user ID, and/or other registration information, including, but not limited to, personal information (collectively, “Registration Information”). You agree and represent that all Registration Information provided by you is accurate and up-to-date. If any of your Registration Information changes, you must update it by using the appropriate update mechanism on our Site, if available. If the Association believes that the Registration Information you provide is not correct, current, or complete, we reserve the right to refuse you access to our Services. However, the Association has no obligation to verify the accuracy, currency, completeness or usefulness of any Registration Information that you have provided to our Services.
You must be at least eighteen (18) years old to use the registered Services. If you are under the age of eighteen (18), your parents or guardians must provide consent for you to use the specific Services. Your use of the registered Services is a representation to us that you are at least eighteen (18) years of age or have parental or guardian consent. You agree to cooperate with the Association’s reasonable measures to verify your identity and authority, including confirming the consent your from parents or guardians, in connection with your use of the Services.
If you are accessing our Services on behalf of a body corporate (which includes a company or other organization with legal personality wherever or however incorporated), a partnership, a trust, a joint venture or an incorporated association or organization (the “Company”), by accessing our Services, that Company accepts these terms and you warrant that you are authorized to accept these terms on behalf of such Company.
2. User ID/Password
If you register and/or set up an account on the Site, you will be solely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of any user ID, password, and similar information. You may not authorize others to use your user ID, password, or similar information. You are solely responsible for all usage or activity on your account including, but not limited to, use of the account by any person who uses your Registration Information, with or without authorization, or who has access to any computer on which your account resides or is accessible. When using commenting on our Site, you may pick a username which we use to identify you in our systems and which will appear beside any comments you post in the news or blog section. Your comments and username may be visible to other users of our Site. You may be required to change your password on a regular basis in order to reduce the potential for unauthorised third party use. If you have reason to believe that your account is no longer secure (for example, following a loss, theft or unauthorized disclosure or use of your Registration Information), you must promptly change the affected Registration Information by using the appropriate update mechanism on the Site, if available, or contact us using the online “Contact Us” form. The Association will not be responsible for the unauthorized use of your profile by any other person. If the Association cancels your username or password for any reason, you must not re-register with the Association without the Association’s prior written consent. In the event that you reregister without the Association’s prior written consent, we will have the right, in our sole discretion, to cancel your username and password without notice to you. If at any time you want to delete some or all of the content that you posted or otherwise made available on the Site, please contact us through the online “Contact Us” form.
3. Restrictions On Use
You may use our Services for your own personal, non-commercial use, and you may not use our Services for any other purpose without the Association’s express prior written consent. For example, you may not (and may not authorize any other party to) (i) co-brand our Services; (ii) frame our Site; or (iii) hyperlink to our Site, without the express prior written permission of an authorized representative of the Association. For purposes of these Terms and Conditions, “co-branding” means to display any name, logo, trademark, or other means of attribution or identification of any party in such a manner as is reasonably likely to give a user the impression that such other party has the right to display, publish, or distribute our Services or which may confuse a user as the nature of the relationship between any party and the Association. You agree to cease and desist causing any unauthorized co-branding, framing or hyperlinking upon notice from the Association and at all times you will cooperate with the Association following our discovery of any such illegal activity.
4. User Content
(a) By using our Services, you may have the opportunity to post your own content (such as text, images and other materials), comments or inquiries (collectively, “User Content”) on our Site, including but not limited to, our news articles and blog. Any User Content you provide for display on the Site is considered non-confidential. Please read section 8 of these Terms and Conditions for additional information about posting User Content.
(b) When you access certain features on our Site that allow you to post and communicate with other users, we urge you not to share any personal information, confidential information or any other information that you would not want to share with the general public. Although most people on the Site are here for help and support, there may be untrustworthy people out there who may not have the best intentions. Please proceed with caution.
