The following terms and conditions govern all use of the ECOCONSUMERS forum and all content, services and products available at or through the forum (taken together, the Website). The Website is owned and operated by the West Africa Quality System Programme (“WAQSP”). The Website is offered subject to your acceptance without modification of all of the terms and conditions contained herein and all other operating rules, policies (including, without limitation, ECOCONSUMERS’s Privacy Policy and Community Guidelines) and procedures that may be published from time to time on this Site by the WAQSP (collectively, the “Agreement”).

Please read this Agreement carefully before accessing or using the Website. By accessing or using any part of the web site, you agree to become bound by the terms and conditions of this agreement. If you do not agree to all the terms and conditions of this agreement, then you may not access the Website or use any services. If these terms and conditions are considered an offer by the WAQSP, acceptance is expressly limited to these terms. The Website is available only to individuals who are at least 13 years old.

1. Your ECOCONSUMERS Account

If you create an account on the Website, you are responsible for maintaining the security of your account and you are fully responsible for all activities that occur under the account. You must immediately notify the WAQSP of any unauthorized uses of your account or any other breaches of security. The WAQSP will not be liable for any acts or omissions by you, including any damages of any kind incurred as a result of such acts or omissions.

2. Responsibility of Contributors

If you post material to the Website, post links on the Website, or otherwise make (or allow any third party to make) material available by means of the Website (any such material, “Content”), you are entirely responsible for the content of, and any harm resulting from, that Content. That is the case regardless of whether the Content in question constitutes text, graphics, an audio file, or computer software. By making Content available, you represent and warrant that:

  • the downloading, copying and use of the Content will not infringe the proprietary rights, including but not limited to the copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret rights, of any third party;
  • if your employer has rights to intellectual property you create, you have either (i) received permission from your employer to post or make available the Content, including but not limited to any software, or (ii) secured from your employer a waiver as to all rights in or to the Content;
  • you have fully complied with any third-party licenses relating to the Content, and have done all things necessary to successfully pass through to end users any required terms;
  • the Content does not contain or install any viruses, worms, malware, Trojan horses or other harmful or destructive content;
  • the Content is not spam, is not machine- or randomly-generated, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites, or to further unlawful acts (such as phishing) or mislead recipients as to the source of the material (such as spoofing);
  • the Content is not pornographic, does not contain threats or incite violence, and does not violate the privacy or publicity rights of any third party;
  • your content is not getting advertised via unwanted electronic messages such as spam links on newsgroups, email lists, blogs and web sites, and similar unsolicited promotional methods;
  • your content is not named in a manner that misleads your readers into thinking that you are another person or company; and
  • you have, in the case of Content that includes computer code, accurately categorized and/or described the type, nature, uses and effects of the materials, whether requested to do so by the WAQSP or otherwise.

3. User Content License

User contributions are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Without limiting any of those representations or warranties, the WAQSP has the right (though not the obligation) to, in the WAQSP’s sole discretion (i) refuse or remove any content that, in the WAQSP’s reasonable opinion, violates any the WAQSP policy or is in any way harmful or objectionable, or (ii) terminate or deny access to and use of the Website to any individual or entity for any reason, in the WAQSP’s sole discretion.

4. Responsibility of Website Visitors

The WAQSP has not reviewed, and cannot review, all of the material, including computer software, posted to the Website, and cannot therefore be responsible for that material’s content, use or effects. By operating the Website, the WAQSP does not represent or imply that it endorses the material there posted, or that it believes such material to be accurate, useful or non-harmful. You are responsible for taking precautions as necessary to protect yourself and your computer systems from viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and other harmful or destructive content. The Website may contain content that is offensive, indecent, or otherwise objectionable, as well as content containing technical inaccuracies, typographical mistakes, and other errors. The Website may also contain material that violates the privacy or publicity rights, or infringes the intellectual property and other proprietary rights, of third parties, or the downloading, copying or use of which is subject to additional terms and conditions, stated or unstated. The WAQSP disclaims any responsibility for any harm resulting from the use by visitors of the Website, or from any downloading by those visitors of content there posted.

