Terms of Service Agreement and Privacy Policy

Who we are. This web­site and Unbound: An Inter­ac­tive Jour­nal of Chris­t­ian Social Jus­tice (“Unbound”), is owned by the Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.). All ref­er­ences in this doc­u­ment to Unbound, the Church, the Advi­sory Com­mit­tee on Social Wit­ness Pol­icy (“ACSWP”), the Gen­eral Assem­bly Mis­sion Coun­cil (“GAMC”), “we,” “us,” or “our” shall legally mean Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.).

Accep­tance of Terms. When access­ing Unbound and using this web­site, you agree to the terms and con­di­tions and pri­vacy pol­icy listed in this doc­u­ment (the “Terms of Ser­vice Agree­ment and Pri­vacy Pol­icy”), which may be updated by us at any time. Please check the web­site peri­od­i­cally for changes. If you do not agree to the Terms of Ser­vice Agree­ment and Pri­vacy Pol­icy, do not use this web­site and do not access Unbound.

Release of Lia­bil­ity and Respon­si­bil­ity. Arti­cles, forums for con­ver­sa­tion, and other forms of expres­sion pro­vided by Unbound or its web­site may or may not reflect the opin­ions of either the Unbound staff, ACSWP, the GAMC, and/or the Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.). Because of the impor­tance of the free exchange of ideas, you agree not to hold Unbound or its affil­i­ates (includ­ing its staff and its advi­sory coun­cil mem­bers) respon­si­ble or liable for opin­ions and posi­tions expressed on this site. Arti­cles are the sole opin­ions of their authors.

Links to other web­sites or resources. Unbound may pro­vide, or con­trib­u­tors and third par­ties may pro­vide, links to other World Wide Web sites or resources. Because Unbound has no con­trol over such sites and resources, you acknowl­edge and agree that Unbound is not respon­si­ble for the avail­abil­ity of such exter­nal sites or resources, and does not endorse and is not respon­si­ble or liable for any con­tent, adver­tis­ing, prod­ucts, or other mate­ri­als on or avail­able from such sites or resources. You fur­ther acknowl­edge and agree that Unbound shall not be respon­si­ble or liable, directly or indi­rectly, for any dam­age or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in con­nec­tion with use of or reliance on any such con­tent, goods or ser­vices avail­able on or through any such site or resource.

Integrity of par­tic­i­pants and inter­locu­tors. We aspire to cre­ate a safe space of inter­ac­tion and dia­logue, a space that chal­lenges and con­fronts while remain­ing respect­ful, humane and most impor­tantly, Chris­t­ian. In other words, this is an eth­i­cal cli­mate with min­i­mal cen­sor­ing that requests integrity of each par­tic­i­pant and interlocutor.

Users respon­si­ble for their com­ments and posts. Users alone are respon­si­ble for the con­tents of the mes­sages they com­mu­ni­cate when using our ser­vices as well as the con­se­quences of any such mes­sages. All com­ments and posts shall be con­sid­ered public.

Right to remove con­tent and dis­con­tinue ser­vice. We reserve the right to remove with­out notice any con­tent for any rea­son, but have no oblig­a­tion to delete con­tent that an indi­vid­ual may find objec­tion­able or offen­sive. If you have such a com­plaint, please report it through our “Con­tact” page and the Unbound staff will inves­ti­gate it. Unbound may mod­ify or dis­con­tinue ser­vices or your account with us, with or with­out notice, for any rea­son with­out lia­bil­ity to you or any other party.

Mod­er­a­tor. Inter­ac­tion will be mod­er­ated pub­licly by Unbound staff who will to the best of their abil­i­ties, but with­out lia­bil­ity, mod­er­ate, respond to, encour­age and check all con­ver­sa­tions accord­ing to the eth­i­cal stan­dards set forth in these Terms of Ser­vice Agree­ment and Pri­vacy Pol­icy. It is our opin­ion that a vis­i­ble mod­er­a­tor is prefer­able for con­struc­tive, free dia­logue than an invis­i­ble hand that sim­ply removes unwanted comments.

