Terms of Service

Welcome to CHS Capitol Hill Seattle (“CHS”)! By using the CHS website (“the Website”), you accept and agree to be legally bound by these terms and conditions (the “Terms of Service”). You are only authorized to use the Website (regardless of whether your access or use was intended) if you agree to abide by all applicable laws and to these Terms of Service, which shall remain in full force and effect while you use the Website and thereafter. Please read these Terms of Use carefully and save a copy. If you do not agree with any Term of Service, you should leave this site and discontinue use of the Website immediately.

Please keep in mind that CHS may, in its sole discretion, modify these Terms of Service from time to time and such modifications shall be effective upon being posted on the Website. You agree to be bound to any changes to these Terms of Service when you use the Service after any such modification is posted. It is therefore important that you review these Terms of Service regularly to ensure you are updated on any changes and your use of the Website is in compliance with these Terms of Service.

Description of Service – The Website consists of a set of tools that allows you to view and contribute news stories and related content. You agree that the Website is provided to you on an AS IS and AS AVAILABLE basis, without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, and no representations are or have been made to you with regard to the reliability, availability, performance or security of the Website. Further you agree that neither CHS, its owners, members, directors or employees, nor any other person or entity involved in creating, producing or delivering the Website shall have responsibility or liability for any issue, claim or damage related to your use or the reliability, availability, performance, or security of the Website.

Appropriate Conduct and Prohibited Uses – You agree that you are solely responsible for your own conduct while using the Website, and for any consequences thereof. This means that you, and not CHS, its owners, members, directors, employees, or any other person or entity involved in creating, producing or delivering the Website, are entirely responsible for all content that you make available via the Website. CHS does not control all of the content made available on the Website and does not guarantee the legality, accuracy, quality, or integrity of the content. Neither CHS, its owners, members, directors employees nor any person or entity involved in creating, producing or delivery the Website will be liable in any way for any content, including, but not limited to, any errors or omissions in any content, or any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any content made available by the Website.

Any conduct that is disruptive to the flow of communication on the site is a violation of these terms.

Please be careful about the information posted through the Website and in your profile. The following is a partial list of the kind of content that is illegal or prohibited to post on the Website. While CHS has no duty to investigate or monitor the content posted by users of the Website, it reserves the right to investigate and take appropriate legal action against anyone who, in CHS’s sole discretion, violates this provision, including removing the offending content from the Website and/or terminating your account. You agree that when using the Website, you will not use or allow your account to be used for any illegal or prohibited content, which includes, but is not limited to, content:

a) that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, libelous, invasive of another’s privacy, or is harmful to minors in any way;

b) that is pornographic or depicts a human being engaged in actual sexual conduct including but not limited to (i) sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex, or (ii) bestiality, or (iii) masturbation, or (iv) sadistic or masochistic abuse, or (v) lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person;

c) 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;

d) that violates the Fair Housing Act by stating, in any notice or ad for the sale or rental of any dwelling, a discriminatory preference based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status or handicap (or violates any state or local law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of these or other characteristics);

e) that violates federal, state, or local equal employment opportunity laws, including but not limited to, stating in any advertisement for employment a preference or requirement based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or disability.

f) that violates the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act, including requiring U.S. citizenship or lawful permanent residency (green card status) as a condition for employment, unless otherwise required in order to comply with law, regulation, executive order, or federal, state, or local government contract.

g) that impersonates any person or entity, including, but not limited to, a CHS contributor or employee, or falsely states or otherwise misrepresents your affiliation with a person or entity (this provision does not apply to Content that constitutes lawful non-deceptive parody of public figures.);

h) that includes personal or identifying information about another person without that person’s explicit consent;

i) that is false, deceptive, misleading, deceitful, misinformative, or constitutes “bait and switch”;

j) 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;

k) that constitutes or contains “affiliate marketing,” “link referral code,” “junk mail,” “spam,” “chain letters,” “pyramid schemes,” or unsolicited commercial advertisement;

l) that constitutes or contains any form of advertising or solicitation if: posted in areas of the CHS sites which are not designated for such purposes; or emailed to CHS users who have not indicated in writing that it is ok to contact them about other services, products or commercial interests.

m) that includes links to commercial services or web sites, except as allowed

n) that advertises any illegal service or the sale of any items the sale of which is prohibited or restricted by any applicable law.

o) 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;

p) that disrupts the normal flow of dialogue with an excessive amount of Content (flooding attack) to the Website, or that otherwise negatively affects other users’ ability to use the Website; or

q) that employs misleading email addresses, or forged headers or otherwise manipulated identifiers in order to disguise the origin of Content transmitted through the Website.