(c) You agree to only post User Content to which you own all proprietary right, title and interest, or have a license or written consent from the owner to post such User Content on our Site. You grant Operation Black Vote Canada a worldwide, royalty-free, fully-paid, non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable license to use, reproduce, publicly perform, publicly display, publish, distribute, and create derivative works of any User Content. We acknowledge and agree that you will own all proprietary right, title and interest in your own User Content.
(d) We may, but have no obligation to, review User Content before it is posted and we may refuse to post any User Content for any reason in our sole discretion. Additionally, we may, but we have no obligation to, monitor User Content already posted on the Site. We may, but have no obligation to, edit or remove any User Content that we, in our sole discretion, determine to violate any applicable law, these Terms and Conditions, or the purpose of our Services, or that we determine to be offensive or inappropriate or for any other reason in our sole discretion.
5. Proprietary Information
(a) The entire contents of the Site, including without limitation, all names, designs, graphics, images, illustrations, photographs, artwork, video, audio, software, code, data, text, displays, the Site’s “look and feel”, logos, slogans, trademarks, trade names, service marks, domain names, and the design, selection, arrangement and presentation of the Site as a collective work and/or compilation (“OBVC Content”) is protected under Canadian copyright, trademark, competition and other laws of Canada and other nations, and is owned by Operation Black Vote Canada or has been licensed to Operation Black Vote Canada. User Content is owned by the person who posted the information on the Site or the third party licensor, as the case may be.
(b) By using our Services, the Association may provide you with documents, information and resources (“Documentation”) owned by us or licensed to us which are protected under copyright, trademark, patent and other intellectual property rights. All content in the Documentation, including the collection, arrangement, and assembly of such content, is the exclusive property of the Association or licensed to the Association. You are granted a personal, limited, revocable, non-transferable and non-exclusive license to access, read and download the Documentation located on the Site for personal, non-commercial and not-for-profit use only. The Site is made available to you for your lawful, personal use only. You may print pages from the Site for your personal, non-commercial use only, provided that you do not modify any of the Documentation and you do not remove or alter any visible or non-visible identification, marks, notices, disclaimers or other Association Content.
(c) Except as described in these Terms and Conditions, you may not copy, sell, license, transfer, publish, reproduce, modify, display, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, adapt, translate, transmit, arrange, bundle, sublicense, export, merge, loan, rent, lease, assign, share, outsource, host, distribute in anyway, prepare derivative works based on, re-post, make available to any person or otherwise use, either directly or indirectly, any of the Documentation or content in the Documentation, in whole or in part, in an form or by any means whatsoever, be they physical, electronic or otherwise, , without the prior written consent of the Association. To request such written consent from the Association, please contact us using the using the online “Contact Us” form. We may refuse to provide you with such consent for any reason in our sole discretion.
(d) You shall not permit, allow or do anything that would infringe or otherwise prejudice the proprietary rights of OBVC or allow any third party to access the Documentation. The restrictions set out in these Terms and Conditions shall not apply to the limited extent the restrictions are prohibited by applicable law. Nothing contained in this Site and provided by our Services should be construed as granting, by implication, estoppel, or otherwise, any license or right to use any trade-mark, service mark, logo or any other intellectual property.
6. Third Party Content
(a) We may at times accept financial support from organizations dealing in commercial products or services and as a result, we may reference such organizations and their commercial products or services through our Services. Any such references do not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by OBVC of these organizations or their commercial products or services.
(b) Our Services may also contain information or materials (“Third Party Content”) that are owned or provided by persons other than OBVC (“Third Party Providers”). OBVC makes no representations and warranties with respect to any such Third Party Content and does not undertake to conduct an independent investigation of Third Party Content. Inclusion of Third Party Content from Third Party Providers with our Services does not mean, unless expressly stated otherwise, that OBVC endorses or agrees with such Third Party Content.
(c) You understand that you have no proprietary rights in the Third Party Content and that the Third Party Providers retain all proprietary right, title or interest, including copyright, in their respective Third Party Content.