Eth­i­cal Stan­dards. In order to ensure con­ver­sa­tion that is both free and open while also con­struc­tive and respect­ful, all inter­ac­tion is gov­erned by the fol­low­ing eth­i­cal standards:

(1)   No one 13 years of age or under can reg­is­ter as a user;

(2)   All users must reg­is­ter and sign-in in order to par­tic­i­pate in all inter­ac­tive fea­tures. By sign­ing in, you attach your name to all com­ments you post. No anony­mous posts are per­mit­ted with the under­stand­ing that anonymity enables unre­flec­tive and harm­ful speech. Through and only through writ­ten request, Unbound staff may, how­ever, on occa­sion autho­rize pseu­do­ny­mous con­tri­bu­tions. How­ever, all users under the age of 18 should not include their last name in their pub­licly dis­played user name (or should choose a pseu­do­nym), nor include any per­son­ally reveal­ing infor­ma­tion, such as loca­tion, in their pro­file bios;

(3)   All users shall regard all other users as chil­dren of God and bear­ers of God’s Spirit;

(4)   No user shall upload, post, email, trans­mit or oth­er­wise make avail­able any con­tent that is unlaw­ful, harm­ful, threat­en­ing, abu­sive, harass­ing, defam­a­tory, tor­tious, ille­gal, vul­gar, obscene, porno­graphic, libelous, inva­sive of another’s pri­vacy, hate­ful, or racially, eth­ni­cally or oth­er­wise objec­tion­able to Unbound;

(5)   No user shall upload, post, email, trans­mit or oth­er­wise make avail­able con­tent that vio­lates law or reg­u­la­tions designed to pro­tect minors;

(6)   No user shall imper­son­ate any per­son or entity, includ­ing but not lim­ited to, the Unbound staff or inter­ac­tion mod­er­a­tors, or falsely state or mis­rep­re­sent your affil­i­a­tion with a per­son or entity;

(7)   No user shall upload, post, email, trans­mit or oth­er­wise make avail­able any con­tent that you do not have a right to make available;

(8)   No user shall upload, post, email, trans­mit or oth­er­wise make avail­able any con­tent that infringes any copy­right, trade secret, or other intel­lec­tual prop­erty rights of any per­son or entity;

(9)   No user shall upload, post, email, trans­mit or oth­er­wise make avail­able any unso­licited or unau­tho­rized adver­tis­ing, junk mail, spam, chain let­ters, pyra­mid schemes, or any other form of solic­i­ta­tion; and

(‘0)   No user shall upload, post, email, trans­mit or oth­er­wise make avail­able any mate­r­ial that con­tains soft­ware viruses, spy­ware, or any other com­puter code, files or pro­grams designed to inter­rupt, dis­rupt, destroy or limit the func­tion­al­ity of any com­puter soft­ware or hard­ware on telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions equipment.

Copy­right, trade­mark and pro­pri­etary rights. The entire con­tent and design of this web­site and Unbound are pro­tected under the copy­right laws of the United States and other coun­tries. Title to the web­site, its con­tent and design remain with Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.). All trade­marks and trade names are the prop­erty of their respec­tive own­ers. Except as oth­er­wise noted, Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.) is the owner of all trade­marks and ser­vice marks on this web­site, whether reg­is­tered or not. Noth­ing on this web­site shall be con­strued as con­fer­ring any license under an intel­lec­tual prop­erty right, includ­ing any right in the nature of trade­mark or copy­right of Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.) or Unbound, whether by estop­pel, impli­ca­tion, or oth­er­wise. This web­site and its con­tent are for your per­sonal non­com­mer­cial use. Except as oth­er­wise expressly per­mit­ted, you agree not to repro­duce, retrans­mit, dis­sem­i­nate, sell, dis­trib­ute, pub­lish, broad­cast, cir­cu­late or mod­ify the mate­r­ial on the Unbound web­site with­out the express prior writ­ten con­sent of Unbound. For per­mis­sion or any other ques­tions regard­ing our copy­right pol­icy, please con­tact us using the “Con­tact” page.

If you have con­cerns regard­ing the use of copy­righted mate­r­ial on this web­site, please notify in writ­ing the agent des­ig­nated to respond to reports alleg­ing copy­right infringe­ment. The des­ig­nated agent is: Patrick David Heery,  patrick.heery@pcusa.org, Office 3611, 100 With­er­spoon Street, Louisville, KY, 40202.

