GayCities Terms of Use

1. Acceptance of Terms

GayCities provides its service ("Service") to you, subject to the following Terms of Use ("Terms"), which may be updated by us from time to time without notice to you. You can review the most current version of the Terms at any time at: http://www.gaycities.com/about/termsofuse. In addition, when using GayCities services, you and GayCities shall be subject to any posted guidelines or rules applicable to such services which may be posted from time to time. All such guidelines or rules (including but not limited to our Review Guidelines) are hereby incorporated by reference into the Terms. By using the Service in any way, you are agreeing to comply with these Terms. Should you object to any term or condition of these Terms, any guidelines, or any subsequent modifications thereto or become dissatisfied with GayCities in any way, your only recourse is to immediately discontinue use of GayCities.

2. Permitted Use

You agree that you are only authorized to visit, view, and retain a copy of pages of GayCities for your own personal use, and that you shall not duplicate, download, publish, modify, or otherwise distribute the material on GayCities for any commercial use, or for any purpose other than as described in these Terms.

3. Content

You understand that all postings, messages, text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, or other materials ("Content") posted on, transmitted through, or linked from the Service, are the sole responsibility of the person from whom such Content originated. More specifically, you are entirely responsible for all Content that you post, email or otherwise make available via the Service. You understand that GayCities does not control, and is not responsible for Content made available through the Service, and that by using the Service, you may be exposed to Content that is offensive, indecent, inaccurate, misleading, or otherwise objectionable. Furthermore, the GayCities site and Content available through the Service may contain links to other websites, which are completely independent of GayCities. GayCities makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy, completeness or authenticity of the information contained in any such site. Your linking to any other webites is at your own risk. You agree that you must evaluate, and bear all risks associated with, the use of any Content, that you may not rely on said Content, and that under no circumstances will GayCities be liable in any way for any Content or for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any Content posted, emailed or otherwise made available via the Service. You acknowledge that GayCities may or may not pre-screen or approve Content, but that GayCities shall have the right (but not the obligation) in its sole discretion to refuse, delete or move any Content that is available via the Service, for violating the letter or spirit of the Terms or for any other reason.

4. Privacy and Information Disclosure

GayCities has established a Privacy Policy to explain to users how their information is collected and used, located at http://www.gaycities.com/about/privacy/. Your use of the GayCities website or the Service signifies acknowledgement of and agreement to our Privacy Policy. You understand that through your use of the Service you consent to the collection and use (as set forth in the Privacy Policy) of this information, including the transfer of this information to the United States and/or other countries for storage, processing, and use by GayCities and its affiliates.

5. Reviews and Conduct

You agree not to post, submit a review, email, or otherwise make available Content:

• that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, pornographic, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, or harms minors in any way;
• 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;
• that impersonates any person or entity, including, but not limited to, a GayCities employee, or falsely states or otherwise misrepresents your affiliation with a person or entity;
• that includes personal or identifying information about another person without that person's explicit consent.
• that is false, deceptive, misleading, deceitful, misinformative, or constitutes "bait and switch";
• 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.
• that constitutes or contains "affiliate marketing," "link referral code," "junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes," or unsolicited commercial advertisement.
• that constitutes or contains any form of advertising or solicitation if (1) posted in areas of the GayCities sites which are not designated for such purposes; or (2) emailed to GayCities users who have requested not to be contacted about other services, products or commercial interests.
• that includes links to commercial services or web sites, except as allowed in "services".
• 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;
• that disrupts the normal flow of dialogue with an excessive number of messages (flooding attack) to the Service, or that otherwise negatively affects other users' ability to use the Service; or
• that employs misleading email addresses, or forged headers or otherwise manipulated identifiers in order to disguise the origin of Content transmitted through the Service.

Additionally, you agree not to:

• contact anyone who has asked not to be contacted;
• "stalk" or otherwise harrass anyone;
• collect personal data about other users for commercial or unlawful purposes;
• use automated means, including spiders, robots, crawlers, data mining tools, or the like to download data from the Service - exception is made for internet search engines (e.g. Google) and non-commercial public archives (e.g. archive.org) that comply with our robots.txt file;
• post irrelevant Content, repeatedly post the same or similar Content or otherwise impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure;
• attempt to gain unauthorized access to GayCities's 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 GayCities website.

6. No Spam Policy

You understand and agree that sending unsolicited email advertisements to GayCities email addresses or through GayCities computer systems, which is expressly prohibited by these Terms, will use or cause to be used servers located in California. Any unauthorized use of GayCities computer systems is a violation of these Terms and certain federal and state laws, including without limitation the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. ? 1030 et seq.), Section 502 of the California Penal Code and Section 17538.45 of the California Business and Professions Code. Such violations may subject the sender and his or her agents to civil and criminal penalties.

7. Limitations on service

You acknowledge that GayCities may establish limits concerning use of the Service, including the maximum number of days that Content will be retained by the Service, the maximum number and size of reviews and postings, email messages, or other Content that may be transmitted or stored by the Service, and the frequency with which you may access the Service. You agree that GayCities has no responsibility or liability for the deletion or failure to store any Content maintained or transmitted by the Service. You acknowledge that GayCities reserves the right at any time to modify or discontinue the Service (or any part thereof) with or without notice, and that GayCities shall not be liable to you or to any third party for any modification, suspension or discontinuance of the Service.

8. Termination of service

You agree that GayCities, in its sole discretion, has the right (but not the obligation) to delete or deactivate your account, block your email or IP address, or otherwise terminate your access to or use of the Service (or any part thereof), immediately and without notice, and remove and discard any Content within the Service, for any reason, including, without limitation, if GayCities believes that you have acted inconsistently with the letter or spirit of the Terms. Further, you agree that GayCities shall not be liable to you or any third-party for any termination of your access to the Service. Further, you agree not to attempt to use the Service after said termination. Sections 2-4, 6 and 9-12 shall survive termination of these Terms.