(d) You may not copy, sell, license, transfer, publish, reproduce, modify, display, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, adapt, translate, transmit, arrange, bundle, sublicense, export, merge, loan, rent, lease, assign, share, outsource, host, distribute in any way, prepare derivative works based on, re-post, make available to any person or otherwise use, either directly or indirectly, any of the Third Party Content, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means whatsoever, be they physical, electronic or otherwise, for any public or commercial purpose, without the prior written consent of the Third Party Providers. You shall use your best efforts to stop any such copying or distribution immediately after you become aware of such use.
7. Hyperlinks
Our Services contain hyperlinks to other sites that are not maintained by, or related to, OBVC. Hyperlinks to such sites are provided solely as a convenience to you and do not imply any endorsement by OBVC of, any affiliation with or endorsement by the owner of the linked site. OBVC has no control over such third party sites. OBVC is not responsible for the availability of such external sites and no endorsement of any third party products or services is expressed or implied by any information, material or content referred to or included on or linked from or to our Services. Use of such third party sites, including any information, links, commercial transactions, materials, products and services therein, is solely at your own risk. You also understand and agree that OBVC’s Privacy Policy is applicable only while you are using our Services. Once you are linked to another site, you should read the privacy statement of that site before disclosing any personal information.
8. Use of our Services and Communication Guidelines
(a) OBVC expects that you will access and use our Services in a responsible manner in accordance with applicable laws and treat all users of the Site (the “Users”) lawfully and respectfully when posting User Content and interacting with Users through the Site. By using our Services, you may also have the opportunity to engage in dialogue with OBVC representatives (i.e. employees, board members and volunteers) by email, phone, at the OBVC office or at OBVC events. Any questions, comments and other information (collectively, “Information”) communicated to OBVC representatives, whether by email, phone or in-person and any User Content posted on the Site must not be obscene, illegal, threatening, embarrassing, defamatory, libellous, harmful, abusive, harassing, tortuous, homophobic, sexist, vulgar, obscene, hateful or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable, an invasion of privacy, an infringement of third party intellectual property or privacy rights, or otherwise injurious to third parties.
(b) You further agree that you shall use our Services for lawful purposes only and represent and warrant that you will not use our Services to:
(i) E-mail, post, provide, communicate or otherwise transmit (“Transmit”) any Information or User Content that you do not have a right to Transmit under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships (such as insider information, proprietary and confidential information learned or disclosed as part of employment relationships or under nondisclosure agreements);
(ii) Transmit any Information or User Content that infringes, misappropriates, or otherwise violates any third party’s copyright, patent, trade-mark, or other proprietary right of publicity or privacy, or encourages or enables any other party to do so;
(iii) Collect, store, distribute, post, revise or delete any User Content or other personal information of other Users without their express consent;
(iv) Transmit any Information or User Content known by you to be false, inaccurate or misleading;
(v) Transmit any Information or User Content that is intimate, private or that you would not want the public to view or have access to;
(vi) Transmit any Information or User Content that contains the personal health information of other identifiable individuals without their express consent;
(vii) Transmit any health card information, including the number, the version code or both;
(viii) Post any User Content that associates OBVC with any company, product or service that is contrary to any OBVC policies or may harm the reputation of OBVC or any OBVC programs;
(ix) Impersonate any person or entity or misrepresent your affiliation with any other person or entity, including without limitation, using a false email address or misleading OBVC as to your identity;
(x) Transmit any Information or User Content that violates the legal rights of others or that could give rise to any civil or criminal liability under applicable laws or regulations or that otherwise may be in conflict with these Terms and Conditions and our Privacy Policy;
(xi) Transmit any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, branding, promotional materials, commercial solicitation, political campaigning, “junk mail,” “spam,” “chain letters,” “pyramid schemes,” or any other form of solicitation;
(xii) Upload, e-mail, send via the Internet, provide us with, or otherwise transmit any software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy, alter, or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment or that imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on the Site’s infrastructure or limits the functionality of any OBVC or third party computer hardware, software, networks, or hardware or telecommunications equipment;
(xiii) Interfere or attempt to interfere with or disrupt our Services including but not limited to our servers or networks connected to our Site, including attempting to interfere with the access of any other user, host or network, including without limitation, overloading, initiating, propagating, participating, directing or attempting any “denial of service” attacks, “spamming”, “crashing”, “flooding” or “mail-bombing” our Site or disobeying any requirements, procedures, policies or regulations of networks connected to our Services;
(xiv) Direct bots, spiders, crawlers, avatars, intelligent agents or any other automated process at OBVC’s computer systems or otherwise, create unreasonable load upon any of OBVC’s computer hardware, network, storage, input/output or electronic control devices;
(xv) Remove any proprietary notices or labels, or any promotional or advertising material, from our Services;
(xvi) Use our Services for any public or commercial purposes, without the express prior written permission of OBVC;
(xvii) Intentionally or unintentionally violate any applicable local, provincial, national or international law, rule or regulation applicable in connection with our Services;
(xviii) Modify, adapt, sublicense, translate, sell, reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble any of our Services, including but not limited to any portion of our Site; or
(xix) Rebroadcast, retransmit or redistribute any OBVC Content or Documentation without the express prior written permission of OBVC.
