Terms of service | Hello Homestead

Please read user agreement before using this service. By continuing to use Hello Homestead and/or its affiliates, you agree to abide by the conditions of this agreement.

Welcome to hellohomestead.com (“Service”). By using this Service, you agree to be bound by all of the terms of this Agreement. This Service is currently free to all users, and Bangor Publishing Co. reserves the right to charge for this Service in the future. In such event, we will notify you in advance, and give you an opportunity to subscribe to this Service. We reserve the right to change the terms of this Agreement or to modify any features of this Service at any time. By registering for this Service and/or continuing to use this Service after the posting of Notices regarding such changes, you agree to be bound by such changes.
You represent that you have read and agree to abide by the hellohomestead.com Terms of Service.
This Service (including, but not limited to, text, photographs, graphics, video and audio content) is protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under the copyright laws of the United States and other countries. All individual articles, content and other elements comprising this Service are also copyrighted works. You must abide by all additional copyright notices or restrictions contained in this Service. By posting content on the Service or submitting content to the Service, a user is giving Bangor Publishing Co. (The Company) the right to display such content on the Service and its affiliated publications and to distribute such content and use such content for promotional and marketing purposes.
(a) Except for content you have posted on the Service or contributed to the Service, or unless expressly permitted, you may not copy, reproduce, distribute, publish, enter into a database, display, perform, modify, create derivative works, transmit, or in any way exploit any part of this Service, except that you may download material from this Service for your own personal use as follows: you may make one machine readable copy and/or one print copy that is limited to occasional articles of personal interest only. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, you may not distribute any part of this Service over any network, including a local area network, nor sell or offer it for sale. In addition, these files may not be used to construct any kind of database.

(b) Hellohomestead.com has been specially designed for presentation of content in a unique format and appearance to our users. We are concerned about the integrity of our Service when it is viewed in a setting created by a third party that includes advertising or other materials that we have not authorized to be displayed with our Service. Without limiting the provisions of (5a), neither you nor any third party shall make use of the contents of the Service in any manner that constitutes an infringement of our rights, including copyright or that has not been authorized by us.
You will be responsible for all charges incurred while your account is being used, if any, including charges for any goods or services. You are also responsible for all statements made or materials posted under your account, including liability for harm caused by such statements or materials. You may not transfer, sell, or otherwise assign your rights or obligations under this Agreement.
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Bangor Publishing Co. and affiliates, and their directors, officers, managers, employees, shareholders, agents, and licensors, from and against all losses, expenses, damages and costs, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, resulting from any violation of this Agreement or the hellohomestead.com Terms of Service, or the failure to fulfill any obligations relating to your account incurred by you or any other person using your account. We reserve the right to take over the exclusive defense of any claim for which we are entitled to indemnification under this Section. In such event, you shall provide us with such cooperation as is reasonably requested by us.
This Service is available “as is.” We do not warrant that this Service will be uninterrupted or error-free. There may be delays, omissions, interruptions and inaccuracies in the information or other materials available through this Service. We are not responsible for the availability or content of other services that may be linked to this Service. We do not make any warranties, express or implied, including without limitation, those of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, with respect to this Service or any information or goods that are available or advertised or sold through this Service. We do not make any representations, nor do we endorse the accuracy, completeness, timeliness or reliability of any advice, opinion, statement or other material or database displayed, uploaded or distributed in this Service or available through links in this Service. We reserve the right to correct any errors or omissions in this Service. Although we intend to take reasonable steps to prevent the introduction of viruses, worms, “Trojan horses” or other destructive materials to this Service, we do not guarantee or warrant that this Service or materials that may be downloaded from this Service do not contain such destructive features. We are not liable for any damages or harm attributable to such features. If you rely on this Service and any materials available through this Service, you do so solely at your own risk.
Bangor Publishing Co. and affiliates, and their directors, officers, managers, employees, shareholders, agents and licensors are not liable for incidental, indirect, consequential, special, punitive, or exemplary damages of any kind, including lost revenues or profits, loss of business or loss of data, in any way related to this Service or for any claim, loss or injury based on errors, omissions, interruptions or other inaccuracies in this Service (including without limitation as a result of breach of any warranty or other term of this Agreement). Any claim against us shall be limited to the amount you paid, if any, for use of this Service.
This Agreement may be terminated for any reason at any time. Sections three (3) and six (6) through nine (9) of this Agreement shall survive such termination.
This Agreement shall be governed by the laws of the United States and the State of Maine. BY CONTINUING TO USE HELLOHOMESTEAD.COM, YOU AGREE TO ABIDE BY THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT. At the same time that Bangor Publishing Co. and hellohomestead.com are committed to bringing you information tailored to your individual needs, we recognize the importance of protecting the privacy of your personally identifiable information. In adopting this privacy policy, our intent is to balance our legitimate business interests in collecting and using personally identifiable information and your reasonable expectations of privacy. Please note: this policy applies only to information collected by hellohomestead.com online, as specified below, and does not govern or apply to information collected or used by Bangor Publishing Co. or its affiliates through other means.

