Terms of Service

PHD Service ("PHD") encourages and promotes the PHD Family of sites as an environment that fosters interaction and participation among its members (Consumers and Businesses). Members should thus feel free to express themselves. However, members should keep comments and contributions within the community values of the Service and must comply with applicable laws and the terms of service of the PHD Family of sites (As parented by www.phdservice.com) . PHDService.com is a private service, provided by PHD to you ("Member"), subject to the terms of service, and other terms that may be published from time to time on the PHD Family of sites. The PHD Family of sites currently is provided as a free service to any member who agrees to abide by the terms of service. The PHD Family of sites reserves the right to change the nature of this relationship at any time. The PHD Family of sites may change, suspend or discontinue the Service or any other aspect of the Service, at any time without prior notice to members. The PHD Family of sites may also impose limits on certain features or services contained in the Service without prior notice.

MEMBERS WHO VIOLATE THE TERMS OF SERVICE MAY PERMANENTLY BE BANNED FROM USING The PHD Family of sites.

By using The PHD Family of sites, you agree to the terms and conditions outlined below. If you do not agree to these terms and conditions, please do not use The PHD Family of sites. We reserve the right to change, modify, add or remove portions of these terms at any time, whenever we want. If you continue to use The PHD Family of sites after we have posted changes to the terms, it means you have accepted those terms.

Conduct and Content

Software files, text, sounds or otherwise transmitted, posted, linked or uploaded on or through The PHD Family of sites ("Content") by members should not be abusive, defamatory, obscene, fraudulent, in violation of applicable laws, or otherwise offensive to other Members.

You may transmit, post, link or upload software files, text, sounds or otherwise on or through The PHD Family of sites that is not subject to any patent, trademark, copyright or other proprietary rights ("Rights"), or Content in which any holder of Rights has given you express authorization for distribution on The PHD Family of sites. By submitting Content to any part of The PHD Family of sites you automatically grant, or warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted, The PHD Family of sites a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, transmit and display such Content (in whole or part) 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 acknowledge that by providing you with the ability to distribute your content, The PHD Family of sites is acting as a passive conduit for such distribution and The PHD Family of sites is not undertaking any obligation or liability relating to any content or activities of its members. The PHD Family of sites cannot prevent members from placing prohibited content on the Service. Furthermore, The PHD Family of sites may elect at its sole discretion to monitor some, all, or no areas of The PHD Family of sites for adherence to these terms of service or other The PHD Family of sites terms of service that may be published from time to time. Upon notification of inappropriate material, The PHD Family of sites reserves the right, but not the responsibility to remove the content. The PHD Family of sites further reserves the right to stop a member from accessing the Service upon receipt of complaints about the member's contributions and participation on the Service.

You and any person who have access to the Service must evaluate, and bear the risk associated with, the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any Content. The PHD Family of sites does not pre-screen Content as a matter of policy, but The PHD Family of sites reserves the right, but not the responsibility, to remove Content which is deemed in The PHD Family of sites sole discretion harmful, offensive, inaccurate or otherwise in violation of the terms of service or any rules or policies The PHD Family of sites has in place at the time.

You or The PHD Family of sites may terminate the Service at any time for any reason. Once your access to the Service is terminated, you cannot engage in the Service in any manner or for any reason without the express written consent of The PHD Family of sites, and you cannot assist in enabling a terminated member access to The PHD Family of sites via your Account.

Copyright Regulations

Everything you see or read on The PHD Family of sites.com is owned by us or used with permission. You may not copy, use, or retransmit anything for The PHD Family of sites without our express written permission. Furthermore, you are not allowed to post or distribute any material you do not own or which you do not have permission to use. Violation of this policy may result in copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property rights violation and subject you to civil or criminal penalties.

Limitation of Liability

To the full extent permissible under the applicable law, The PHD Family of sites shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages resulting from the use or inability to use The PHD Family of sites.

In no event shall The PHD Family of sites have any liability for any incidental, consequential, or indirect damages (including, but not limited to, damages relating to loss of business, profits, goodwill, data, programs or information, and the like) arising out of the use of or inability to use the Service or any information, advice, or services provided on or downloaded from the Service or accessed on the Internet from the Service, even advised of the possibility of such damages and regardless of the cause of action under which such damages are sought, including, without limitation, breach of contract, negligence or other tort. Because some states do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties or the limitation of liability for sequential or incidental damages, the above exclusions and limitations may not apply to you. In such states, The PHD Family of sites liability is limited to the greatest extent permitted by law.