9. Online Payments
(a) From time to time you may also purchase products or services from OBVC on our Site (“Products”). All orders and purchases made through our Site are subject to the following conditions:
(i) You are agreeing to and entering into a complete and binding contract with OBVC. You are responsible for providing complete and accurate billing and contact information to us and for notifying us of any changes to such information through the online Contact Us form.
(ii) All prices listed on this Site are in Canadian dollars and all charges will be processed in Canadian dollars, unless stated otherwise.
(iii) While OBVC takes great care to ensure its advertising is accurate, errors and/or inaccuracies may occur. OBVC may correct errors or inaccuracies and change or update information on the Site at any time without notice, including in respect of prices and availability of Products.
(iv) You may only purchase or order Products for non-commercial and lawful purposes and any other use is not permitted, unless you have received prior written consent from OBVC.
(v) The online checkout form or otherwise specific agreement that is used by OBVC at the time of purchase (the “Order“) will specify the Products that you are purchasing from OBVC.
(vi) You must be 18 years of age or older to purchase Products from the Site.
(vii) If you are purchasing Products with a Company credit card, you must be an authorized representative of the Company. If the products are for a child under 18 years of age, you represent and warrant that you are the parent or legal guardian of the child for whom the Products are purchased.
(viii) You agree to pay for all charges noted in your Order as payable by you.
(ix) OBVC reserves the right to limit the quantities of items which you, your family or any group can purchase, to reject, correct, cancel or refuse orders, and to determine accounts in its discretion including, without limitation, if OBVC believes that a consumer’s conduct contravenes applicable law or is harmful to the interests of OBVC or its representatives, agents, contractors, suppliers or licensees.
(x) OBVC will use commercially reasonable efforts to deliver items as quickly as possible and within any time periods indicated; however, OBVC will not be responsible for any delays in delivery which are beyond its control. Where delivery is delayed, OBVC will notify you as soon as possible.
(xi) If any Product listed or shown for purchase through the Site is no longer available in OBVC’s inventory, the Site will display a warning message to alert consumers as soon as feasible.
(xii) If you are not satisfied with your purchase and wish to exchange it or return it, please see our refund policy on our Site for further information about returns and refunds.
10. Products
OBVC strives to provide accurate descriptions of the Products displayed on the Site and will use commercially reasonable efforts when providing descriptions of a Product offered on the Site. For Products that are as described on the Site, your right to return any such Product shall be pursuant to our return and refund policy available on our Site at the time of purchase.
11. Indemnity
You agree at all times to defend, indemnify and hold harmless OBVC, its employees, volunteers, contractors, agents, officers, directors, members, successors and assigns (the “Indemnified Parties”) from and against any claims, losses, judgements, actions, proceedings, damages, costs and expenses (including without limitation, reasonable legal and other fees and disbursements) incurred by any of the foregoing parties due to or resulting from your use or misuse of our Services, our Documentation or from your violation of these Terms and Conditions. You will also indemnify and hold the Indemnified Parties harmless from and against any claims brought by third parties arising out of your use of our Services.