What personally identifiable information do I provide to hellohomestead.com?

Hellohomestead.com asks you to provide various types of personally identifiable information to enhance your experience on our site. Hellohomestead.com may ask for information such as your name, e-mail address, year of birth, gender, Zip code, country, street address. The more information you provide, the better we are able to customize your experience. We may also ask you for other information at other times – such as when you enter a contest or participate in a promotion, when you post an online ad, when you participate in our message boards, or when you order products from us. Whenever you provide personally identifiable information to us, we will make an effort to link to our privacy policy. See below about “cookies” and what other information is collected.

How does Hellohomestead.com use my personally identifiable information?

Our primary goal in collecting personally identifiable information is to provide you, the user, with a customized experience on our network of sites. This includes personalization services, interactive communications, online shopping and many other types of services, most of which are completely free to you.

In order to provide services free of charge, we display advertisements. Hellohomestead.com delivers targeted advertisements on behalf of advertisers. Advertisers give us an advertisement and tell us the type of audience they want to reach. We take the advertisement and display it to users meeting that criteria. In this process, the advertiser never has access to individual account information. If you supply us with your email address, you may receive special offers via email from hellohomestead.com.

Do other companies or people have access to personally identifiable information I provide to hellohomestead.com?

When you are on an area of hellohomestead.com and are asked for personally identifiable information, you are providing that information to Bangor Publishing Co., its divisions or affiliates, or vendors providing contractual services for hellohomestead.com (such as hosting vendors and list managers). If personally identifiable information is being provided to and/or maintained by any company other than these, our policy is that we will not transfer that personally identifiable information unless notice is given prior to transfer. If you do not want your information to be shared, you can choose not to allow the transfer by not using that particular service or by expressing this preference, if requested. Additional information about personally identifiable information follows.

Promotions: Promotions that run on hellohomestead.com may be sponsored by companies other than hellohomestead.com or may be co-sponsored by hellohomestead.com and another company. Some or all personally identifiable information provided by you during a promotion may be shared with the sponsor. If information will be shared, we will disclose such sharing prior to the transfer. You can decide not to participate in the promotion if you don’t want your personally identifiable information to be shared. In certain circumstances, you may not be able to participate in a particular promotion if you chose not to share personally identifiable information. Currently, most hellohomestead.com promotions are limited to U.S. or North American residents.

Advertisers and Links: hellohomestead.com advertisers, or Web sites that have links on our site, may also collect personally identifiable information directly from you. The information practices of companies collecting data on our site or Web sites linked to hellohomestead.com are not covered by this privacy statement.

Marketplace: Businesses listed in hellohomestead.com, and businesses that advertise in hellohomestead.com, have separate privacy and data collection practices. Hellohomestead.com has no responsibility or liability for these independent policies. For more information regarding the business and its privacy policy, go to that business’ home page and click on the appropriate link.

Other: If we run competitions or contests on the site, you may be required to provide additional information such as your telephone number and address in order to participate. The exact rules may vary in each case but the specific rules for any contest will state how that information may be used. If you told us in your account preferences that you would be interested in receiving e-mail from us, we may send you e-mails about hellohomestead.com products, promotions, or services as well as on behalf of other companies. You can change your account preferences at any time. In addition, in each advertising email you will be provided an ability to opt-out of receiving future emails from the advertiser.

We do not control the privacy policies of our advertisers, sponsors or other sites or businesses to which we provide hyperlinks or access. Please visit the sites of these businesses to review their privacy policies.

Hellohomestead.com users should also be aware that, when you voluntarily disclose personal information in comment areas, that information may be collected by others and may result in unsolicited messages from others.

Except as stated in this privacy policy or at the time of collection, a user’s personally identifiable information will not be transferred to a party outside Bangor Publishing Co., its divisions or affiliates, or its service vendors unless notice is given at the time of collection or prior to transfer.

hellohomestead.com may also disclose account information in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be violating our User Agreement or may be causing injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally) hellohomestead.com’s rights or property, other hellohomestead.com users, or anyone else that could be harmed by such activities.

Data Security: We have in place physical, electronic and managerial procedures to protect the information we collect online. However, as effective as these measures are, no security system is impenetrable. We cannot guarantee the security of our database, nor can we guarantee that the information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted to us over the internet.

What information do web servers collect?

Web servers serving hellohomestead.com automatically collect certain non-personally identifiable information, such as which pages each user visits and the domain name (e.g., earthlink.net) of visitors. This information is used for various purposes including internal review, to tailor information to individual visitors, and for traffic audits. We also provide this information (as well as information from third-party market researchers) about our users on an aggregated, anonymous basis to our advertisers.

What are cookies and how does hellohomestead.com use them?