Additionally, you agree not to:

r) contact anyone who has asked not to be contacted, or make unsolicited contact with anyone for any commercial purpose;

s) “stalk” or otherwise harass anyone;

t) collect personal data about other users for commercial or unlawful purposes;

u) use automated means, including spiders, robots, crawlers, data mining tools, or the like to download data from the Website – unless expressly permitted by CHS;

v) post non-local or otherwise irrelevant Content, repeatedly post the same or similar Content or otherwise impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure;

w) post the same item or service in more than one classified category or forum, or in more than one metropolitan area;

x) attempt to gain unauthorized access to CHS 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 CHS website; or

y) use any form of automated device or computer program that enables the submission of postings on CHS without each posting being manually entered by the author thereof (an “automated posting device”), including without limitation, the use of any such automated posting device to submit postings in bulk, or for automatic submission of postings at regular intervals.

3. Content Posted –

  • CHS may delete any content that, in its sole judgment, violates these Terms of Service, undermines the quality or communication on the Website, or which may be offensive, illegal or violate the rights, harm, or threaten the safety of any person. The Operators assume no responsibility for monitoring the Service for inappropriate content or conduct. If at any time the Operators choose, in their sole discretion, to monitor the Service, the Operators nonetheless assumes no responsibility for any content, no obligation to modify or remove any inappropriate content, and no responsibility for the conduct of the user submitting any such content. If you become aware of any misuse of the Website by any person, please contact CHS at [email protected].

  • You are solely responsible for the content you post on or through the Website, and any material or information you transmit to other users and for your interactions with other users. CHS does not endorse and have control over all content. Content is not necessarily reviewed by CHS prior to posting and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of CHS. CHS makes no warranties, express or implied, as to any content or to the accuracy and reliability of the content or any material or information you transmit to other users.

Password – When you sign up to use the Website, you will also be asked to choose a password. You are solely responsible for any and all use of your account, and for maintaining the confidentiality of your password. You agree not to use the account, username or password of another user at any time or to disclose your password to any third party. You agree to notify CHS immediately if you suspect any unauthorized use of your account or access to your password.

Representations – By using the Website, You represent and warrant that (a) all registration information you submit is truthful and accurate; (b) all information you post on the Website is to your knowledge truthful and accurate; (c) You own the content posted by you on or through the Website or otherwise have the right to grant the license with respect to such content noted below; (d) the posting of your content through the Website does not violate the privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights or any other rights of any person; (e) your use of the Website does not violate any applicable law or regulation; (f) You will not engage in any illegal and/or unauthorized use of the Website, including the collection of usernames or contact information for the purpose of sending unsolicited mail/email or unauthorized framing of or linking to the Website; (g) except for content posted by You, You will not copy, modify, translate, publish, broadcast, transmit, distribute, perform, display or sell any content appearing on or through the Website, except as specifically allowed through the Share and embedding tools made available by the Website; and (h) any content shared or embedded from the Website by You will use the original player software, if applicable, and attributed by name and url to capitolhillseattle.com.

Modifications – CHS reserves the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue the Website with or without notice at any time and with no liability to you. If a modification is unacceptable to you, your only recourse is to discontinue your use of the Website.

Refusal of Service – CHS reserves the right to restrict, refuse, cancel, or suspend your use of or access to the Website at our sole discretion, and to reject, refuse to post or remove any posting by you, at any time, for any or no reason, with or without prior notice, and without any liability. CHS expressly reserves the right to remove your profile and/or restrict, suspend or terminate your access to any part of the Website, if we determine, in our sole discretion, that you pose a threat to CHS and/or our other users.

Add-on Services and Features – The Operators reserve the right to offer new features of the Website that may require additional fees or other consideration for participation.

Advertising – The Website may display advertising to provide financial support for the site. CHS does not endorse, recommend, evaluate, or guarantee any service, product, or other message contained in advertising displayed via the Website. CHS reserves the right to, and in their sole discretion may, at any time, review, edit, reject, modify, or remove any advertisement.

