Thursday, January 15, 2009

User Agreement

This User Agreement was last updated April 4, 2007

All use of the BusinessWeek.com Web pages ("BW.com") is subject to the terms and conditions set forth below. By accessing and using any portion of BW.com or any service on BW.com, you agree and accept the terms and conditions described below. These terms and conditions represent a binding contract between you and BW.com. These terms and conditions are in addition to any other agreements between you and BusinessWeek. If you do not agree with any of these terms and conditions, please do not continue using BW.com. If you are a registered user, you may be asked to click the User Agreement acceptance "button." The terms "you" or "User" refer to the person who completed the registration process or any visitor to BW.com.

BusinessWeek ("BW") reserves the right to change the terms of this User Agreement. Changes will be posted on the BusinessWeek Online Web site at http://www.businessweek.com/copyrt.htm, and will become effective immediately upon posting. If any of these changes are unacceptable, you may terminate your subscription as described below under "Term and Termination." Use of BW.com following the posting of any changes to these terms and conditions constitutes acceptance of those changes by the User.

Definitions

BW.com contains two types of content:

  1. "BW.com's Own Content" means information entered into BW.com by employees and authorized representatives of BW.

  2. "Other Content" means any other information entered into BW.com by Users or other persons.

Use of BW.com

BW hereby grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to access and use BW.com for the fees (if any) and under the terms described in this Agreement. You agree that your use of BW.com is solely for personal, non-commercial purposes. If accessing content that requires registration, only one person at a time may access BW.com using the User's screen name and password without the prior consent of BW. The User may, free of charge and on an occasional basis, make a single copy in paper form of an individual BusinessWeek article appearing in BW.com for personal, non-commercial use provided the User includes all copyright and other proprietary rights notices that appeared on the original and includes a notice indicating that BW.com is the source of the material. For all other hard copy uses please contact the Permission Department (212-512-4938 (fx); 212-512-3396 (ph); email: permissions@businessweek.com) for information or instructions. Fees are determined by the extent of use. In addition to any other restrictions on use contained in this Agreement, the User may not disseminate any portion of BW.com through electronic means, including mail lists or electronic bulletin boards, without the prior consent of BW. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a specific BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. Add news from BusinessWeek Online to your Web site for FREE with our headline feed. Obtain consent for special arrangements regarding electronic distribution by contacting U.S. Business Development.

Except as expressly permitted in this Agreement, BW.com may not be reproduced, transmitted, or distributed without BW's permission. The User may not commingle any portion of BW.com with any other information and shall not edit, modify, or alter any portion. All of BW.com's Own Content is either the property of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. ("The McGraw-Hill Companies") or is licensed to The McGraw-Hill Companies. The User shall honor all reasonable requests by BW to protect BW's proprietary interests in BW.com.

In addition, User may not:

1. use BW.com for any purpose that is prohibited by any law or regulation, or to facilitate the violation of any law or regulation;

2. use or attempt to use any "deep-link," "scraper," "robot," "bot," "spider," "data mining," "computer code" or any other automated device, program, tool, algorithm, process or methodology or manual process having similar processes or functionality, to access, acquire, copy, or monitor any portion of BW.com, any data or content found on or accessed through BW.com, or any other BW.com information without prior express written consent of BW;

3. obtain or attempt to obtain through any means any materials or information on BW.com that has not been intentionally made publicly available either by public display on BW.com or through accessibility by a visible link on BW.com;

4. violate any measure employed to limit or prevent access to BW.com or its content;

5. violate the security of BW.com or attempt to gain unauthorized access to BW.com, data, materials, information, computer systems or networks connected to any server associated with BW.com, through hacking, password mining or any other means;

6. impersonate any person or entity, or falsely state or otherwise represent an affiliation with a person or entity;

7. interfere with, attempt to interfere with or otherwise disrupt the proper working of BW.com, any activities conducted on or through BW.com or any servers or networks connected to BW.com, including accessing any data, content or other information prior to the time that it is intended to be available to the public on BW.com;

8. take or attempt any action that, in the sole discretion of BW.com, imposes or may impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load or burden on BW.com or the infrastructure of BW.com.