The Service contains links to third-party World Wide Web sites and other resources. The PHD Family of sites assumes no responsibility for the availability or content of these outside sites and resources. Therefore, any concerns a member may have regarding any other site should be directed to the relevant site administrator or webmaster.

The information, advice, facts, opinions or other content appearing on the Service posted by members or third parties are those of the respective authors and do not reflect the views of The PHD Family of sites. The PHD Family of sites assumes no responsibility or liability for these materials.

Disclaimer of Warranties

Everything on The PHD Family of sites is provided to you "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE." The PHD Family of sites does not make any express or implied warranties, representations or endorsements whatsoever (including, without limitation, warranties of title or non-infringement or the implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose) with respect to the Service, any products, merchandise, information or services provided through or advertised on the Service, or the accuracy or results obtained from the use of any products, merchandise, or information or services provided through or advertised on the Service. The PHD Family of sites does not guarantee or warrant that any files available for downloading through the Service will be free of infection by viruses or other code that may contain contaminating or destructive properties.

Netiquette

You are entirely responsible and liable for all of your activities on The PHD Family of sites. Listed below are some, but not all, violations that may result in termination of your access to The PHD Family of sites. By using The PHD Family of sites, you agree NOT to do any of the following:

1. Post, transmit, promote, or distribute content that is illegal.
2. Transmit or facilitate distribution of content that is libelous, harmful, threatening, harassing, abusive, racially or ethnically offensive, vulgar, sexually explicit, obscene, defamatory, or objectionable in a reasonable person's view.
3. Pretend to be anyone whom you are not. You may not impersonate another member, a The PHD Family of sites staff member, or anyone else.
4. Attempt to get a password, other account information, or other private information from a member, or harvest email addresses or other information.
5. Post any unsolicited advertising, promotional materials, or any other forms of solicitation.

Pornography, obscenities, and defamatory postings are not allowed anywhere on The PHD Family of sites. Postings of this kind will be removed immediately, and a violation will be issued to the Member responsible for the posting (several violations will result in the termination of your account). If you see any pornographic, obscene or defamatory postings, please Alert Us immediately.

Usernames that contain obscene words, derogatory or racist remarks, or references to sexual acts or sexual anatomy are not allowed on The PHD Family of sites. Usernames of this kind will be deleted immediately upon discovery. If you see a Username that contains obscene, racist or derogatory references, please Alert Us immediately.

In the Forums area, please try to keep your postings relevant to the discussion. Postings that are irrelevant to Forum discussions, or that are designed to promote personal pages, voting polls, or third parties may be removed. If you see postings that contain foul language or that are intended to harass other Members, please Alert Us immediately.

Intentional disruption of the flow of content or discussion by repeatedly posting the same message or image or posting excessively large images is not permitted. Members who cause disruption of this kind will be issued a violation that can result in the termination of their account. If you see another Member disrupting a chat room or forum discussion, please Alert Us immediately.

Harassment of another The PHD Family of sites member via Notes, Email, Pages, or postings is not permitted. Harassment means: saying bad things about them; sending them unwanted messages; attacking their race, heritage, etc. Unsolicited "spam" messages are also not permitted unless expressly authorized by the recipient. While we encourage you to introduce yourself to other Members, please respect their wishes if they do not want you to send them mail. If you feel that another Member is harassing you, please Alert Us by filling out a member violation report.

Please remember that not everyone likes being put on a Friend's list. Please comply with a Member's wishes if they request to be removed from your Friend's list. As a Member, you have the right to refuse being saved to someone else's Friend's list. If another Member refuses to remove you from their Friend's list, please Alert Us and we will remove your name for you.

We can, whenever we want, edit or delete any content displayed, uploaded to, distributed, or otherwise published through the Service.

We reserve the right to remove content at any time, including any content that violates these standards. We are not responsible for any objectionable material you may encounter while using the Service.

Privacy Policy

The PHD Family of sites ("PHD") believes that communities can only truly be built through interaction and participation among community members based on trust, privacy and freedom of expression.