Hellohomestead.com places a “cookie” on the browser of a hellohomestead.com user’s computer to store and sometimes track information about you. A cookie can be used to tell when your computer has contacted a Web site; we may also use the information for editorial purposes and for other purposes such as measuring traffic. For example, cookies are used to ensure that you don’t see the same ad too many times in a single session and that you do not have to re-enter your login name or password during your visit. We may also use cookies to track your progress and number of entries in some of our promotions and contests. Advertising service vendors that serve ads into our site may also use their own cookies. You may opt out of the cookies delivered by hellohomestead.com by changing the setting on your browser. Please be aware that this will disable all cookies delivered to your browser, not just the ones delivered by hellohomestead.com.

How can I opt out of online advertising cookies?

Online advertising for hellohomestead.com is delivered by numerous vendors. These vendors place cookies on users’ hard drives so that their systems can identify your computer. By placing such cookies on your system, these systems are able, among other things, to determine automatically whether you have seen a particular advertisement before and avoid sending you duplicate advertisements. Cookies also enable our advertising services to serve you advertisements tailored to things you have shown interest in based on other sites you have visited.

Often our advertisers contract with a third-party service to host their ads. In this case, an ad serving vendor contacts the advertisers’ hosting service for a particular advertisement. In that case, an independent cookie may be used by the third-party service. We do not have a mechanism to allow visitors to opt-out of cookies from vendors with whom we do not have a contractual relationship.

Kids under 13

Do not send any information about yourself to us – including information like your name, address or e-mail address. In general, we do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 13. If, in limited circumstances, we do knowingly collect personally identifiable information from a child under the age of 13, we will do so only with verified parental consent prior to collection. In the event that we learn that we have collected any personal information from a child under the age of 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information from our database as quickly as possible after we are notified.

Technology on the Internet is developing at a rapid pace, and we need to maintain our flexibility in the online arena. If we need to change our policy in the future, we will post these changes as soon as they go into effect.

User submissions

As a user, you are responsible for your own communications and are responsible for the consequences of their posting. You must not, and by using any The Company Site you agree not to, do the following things:

Post material that is copyrighted, unless you are the copyright owner or have the permission of the copyright owner to post it;
Post material that reveals trade secrets, unless you own them or have the permission of the owner;
Post material that infringes on any other intellectual property rights of others or on the privacy or publicity rights of others;
Post material that is obscene, defamatory, threatening, harassing, abusive, hateful, or embarrassing to another user or any other person or entity;
Post a sexually explicit image or statement;
Post unapproved advertisements or solicitations of business, post chain letters or pyramid schemes; impersonate another person; post material that contains viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs, cancelbots or other computer programming routines or engines that are intended to damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept or expropriate any system, data or information.

The Company does not represent or guarantee the truthfulness, accuracy, or reliability of communications posted by users or endorse any opinions expressed by users. You acknowledge that any reliance on material posted by other users will be at your own risk.

The Company acts as a conduit for the online distribution and publication of user-submitted information and has no obligation to screen communications or information in advance and is not responsible for screening or monitoring material posted by users. If notified by a user of communications which allegedly do not conform to these Terms and Conditions, the Company may investigate the allegation and determine in good faith and its sole discretion whether to remove or request the removal of the communication. The Bangor Publishing Co. has no liability or responsibility to users for performance or nonperformance of such activities. The Bangor Publishing Co. reserves the right to expel users and prevent their further access to the Web Site for violating the Terms and Conditions or the law and the right to remove communications which are abusive, illegal, or disruptive.

The Bangor Publishing Co. may take any action with respect to user-submitted information that it deems necessary or appropriate in its sole discretion if it believes it may create liability for the Company or may cause the Company to lose (in whole or in part) the services of its ISPs or other suppliers.

Unless we have agreed otherwise in a separate contract, by submitting content to any public or non-public area of any The Company Site, including message boards, forums, contests and chat rooms, you grant the Company and its affiliates the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, sublicenseable (through multiple tiers), non-exclusive right (including any moral rights) and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, communicate to the public, perform and display the content (in whole or in part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, for the full term of any rights that may exist in such content. You also warrant that the holder of any rights, including moral rights in such content, has completely and effectively waived all such rights and validly and irrevocably granted to you the right to grant the license stated above.

You also permit any subscriber to access, display, view, store and reproduce such content for personal use. Subject to the foregoing, the owner of such content placed on the Web Site retains any and all rights that may exist in such content.

While we do value your feedback on our services, please be specific in your comments regarding our services and do not submit non-germane creative ideas, inventions, suggestions, or materials. If, despite our request, you send us creative suggestions, ideas, drawings, concepts, inventions, or other information (collectively the “Submission”), the Submission shall be the property of the Company. None of the Submission shall be subject to any obligation of confidence on our part and we shall not be liable for any use or disclosure of any Submission.

The Company shall own exclusively all now known or later discovered rights to the Submission and shall be entitled to unrestricted use of the Submission for any purpose whatsoever, commercial or otherwise, without compensation to you or any other person who submitted the Submission.