9. forge headers or otherwise manipulate identifiers in order to disguise the origin of any Other Content;

10. disobey any requirements, procedures, policies or regulations of networks connected to BW.com;

11. use BW.com to stalk or harass another.

The User's Content

The User grants to The McGraw-Hill Companies the non-exclusive right to use all material entered into BW.com by the User (other than third-party material transmitted through private electronic mail) in any of The McGraw-Hill Companies' print or electronic publications.

Users entering material into BW.com are responsible for the content of that material. Neither BW nor the McGraw-Hill Companies has any responsibility for Other Content, including the content of any messages or information posted by Users or others, or for the content of information accessible via direct or indirect hyperlinks from BW.com. However, BW retains the right, which it may or may not exercise in its sole discretion, to review, edit, or delete Other Content which BW deems to be illegal, offensive, in violation of these terms and conditions or otherwise inappropriate.

You may not input, distribute, upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Other Content through BW.com that:

1. is promotional in nature, including solicitations for funds or business, without the prior written authorization of BW, or constitutes junk mail, spam, chain letters, pyramid schemes or the like;

2. is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;

3. you do not have the right to make available under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships (such as inside information, proprietary and confidential information learned or disclosed as part of employment relationships or under nondisclosure agreements);

4. infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party;

5. 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;

6. is harmful to minors.

If you see any violations of these terms and conditions on BW.com, please email us at bwwebmaster@businessweek.com

The User agrees to indemnify BW and The McGraw-Hill Companies from all damages, liabilities, costs, charges and expenses, including reasonable attorneys' fees, which BW, The McGraw-Hill Companies, their affiliates, employees, and authorized representatives may incur as a result of either: (i) the User's breach of this Agreement; or (ii) material entered into BW.com with the use of the User's screen name or password. BW reserves the right to assume the exclusive defense and control of any such matter for which the User has agreed to indemnify BW and the McGraw-Hill Companies in which event the User shall have no further obligation to indemnify with respect to that particular matter.

NO WARRANTIES/LIMITATIONS ON LIABILITY

ALL THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN BW.COM IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OR GUARANTEES OF ANY KIND. BW.COM MAY CONTAIN ADVICE, OPINIONS AND STATEMENTS OF VARIOUS INFORMATION AND CONTENT PROVIDERS. HOWEVER, BW.COM IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. RELIANCE ON SUCH INFORMATION IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. PRIOR TO THE EXECUTION OF A PURCHASE OR SALE OF ANY SECURITY OR INVESTMENT, YOU ARE ADVISED TO CONSULT WITH YOUR OWN FINANCIAL ADVISOR OR OTHER PROFESSIONALS.

NEITHER BW NOR THE McGRAW-HILL COMPANIES NOR THEIR THIRD PARTY LICENSORS MAKES ANY GUARANTEES OR WARRANTIES AS TO THE TIMELINESS, ADEQUACY, ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF OR RESULTS TO BE OBTAINED FROM, ACCESSING AND USING BW.COM, BW.COM'S OWN CONTENT, THE OTHER CONTENT, NOR ANY MATERIAL THAT CAN BE ACCESSED (VIA A DIRECT OR INDIRECT HYPERLINK OR OTHERWISE) THROUGH BW.COM. NEITHER BW NOR THE McGRAW-HILL COMPANIES COMPANIES NOR THEIR THIRD PARTY LICENSORS SHALL BE LIABLE TO THE USER OR ANYONE ELSE FOR ANY INACCURACY, DELAY, INTERRUPTION IN SERVICE, ERROR OR OMISSION, REGARDLESS OF CAUSE, OR FOR ANY DAMAGES RESULTING THEREFROM. IN NO EVENT WILL BW, THE McGRAW-HILL COMPANIES NOR ANY OF THEIR THIRD PARTY LICENSORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, LOST TIME, LOST MONEY, LOST PROFITS OR GOOD WILL, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT, STRICT LIABILITY OR OTHERWISE, AND WHETHER OR NOT SUCH DAMAGES ARE FORESEEN OR UNFORESEEN WITH RESPECT TO ANY USE OF BW.COM. USER AGREES THAT ALL DEMANDS OF WHATEVER KIND ASSESSED AGAINST BW OR THE McGRAW-HILL COMPANIES OR ANY OF ITS THIRD PARTY LICENSORS ARISING OUT OF RELATING TO USE OF BW.COM SHALL NOT EXCEED THE TOTAL AMOUNT THE USER PAID TO BW FOR USE OF BW.COM DURING THE PREVIOUS TWELVE (12) MONTHS (OR IF YOU HAVE SUBSCRIBED FOR FEWER THAN TWELVE (12) MONTHS, DURING THE TIME SINCE THE USER'S SUBSCRIPTION BEGAN).