Advertisers – The Website allows you, or others on your behalf, (“Advertiser”) to place advertisements within the content of the Website. Any Advertiser placing an advertisement on the site agrees that:

  • Advertiser shall be liable for all charges that accrue based on the price list provided to Advertiser at time of purchase. Advertiser agrees that to pay all applicable charges under this Terms of Service, including any applicable taxes or other governmental fees.

  • Advertisements may continue to run until either suspended by Advertiser or until the end date selected by Advertiser has passed. Advertiser agrees to accept the charges for any ads displayed during that time.

  • The price for advertising is subject to change at any time. If a price change affects an existing advertising placement, CHS will send an email notification at least 5 days prior to the price change having an impact on the Advertiser. If the Advertiser does not agree to the price change, the Advertiser’s only recourse is to suspend any applicable advertisements. Any applicable advertisements that are not suspended will then be charged at the new rate. CHS is not responsible for lack of notification caused by emails that are delayed or otherwise do not reach the Advertiser.

  • Charges due from an advertiser may be determined from various metrics collected by the Website, such as impressions, clicks, or time. Advertisers agree that the metrics collected by the Website are the only valid options for determining the charges due for advertisements.

  • Advertisers agree to promptly resolve and pay for any charges that are declined on their payment instruments. CHS reserves the right to charge interest and late fees on any unpaid balance to the maximum amount allowed by law.

  • Some forms of advertising, including but not limited to flat-fee-per-month advertising, is non-refundable, even if cancelled before the end of the billing period.

  • CHS may from time to time offer special pricing, free advertising, or other promotions. All details of pricing, duration, and participation in such promotions is determined in the sole discretion of CHS and is subject to change without notice at any time.

  • If you choose to place an advertisement on CHS, you represent that you hold all rights, including all intellectual property rights, to the content of the advertisement, and are authorized to advertise on behalf of the entity depicted or referenced in the advertisement.

  • You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless CHS from any and all liability related to any advertisements you place on CHS.

Advertising Revenue Sharing – CHS may, in its sole discretion, offer you the opportunity to participate in revenue sharing for advertising displayed on the detail pages of content contributed to the Website by you. The percent of such revenue sharing is determined by CHS. You will be paid on a monthly basis upon such time as your total revenue share reaches $50. CHS is not obligated to provide interest or other consideration on funds held for you. If you are offered and elect to participate in revenue sharing, you agree that the precise algorithms, accounting, and other data used in the Website to determine payment is proprietary to CHS and not available for review by you or any other third party. You further agree to be solely responsible for any taxes, fees, or withholding requirements of advertising revenue distributed to you through the Website.

Limitation of Liability – NEITHER CHS, ITS OWNERS, MEMBERS, EMPLOYEES OR ANY OTHER PERSON OR ENTITY INVOLVED IN CREATING, PRODUCING OR DELIVERING THE WEBSITE SHALL IN ANY EVENT BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTY FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, INCIDENTAL, EXEMPLARY, SPECIAL OR PUNATIVE DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF OR CONNECTED WITH THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THESE TERMS OF SERVICE OR YOUR USE OF THE WEBSITE, EVEN IF CHS HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. WITHOUT LIMITING THE GENERALITY OF THE FOREGOING, THE WEBSITE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. FURTHER, NEITHER CHS NOR ANY OTHER PERSON OR ENTITY INVOLVED IN CREATING, PRODUCING OR DELIVERING THE WEBSITE SHALL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY CLAIMED DAMAGES THAT MAY ARISE FROM THE WEBSITE BEING UNAVAILABLE FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER, OR RESULTING FROM THE CORRUPTION, DELETION OR ALLEGED MISUSE OF ANY DATA OR CONTENT STORED IN AND/OR MADE AVAILABLE BY THE WEBSITE. NOTWITHSTANDING ANYTHING TO THE CONTRARY CONTAINED HEREIN, CHS’S LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ANY CAUSE WHATSOEVER AND REGARDLESS OF THE FORM OF THE ACTION, WILL AT ALL TIMES BE LIMITED TO $250 OR THE AMOUNT PAID, IF ANY, BY YOU TO CHS FOR THE WEBSITE DURING THE PRIOR SIX MONTHS.