9. Proprietary rights

You acknowledge and agree that the Service and any necessary software used in connection with the Service ("Software") contain proprietary and confidential information that is protected by applicable intellectual property and other laws. You further acknowledge and agree that Content contained in sponsor advertisements or information presented to you through the Service or advertisers is protected by copyrights, trademarks, service marks, patents or other proprietary rights and laws. Except as expressly authorized by GayCities or advertisers, you agree not to modify, rent, lease, loan, sell, distribute, exploit for any commercial purposes or create derivative works based on the Service or the Software, in whole or in part. You agree not to access the Service by any means other than through the interface that is provided by GayCities for use in accessing the Service. You may not decompile or disassemble, reverse engineer or otherwise attempt to discover any source code contained in the Service.
Content that is submitted to GayCities shall be owned exclusively and in perpetuity by GayCities. Such exclusive ownership means that GayCities, its parent, subsidiary, and/or affiliated companies have the unrestricted, perpetual, and exclusive right to use, reproduce, modify, translate, transmit, create derivative works of, incorporate into other works, and distribute any and all materials and communications regarding and including submitted Content.

10. Disclaimer of Warranties

YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT USE OF THE GAYCITIES SITE AND THE SERVICE IS ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. THE GAYCITIES SITE AND THE SERVICE ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" OR "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS, WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND. ALL EXPRESS AND IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT OF PROPRIETARY RIGHTS ARE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, GAYCITIES DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTIES FOR THE SECURITY, RELIABILITY, TIMELINESS, ACCURACY, AND PERFORMANCE OF THE GAYCITIES SITE AND THE SERVICE. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, GAYCITIES DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTIES FOR OTHER SERVICES OR GOODS RECEIVED THROUGH OR ADVERTISED ON THE GAYCITIES SITE OR THE SITES OR SERVICE, OR ACCESSED THROUGH ANY LINKS ON THE GAYCITIES SITE. ANY MATERIAL DOWNLOADED OR OTHERWISE OBTAINED THROUGH THE USE OF THE SERVICE IS DONE AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK AND THAT YOU WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM OR LOSS OF DATA THAT RESULTS FROM THE DOWNLOAD OF ANY SUCH MATERIAL. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED BY YOU FROM GAYCITIES OR THROUGH OR FROM THE SERVICE SHALL CREATE ANY WARRANTY NOT EXPRESSLY STATED IN THE TERMS.
Some jurisdictions do not allow the disclaimer of implied warranties. In such jurisdictions, some of the foregoing disclaimers may not apply to you insofar as they relate to implied warranties.

11. Limitations of Liability

YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT GAYCITIES SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT,INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, GOODWILL, USE, DATA OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES (EVEN IF GAYCITIES HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES), RESULTING FROM: (i) THE USE OR THE INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICE; (ii) THE COST OF PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS AND SERVICES RESULTING FROM ANY GOODS, DATA, INFORMATION OR SERVICES PURCHASED OR OBTAINED OR MESSAGES RECEIVED OR TRANSACTIONS ENTERED INTO THROUGH OR FROM THE SERVICE; (iii) UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO OR ALTERATION OF YOUR TRANSMISSIONS OR DATA; (iv) STATEMENTS OR CONDUCT OF ANY THIRD PARTY ON THE SERVICE; OR (v) ANY OTHER MATTER RELATING TO THE SERVICE. In some jurisdictions, limitations of liability are not permitted. In such jurisdictions, some of the foregoing limitation may not apply to you.

12. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold GayCities, its officers, subsidiaries, affiliates, successors, assigns, directors, officers, agents, service providers, suppliers and employees, harmless from any claim or demand, including reasonable attorney fees and court costs, made by any third party due to or arising out of Content you submit, post or make available through the Service, your use of the Service, your violation of the Terms, your breach of any of the representations and warranties herein, or your violation of any rights of another.
Reviews/Postings are not endorsed by GayCities Reviews do not reflect the views of GayCities, its subsidiaries, affiliates, successors, assigns, directors, officers, agents, service providers, suppliers and employees. GayCities does not assume responsibility or liability for any Review or for any claims, damages, or losses resulting from any use of the Site or the materials contained therein.

13. Notice and Procedure for making claims of copyright or intellectual property infringement

GayCities respects the intellectual property of others, and we ask our users to do the same. If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, or your intellectual property rights have been otherwise violated, please Contact Us and provide the following Notice:

• Identify the copyrighted work or other intellectual property that you claim has been infringed;
• Identify the material on the GayCities site that you claim is infringing, with enough detail so that we may locate it on the website;
• A statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law;
• A statement by you declaring under penalty of perjury that (a) the above information in your Notice is accurate, and (b) that you are the owner of the copyright interest involved or that you are authorized to act on behalf of that owner;
• Your address, telephone number, and email address; and
• Your physical or electronic signature.

14. General information

The Terms constitute the entire agreement between you and GayCities and govern your use of the Service, superceding any prior agreements between you and GayCities. The Terms and the relationship between you and GayCities shall be governed by the laws of the State of California without regard to its conflict of law provisions. You and GayCities agree to submit to the personal and exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located within the county of San Francisco, California. The failure of GayCities to exercise or enforce any right or provision of the Terms shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. If any provision of the Terms is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavor to give effect to the parties' intentions as reflected in the provision, and the other provisions of the Terms remain in full force and effect. You agree that regardless of any statute or law to the contrary, any claim or cause of action arising out of or related to use of the Service or the Terms must be filed within one (1) year after such claim or cause of action arose or be forever barred.