Registration

As part of the registration process, you must select a screen name and password and provide BW with accurate, complete, and updated information. Failure to do so constitutes a breach of this Agreement, which may result in immediate termination of the User's access.

Privacy Policy

BW may, from time to time, use information you provide as part of the registration process to send you information regarding other products or services from The McGraw-Hill Companies that may be of interest to you. In addition, BW may provide aggregated, anonymous statistical information about BW.com users to other persons, including potential advertising clients. For detailed information about the McGraw-Hill Customer Privacy Policy, and your rights under it, click on the hyperlinked text at the bottom of this screen.

Term and Termination

BW shall have the right to immediately terminate this Agreement in the event of any breach by a User of this Agreement. BW may discontinue or change BW.com, or its availability to you, at any time and for any reason.

Fees & Payments

Whether you subscribe to the print version of BusinessWeek magazine or to BW.com only, your subscription must be fully paid before you will be provided full access to BW.com.

You agree to pay all fees and charges (if any) incurred in connection with your User name and password, including applicable taxes and communications or access charges, at the rates in effect when the charges were incurred. The list of current fees is available at register.htm. Should you terminate your subscription, and provided you are not in breach of this Agreement, your annual fee is refundable on a pro-rated basis to reflect the unused portion of the subscription. BW may change subscription rates in the normal course of business. In that case, you will be notified of the new rates (if any) prior to the end of your subscription term. All charges incurred in connection with your account will be billed to the credit card you designate during the registration process. We will keep your credit card number in our records only for this purpose taking care, of course, to maintain the confidentiality of the information.

If you believe your User name and password have been used to access BW.com without your authorization, please call BusinessWeek Customer Service at the telephone number listed below without delay. Please note: You are responsible for paying any charges billed to your credit card by an unauthorized third party.

BusinessWeek Customer Service: 1-888-878-5151

General

This Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between the parties relating to BW.com and supersedes any and all other agreements, oral or in writing, with respect to BW.com. The failure of BW to insist upon strict compliance with any term of this Agreement shall not be construed as a waiver with regard to any subsequent failure to comply with such term or provision. This Agreement is personal to you, and you may not assign your rights or obligations to anyone. If any provision in this Agreement is invalid or unenforceable under applicable law, the remaining provisions will continue in full force and effect. This Agreement, your rights and obligations, and all actions contemplated by this Agreement shall be governed by the laws of the United States of America and New York State, as if the Agreement was a contract wholly entered into and wholly performed within New York State.

Additional Terms of Use

Associated Press ("AP") text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium. Neither these AP materials nor any portion thereof may be stored in a computer except for personal and non-commercial use. AP will not be held liable in any way to the User or to any third party or to any other person who may receive information through BW.com or to any other person whatsoever, for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions therefrom or in the transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages arising from any of the foregoing or occasioned thereby.

I HAVE READ AND UNDERSTAND THIS AGREEMENT AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY ALL OF ITS TERMS.

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