License. Unbound grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to cre­ate an account for and to use Unbound’s inter­ac­tive fea­tures in accor­dance with this Terms of Ser­vice Agree­ment. Unbound and any asso­ci­ated doc­u­men­ta­tion are and shall remain the sole and exclu­sive prop­erty of Unbound.

Pri­vacy Policy

Reg­is­tra­tion. Cer­tain fea­tures of Unbound may require you to reg­is­ter per­sonal infor­ma­tion and obtain a user name and pass­word for Unbound. In such cases, you are respon­si­ble for main­tain­ing the con­fi­den­tial­ity of your account num­ber and/or pass­word. You are respon­si­ble for all uses of your account, whether or not actu­ally or expressly autho­rized by you. Please note that you may also have the option of using pre­vi­ously reg­is­tered social media accounts (such as Face­book, Twit­ter, Google, etc.) to serve as your Unbound account.

Children’s Pri­vacy. The Unbound web­site is not intended for chil­dren under 13 years of age. We do not know­ingly col­lect or store per­sonal infor­ma­tion from chil­dren under 13. If we dis­cover that 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 that Unbound has any infor­ma­tion from or about any­one under the age of 13, please con­tact us, using our “Con­tact” page.

Con­sent. To enable Unbound to pro­tect our users and respond to user needs and com­plaints, you con­sent to Unbound staff mem­bers being able to access your account and records on a case-by-case basis to inves­ti­gate com­plaints or other alle­ga­tions or abuse. Unbound shall not dis­close the exis­tence or occur­rence of such an inves­ti­ga­tion unless required by law.

Mod­i­fi­ca­tion or dis­con­tin­u­a­tion of ser­vice. We may mod­ify or dis­con­tinue ser­vices or your account with us, with or with­out prior notice, with­out lia­bil­ity to you, any other user or any third party. We reserve the right to access and/or ter­mi­nate your account if we learn that you have pro­vided us with false or mis­lead­ing reg­is­tra­tion infor­ma­tion, inter­fered with other users or the admin­is­tra­tion of Unbound ser­vices, or vio­lated these Terms of Service.

Per­sonal Infor­ma­tion. Unbound will not dis­close or sell per­sonal infor­ma­tion to any out­side orga­ni­za­tion for any pur­pose, unless required by law.

Emails. For reg­is­tered Web site users, you may choose whether you want to receive emails and in what fre­quency. When you cre­ate your account, you will be pro­vided with a vari­ety of email options, giv­ing you the power, for instance, to receive reg­u­lar updates or iden­tity inter­ests and top­ics for which you may request email noti­fi­ca­tion. If you do not give us per­mis­sion for us to email you, Unbound will not send unso­licited email. In this case, Unbound will com­mu­ni­cate with you only for the pur­pose of main­tain­ing or upgrad­ing your reg­is­tra­tion with us. To unsub­scribe, sim­ply go to your User pro­file and account. If you have any trou­ble unsub­scrib­ing, please con­tact us, using our “Con­tact” page.

Infor­ma­tion we col­lect. We col­lect two types of infor­ma­tion: (1) lim­ited per­sonal infor­ma­tion (col­lected when you reg­is­ter) which you have vol­un­tar­ily sub­mit­ted to us, and (2) aggre­gate infor­ma­tion (e.g. infor­ma­tion about how many vis­i­tors log on to our sites).

Legal

No Rep­re­sen­ta­tions or War­ranties. Use of this web­site and its con­tent is at your own risk. More­over, you  are  solely  respon­si­ble  for  your  inter­ac­tions  and  com­mu­ni­ca­tions with  other  users  and mem­bers. Infor­ma­tion from this web­site is trans­mit­ted in a man­ner and over a medium which is out­side the con­trol of Unbound. There­fore, Unbound assumes no lia­bil­ity for or relat­ing to the delay, fail­ure, inter­rup­tion or cor­rup­tion of any data or other infor­ma­tion trans­mit­ted in con­nec­tion with the use of this website.