Limitations of Warranty – You agree that the use of the Website is at your own risk. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, neither CHS nor any other person or entity involved in creating, producing or delivery the Website makes any guarantees of the accuracy, correctness, or completeness of any information or content connected with the Website, or is responsible for: (a) any errors or omissions arising from the use of such information or content; (b) any failures, delays, deletions, defect or interruptions in the reliability, delivery, availability, operation, transmission, or performance of any content or Website; (c) any theft or destruction or unauthorized access to, or alternation of, any user communication or posting; (d) losses or damages arising from the use of the content or Website or the security thereof; (e) any problems or technical malfunction of any telephone network or lines, computer online systems, servers or providers, computer equipment, software, failure of any email or players due to technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or on the Website or combination thereof, including any injury or damage to you or any person’s computer related to or resulting from participation or downloading materials in connection with the Website; (f) any loss or damage, including personal injury or death, resulting from use of the Website, attendance at an event hosted by CHS, from any content posted on or through the Website, or from the conduct of any user of the Website, whether online or offline; (g) any actual or perceived loss, impugnment, opportunity cost or similar claimed damage in connection with or as a result of the Website being categorized in a certain manner by CHS or included in a location on the Website or otherwise with which you do not agree, including being grouped with other submissions the title, content or any other aspect of which the you find objectionable; (h) the opinions expressed through the Website or the sites of any other user; (i) the inclusion of any linked website on the Website, which inclusion does not imply any approval or endorsement of such linked site; or (j) any third party advertisements which are posted on the Website.

No Resale – You agree not to sell, resell, or trade any portion of the Website.

CHS’s Intellectual Property Rights – You acknowledge that CHS owns all right, title, and interest in and to the Website, including all intellectual property rights. You agree that you will not copy, reproduce, alter, modify, or create derivative works of the Website. In addition, you agree that any ideas, suggestions, or proposals submitted to CHS automatically become the property of CHS without any obligation or consideration to you.

Your Intellectual Property Rights – The Operators claim no ownership rights in any content or data submitted to the Website or its associated Flickr site, with the exception of content or data for which you are compensated. You retain all copyright to any content submitted to the Website, or its associated Flickr site, according to your own standards and policies, and continue to have the right to use your content in any way you choose. You agree to pay for all royalties, fees and any other monies owing any person by reason of any content posted by you. By displaying, publishing or making content available through the Website or Flickr site, You grant CHS a worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free license to use, modify, reproduce, publish, publicly display and distribute such content on the Website and other locations for the purpose of promoting and distributing the services and products of CHS, its owners, members or employees, and any third-party partners.

Copyright Policy – You may not post, modify, distribute, or reproduce in any way any copyrighted material, trademarks, or other proprietary information belonging to others without obtaining the prior written consent of the owner of such proprietary rights. It is CHS’s policy to terminate the Website of any user who repeatedly infringes the copyright rights of others upon receipt of proper notification to CHS by the copyright owner or the copyright owner’s legal agent. Without limiting the foregoing, if you believe that your work has been copied and posted on through the Website in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please contact us at [email protected].

19. Indemnity – You agree to indemnify and hold CHS, its affiliates, subsidiaries, and their respective officers, agents, members, shareholders, partners, employees and representatives, harmless from any loss, liability, claim, or demand, including attorneys’ fees, made by any third party due to or arising out of your use of the Website in violation of these Terms of Service and/or arising from any breach of these Terms of Service and/or any breach of your representations and warranties set forth above and/or if any content that You post through the Website causes CHS to in any manner be liable to another.

Violations – Violations of these Terms of Service will, in CHS’s sole discretion, be grounds for immediate account deactivation and the right of CHS to pursue any legal remedies available at law or in equity.

Disputes – You agree that any dispute about or involving the Website will be governed by the laws of the State of Washington, USA, without regard to conflict of law principles and You agree to exclusive personal jurisdiction and venue in the state and federal courts of the United States located in King County in the State of Washington. Either party may elect for any dispute between CHS and you about or involving the Website to be settled by arbitration with a mutually agreeable arbitrator.

Miscellaneous – These Terms of Service are accepted by you upon your use of the Website, and reaffirmed each time you access the Website or its content. These Terms of Service and constitute the entire agreement between you and CHS regarding the use of the Website. The failure of CHS to exercise or enforce any right or provision of these Terms of Service shall not operate as a waiver of such right or provision. The section titles in these Terms of Service are for convenience only and have no legal or contractual effect. CHS, capitolhillseattle.com, and the CHS crow are trademarks of CHS. These Terms of Service operate to the fullest extent permissible by law. If any provision of these Terms of Service is unlawful, void or unenforceable, that provision is deemed severable from these Terms of Service and will not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.