The PHD Family of sites wants all members to have the freedom to express themselves, however at the same time, The PHD Family of sites wants all members to feel secure.

The following PHD Family Policy demonstrates our intent and commitment to protect member's rights online.

1. Profile information will be used to create personalized content, service, and advertise on The PHD Family of sites. The PHD Family of sites may also use your profile to generate aggregate reports and market research.
2. All profile data stored by The PHD Family of sites has been entered solely by the respective member.
3. Members can modify registration data associated with their account, and can control selected private information from being disclosed on their member page.
4. Communication transcripts of online chats are not retained except for scheduled chat sessions.
5. The PHD Family of sites mail communications are only accessible by the designated recipients, except that The PHD Family personnel involved in maintenance of the system may have access to The PHD Family mail communications.

Personally identifying information, or personal information, includes your name, home or other address (like the school you attend), email address, or any other information that tells another person who you are. When you register as an The PHD Family Member, we ask for some personal information such as your email address.

Our policy regarding this information is simple: Except as provided in this statement, The PHD Family of sites may use this information to send you offers and information we think you would be interested in from The PHD Family of sites and it's partners but not without your explicit permission. The PHD Family of sites will also give you an opportunity to opt out of this service at any time. We make an effort to include a link to this Privacy Policy wherever we ask you for personal information.

We also collect other information at registration such as your birthday, city where you live, hobbies, and interests. This information cannot be used to identify you. We place this information in your The PHD Family profile, which is NOT to anyone other than admin of The PHD Family of sites.

Some of our services, such as The PHD Family email are offered in conjunction with partner companies. In order to provide these services, we must disclose certain information to our partners including your The PHD Family of sites username and email address. Our content partners may also ask you for some additional personal information. Our partners are all upstanding companies that will treat your personal information responsibly. But, since we don't own these companies, we can't speak for them on privacy issues.

Other companies also may sponsor promotions, contests and sweepstakes running on The PHD Family of sites. These companies may choose to collect personal information from you. If you don't want your information collected by these sponsors, you can decide not to participate in the promotion, contest or sweepstakes. You should be aware that our advertisers or Web sites that have links on The PHD Family of sites may collect personally identifiable information about you. This privacy statement does not address the information practices of those Web sites or advertisers.

One last thing to keep in mind: Whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information on forums, through email, or in chat areas, that information can be collected and used by others. If you post personal information in public places, others may send you unsolicited email messages.

Always be smart about the information you provide online.

Finally, we may disclose Member information when we are required to by law, or when have reason to believe that someone is causing injury to or interference with our rights or property, other The PHD Family Members, or anyone else that could be harmed by such activities.

Your The PHD Family of sites profile is password-protected so that you and only you have access to this information. In order to maintain this protection, do not give your password to anyone. Also, we recommend that, if you share your computer with other people, you sign out of your The PHD Family of sites Account and close your browser window when you are done. Signing off will protect your information if you share a computer with someone else or are using a computer in a public place like a library.

We make every effort to ensure that your information is secure on our system. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk.

Cookies

In our effort to provide you services customized to your interests, we may use cookies to keep and sometimes track information about you, HOWEVER we do not install cookies at this time and do not foresee it. A cookie is a small piece of data that is sent to your browser from a Web server and stored on your computer's hard drive. Sites use cookies to: access your account information (stored on our computers) in order to deliver better and more personalized services; estimate our audience size for our advertisers; track the number of entries in our promotions, sweepstakes and contests; identify which areas of The PHD Family of sites you have visited. You should also be aware that companies that advertise on The PHD Family of sites might use their own cookies. This privacy policy does not cover how these companies use their cookies.

Age Restriction

The PHD Family of sites is not directed to children under the age of 13. After November 1, 2003, The PHD Family of sites will prohibit registration by and will not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under 13. It is recommended that teenagers and any "young" people interested in their own age group access through the www.phdteen.com website only.

This restriction will be posted at points of data collection within The PHD Family of sites, such as registration for services.

Note to Parents: If you have any concerns about The PHD Family of sites or its related services, wish to find out if your child is a member of one of our services, or wish to cancel your child's membership, please contact Member Services.

The PHD Family of sites is your online business community. The The PHD Family of sites Terms of Service is our "social contract" of member interaction.