THE WEBSITE AND ITS CONTENT ARE PROVIDED “AS IS.”  UNBOUND, TO THE FULLEST  EXTENT  PERMITTED BY  LAW,  DISCLAIMS  ALL  WARRANTIES,  EITHER  EXPRESS  OR  IMPLIED, STATUTORY OR OTHERWISE,  INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED  WARRANTY OF  MERCHANTABILITY,  FITNESS  FOR  A  PARTICULAR  PURPOSE  AND  NONINFRINGEMENT.  UNBOUND  MAKES  NO  REPRESENTATIONS  OR  WARRANTIES ABOUT  THE  SUITABILITY,  AVAILABILITY,  RELIABILITY,  ACCURACY,  COMPLETENESS AND TIMELINESS OF THE CONTENT OR COMMUNICATIONS PROVIDED ON OR THROUGH THIS WEBSITE.

Dis­claimer  of  Lia­bil­ity. UNDER  NO  CIRCUMSTANCES  SHALL  UNBOUND  OR  ANY  THIRD PARTIES  MENTIONED  ON  THIS  WEBSITE  BE  LIABLE  FOR  ANY  DIRECT,  INDIRECT, PUNITIVE,  INCIDENTAL,  SPECIAL,  CONSEQUENTIAL,  LOST  PROFITS  OR  ANY  OTHER DAMAGES WHATSOEVER THAT MAY RESULT FROM THE USE OF OR THE INABILITY TO USE  THIS WEBSITE  OR  ITS  CONTENT  OR  THE  INTERACTIONS  OR  COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN  MEMBERS,  INCLUDING  WITHOUT  LIMITATION,  DAMAGES  ARISING  FROM  MISTAKES,  OMISSIONS,  INTERRUPTIONS,  DETERIORATION,  PERSONAL  INJURY,  AND WRONGFUL  DEATH,  BASED  UPON  ANY  LEGAL  THEORY  AND  WHETHER  OR  NOT UNBOUND IS ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.   SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT PERMIT THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL OR  INCIDENTAL DAMAGES; UNBOUND’S LIABILITY  IN SUCH  JURISDICTIONS SHALL BE LIMITED TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.    IF YOU ARE DISSATISFIED WITH ANY PORTION OF THE WEBSITE OR ITS CONTENT, YOUR SOLE REMEDY IS TO CEASE USING THEM.

Indem­ni­fi­ca­tion and hold harm­less.  You agree to indem­nify, defend and hold harm­less Unbound, its affil­i­ates, offi­cers, direc­tors, employ­ees, con­sul­tants and agents from and against all lia­bil­i­ties, claims, dam­ages and expenses (includ­ing, with­out lim­i­ta­tion, rea­son­able attor­neys’ fees and costs) aris­ing out of your use of this web­site, your breach of the Terms of Ser­vice Agree­ment and Pri­vacy Pol­icy, your infringe­ment of the intel­lec­tual prop­erty rights of third par­ties, or infringe­ment by any other user of your account, of any intel­lec­tual prop­erty or other right of any per­son or entity.

Gov­ern­ing law.  These Terms of Ser­vice and Pri­vacy Pol­icy will be gov­erned by and con­strued in accor­dance with the laws of Ken­tucky. Any action brought to enforce this agree­ment or mat­ters related to the site shall be brought in either the state or fed­eral courts of the Com­mon­wealth of Ken­tucky. If for any rea­son a court of com­pe­tent juris­dic­tion finds any pro­vi­sion or por­tion of the Terms of Ser­vice and Pri­vacy Pol­icy to be unen­force­able, the remain­der of such terms will con­tinue in full force and effect.

Entire Agree­ment.  These Terms of Ser­vice and Pri­vacy Pol­icy con­sti­tute the entire agree­ment between the par­ties with respect to the sub­ject mat­ter hereof and super­sede and replace all prior or con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous under­stand­ings or agree­ments, writ­ten or oral, regard­ing such sub­ject mat­ter; pro­vided, how­ever, that all Con­trib­u­tors to Unbound are also sub­ject to their respec­tive Con­trib­u­tor Agree­ments. Any waiver of any pro­vi­sion of the Terms of Ser­vice and Pri­vacy Pol­icy will be effec­tive only if in writ­ing and signed by Unbound.  This agree­ment will inure to the ben­e­fit of Unbound’s suc­ces­sors, assigns and licensees.

Con­tact Infor­ma­tion. For all inquiries, refer to the Con­tact Us sec­tion of our home page.

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