12. System Security
You are prohibited from using any services or facilities provided in connection with our Services to compromise security or tamper with system resources and/or accounts. The use or distribution of tools designed for compromising security (e.g., password guessing programs, cracking tools or network probing tools) is strictly prohibited. OBVC reserves the right to investigate suspected violations of these Terms and Conditions and to fully cooperate with any law enforcement authorities or court order requesting or directing OBVC to disclose the identity of anyone believed to be violating these Terms and Conditions.
13. Applicable Law
These Terms and Conditions and any action related thereto or related to our Services shall be governed, controlled, interpreted and defined by and under the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein without giving effect to any principles of conflicts of laws. The United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods is explicitly excluded from this agreement. You agree that any action at law or in equity arising out of or relating to these Terms and Conditions or your use of our Services will be filed only in a court located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and you hereby irrevocably and unconditionally consent and submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of such courts for the purpose of any such action. Your use of our Services is void where prohibited by laws in jurisdictions to which you are otherwise subject, and you agree not to visit or use our Services in any such circumstances.
14. Termination
You acknowledge and agree that these Terms and Conditions shall remain in effect for so long as you use our Services or Documentation. You agree that this agreement can only be terminated by you once you have stopped using our Services and Documentation. OBVC reserves the right to suspend or terminate your use of our Services and Documentation and remove any User Content from the Site at any time, for any reason, with or without cause, without prior notice or explanation, if OBVC believes that you are violating these Terms and Conditions in any way. If you wish to terminate your account, you may choose to cease your use of the Site or, for WordPress commenting, go to your account settings and cancel your account, or for a program-related account, contact OBVC through the “Contact Us” form. Note that unless you request otherwise, upon termination, OBVC will retain your personal information in a secure database. If you are dissatisfied with our Services, including these Terms and Conditions, your sole remedy is to discontinue using our Services.
15. Entire Agreement
These Terms and Conditions and any other legal notices, policies and guidelines of OBVC linked to these Terms and Conditions constitute the entire agreement between you and OBVC relating to your use of our Services and supersede any prior understandings or agreements (whether oral or written), claims, representations and understandings of the parties regarding such subject matter and the Terms and Conditions may not be amended or modified except in writing or by making such amendments or modifications available on our Site.
16. No Agency; Third Party Beneficiary
OBVC is not your agent, fiduciary, trustee, or other representative. Nothing expressed or mentioned in or implied from these Terms and Conditions is intended or will be construed to give to any person other than the parties hereto any legal or equitable right, remedy, or claim under or in respect to these Terms and Conditions. These Terms and Conditions and all of the representations, warranties, covenants, conditions, and provisions hereof are intended to be and are for the sole and exclusive benefit of you and OBVC.
17. Assignment
You may not assign, convey, subcontract or delegate your rights, duties or obligations hereunder without the prior written consent of OBVC.
18. Severability
If any provision of the Terms and Conditions is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavour to give effect to the parties’ intentions as reflected in the provision, and the other provisions of the Terms and Conditions remain in full force and effect.
19. No Waiver
OBVC will not be considered to have waived any of its rights or remedies described in these Terms and Conditions unless the waiver is in writing and signed by OBVC. No delay or omission by OBVC in exercising its rights or remedies will impair or be construed as a waiver. Any single or partial exercise of a right or remedy will not preclude further exercise of any other right or remedy. OBVC’s failure to enforce the strict performance of any provision of these Terms and Conditions will not constitute a waiver of OBVC’s right to subsequently enforce such provision or any other provisions of these Terms and Conditions.
20. Headings
The headings used in these Terms and Conditions are included for convenience only and have no legal or contractual effect and shall not affect the construction or interpretation of these Terms and Conditions.