5. Content Posted on Other Websites

We have not reviewed, and cannot review, all of the material, including computer software, made available through the websites and webpages to which ECOCONSUMERS links, and that link to ECOCONSUMERS. The WAQSP does not have any control over those non-ECOCONSUMERS websites and webpages, and is not responsible for their contents or their use. By linking to a non-ECOCONSUMERS website or webpage, the WAQSP does not represent or imply that it endorses such website or webpage. You are responsible for taking precautions as necessary to protect yourself and your computer systems from viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and other harmful or destructive content. The WAQSP disclaims any responsibility for any harm resulting from your use of non-ECOCONSUMERS websites and webpages.

6. Copyright Infringement and DMCA Policy

As the WAQSP asks others to respect its intellectual property rights, it respects the intellectual property rights of others. If you believe that material located on or linked to by ECOCONSUMERS violates your copyright, and if this website resides in the USA, you are encouraged to notify the WAQSP in accordance with the WAQSP’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) Policy. The WAQSP will respond to all such notices, including as required or appropriate by removing the infringing material or disabling all links to the infringing material. The WAQSP will terminate a visitor’s access to and use of the Website if, under appropriate circumstances, the visitor is determined to be a repeat infringer of the copyrights or other intellectual property rights of the WAQSP or others.

7. Intellectual Property

This Agreement does not transfer from the WAQSP to you any WAQSP or third party intellectual property, and all right, title and interest in and to such property will remain (as between the parties) solely with the WAQSP. The WAQSP, ECOCONSUMERS, the ECOCONSUMERS logo, and all other trademarks, service marks, graphics and logos used in connection with ECOCONSUMERS, or the Website are trademarks or registered trademarks of the WAQSP or WAQSP’s licensors. Other trademarks, service marks, graphics and logos used in connection with the Website may be the trademarks of other third parties. Your use of the Website grants you no right or license to reproduce or otherwise use any WAQSP or third-party trademarks.

8. Changes

The WAQSP reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to modify or replace any part of this Agreement. It is your responsibility to check this Agreement periodically for changes. Your continued use of or access to the Website following the posting of any changes to this Agreement constitutes acceptance of those changes. The WAQSP may also, in the future, offer new services and/or features through the Website (including, the release of new tools and resources). Such new features and/or services shall be subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

9. Termination

The WAQSP may terminate your access to all or any part of the Website at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice, effective immediately. If you wish to terminate this Agreement or your ECOCONSUMERS account (if you have one), you may simply discontinue using the Website. All provisions of this Agreement which by their nature should survive termination shall survive termination, including, without limitation, ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, indemnity and limitations of liability.

10. Disclaimer of Warranties

The Website is provided “as is”. The WAQSP and its suppliers and licensors hereby disclaim all warranties of any kind, express or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. Neither the WAQSP nor its suppliers and licensors, makes any warranty that the Website will be error free or that access thereto will be continuous or uninterrupted. You understand that you download from, or otherwise obtain content or services through, the Website at your own discretion and risk.

11. Limitation of Liability

In no event will the WAQSP, or its suppliers or licensors, be liable with respect to any subject matter of this agreement under any contract, negligence, strict liability or other legal or equitable theory for: (i) any special, incidental or consequential damages; (ii) the cost of procurement for substitute products or services; or (iii) for interruption of use or loss or corruption of data. The WAQSP shall have no liability for any failure or delay due to matters beyond their reasonable control. The foregoing shall not apply to the extent prohibited by applicable law.

12. General Representation and Warranty

You represent and warrant that (i) your use of the Website will be in strict accordance with the WAQSP Privacy Policy, Community Guidelines, with this Agreement and with all applicable laws and regulations (including without limitation any local laws or regulations in your country, state, city, or other governmental area, regarding online conduct and acceptable content, and including all applicable laws regarding the transmission of technical data exported from the country in which this website resides or the country in which you reside) and (ii) your use of the Website will not infringe or misappropriate the intellectual property rights of any third party.

13. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless the WAQSP, its contractors, and its licensors, and their respective directors, officers, employees and agents from and against any and all claims and expenses, including attorneys’ fees, arising out of your use of the Website, including but not limited to your violation of this Agreement.

The Website is available for free on the internet, without any subcription fees or other financial contributions whatsoever. The WAQSP shall not be liable to any cost incurred by the user in visiting and using the Website.

Originally adapted from the Discourse Terms of Service.