fandom.ink Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

The Website ("we", "us", "our", fandom.ink) is offered subject to your acceptance, without modification, of all of the terms and conditions contained within, along with all other operating rules, policies and procedures that may be published from time to time on this Website by us (collectively, the Agreement).

Please read this Agreement carefully before accessing or using the Website. By accessing or using any part of the Website, you agree that you are 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 you operate an account, respond to an account, 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, also known as "Content"), you are entirely responsible for that Content and any harm that may result from it. That is the case regardless of whether the Content in question constitutes text, graphics, an audio file, a video file, or computer software.

I. Your Account

If you create an account on the Website, you are responsible for maintaining the security of your account. You are responsible for all activities that occur under the account and any other actions taken in connection with the account. You must take reasonable steps to guard the security of your account. We will not be liable for any acts or omissions resulting from a breach of security, including any damages of any kind incurred as a result of such acts or omissions.

Site usage by children

Our site, products and services are all directed to people who are at least 16 years old. If you are under the age of 16, do not use this site.

II. Privacy policy

What information do we collect?

Basic account information: If you register on the Website, you may be asked to enter a username, an e-mail address and a password. You may also enter additional profile information such as a display name and biography, and upload a profile picture and header image. The username, display name, biography, profile picture and header image are always listed publicly.
Posts, following and other public information: The list of people you follow is listed publicly, the same is true for your followers. When you submit a message, the date and time is stored as well as the application you submitted the message from. Messages may contain media attachments, such as pictures and videos. Public and unlisted posts are available publicly. When you feature a post on your profile, that is also publicly available information. Your posts are delivered to your followers, in some cases it means they are delivered to different servers and copies are stored there. When you delete posts, this is likewise delivered to your followers. The action of reblogging or favouriting another post is always public.
Direct and followers-only posts: All posts are stored and processed on the Website. Followers-only posts are delivered to your followers and users who are mentioned in them, and direct posts are delivered only to users mentioned in them. In some cases it means they are delivered to different servers and copies are stored there. We make a good faith effort to limit the access to those posts only to authorized persons, but other servers may fail to do so. Therefore it's important to review servers your followers belong to. You may toggle an option to approve and reject new followers manually in the settings. Please keep in mind that the operators of the server and any receiving server may view such messages, and that recipients may screenshot, copy or otherwise re-share them. Do not share any dangerous information over Mastodon.
IPs and other metadata: When you log in, we record the IP address you log in from, as well as the name of your browser application. All the logged in sessions are available for your review and revocation in the settings. The latest IP address used is stored for up to 12 months. We also may retain server logs which include the IP address of every request to our server.

What do we use your information for?

Any of the information we collect from you may be used in the following ways:

To provide the core functionality of the Website. You can only interact with other people's content and post your own content when you are logged in. For example, you may follow other people to view their combined posts in your own personalized home timeline.
To aid moderation of the community, for example comparing your IP address with other known ones to determine ban evasion or other violations.
The email address you provide may be used to send you information, notifications about other people interacting with your content or sending you messages, and to respond to inquiries, and/or other requests or questions.

How do we protect your information?

We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you enter, submit, or access your personal information. Among other things, your browser session, as well as the traffic between your applications and the API, are secured with SSL, and your password is hashed using a strong one-way algorithm. You may enable two-factor authentication to further secure access to your account.

What is our data retention policy?

We will make a good faith effort to:

Retain server logs containing the IP address of all requests to the Website, in so far as such logs are kept, no more than 90 days.
Retain the IP addresses associated with registered users no more than 12 months.

You can request and download an archive of your content, including your posts, media attachments, profile picture, and header image.

You may irreversibly delete your account at any time.

Do we use cookies?

Yes. Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer's hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow). These cookies enable the site to recognize your browser and, if you have a registered account, associate it with your registered account.

We use cookies to understand and save your preferences for future visits.

Do we disclose any information to outside parties?

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating the Website, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others' rights, property, or safety.

Your public content may be downloaded by other servers in the network. Your public and followers-only posts are delivered to the servers where your followers reside, and direct messages are delivered to the servers of the recipients, in so far as those followers or recipients reside on a different server than this.

When you authorize an application to use your account, depending on the scope of permissions you approve, it may access your public profile information, your following list, your followers, your lists, all your posts, and your favorites. Applications can never access your e-mail address or password.

III. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless fandom.ink, its contractors, 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 out of your violation of this Agreement.

IV. Termination

We may terminate your access to all or any part of the Website at any time, at our sole discretion, if we believe that you have violated this Agreement. You agree that any termination of your access to the Website may involve removing or discarding any content you have provided. We may, at our sole discretion, discontinue providing the Website at any time, with or without notice.

If you wish to terminate this Agreement, you may delete your account and cease using the Website. You agree that, upon deletion of your account, we may, but are not required to, remove any content you have provided, at any time past the deletion of your account.

Paid accounts that are terminated for violations of this Agreement will only be refunded at our discretion, and only if such termination should come under our established criteria for issuing refunds.

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.

V. License to reproduce content

By submitting Content to us for inclusion on the Website, you grant us a world-wide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, adapt and publish the Content, solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting the contents of your account, including through downloadable clients and external feeds.

If you delete Content, we will use reasonable efforts to remove it from the Website, but you acknowledge that caching or references to the Content may not be made immediately unavailable.

VI. Account content

You agree to the following provisions for posting Content to the Website:

We claim no ownership or control over any Content that you post to the Website. You retain any intellectual property rights to the Content you post, in accordance with applicable law. By posting Content, you represent that you have the rights to reproduce that Content (and the right to allow us to serve such Content) without violation of the rights of any third party. You agree that you will bear any liability resulting from the posting of any Content that you do not have the rights to post.
All Content posted to the Website in any way is the responsibility of the owner. Within the confines of international and local law, we will generally not place a restriction on the type or appropriateness of any Content. If Content is deemed illegal by any law having jurisdiction over you, you agree that we may submit any necessary information to the proper authorities.
We do not pre-screen Content. However, you acknowledge that we have the right (but not the obligation), in our sole discretion, to remove or refuse to remove any Content from the service. You also agree that we may, without limitation, take any steps necessary to remove Content from the site search engine or member directory, at our sole discretion.
If any Content you have submitted is reported to us as violating this Agreement, you agree that we may call upon you to change, modify, or remove that Content, within a reasonable amount of time, as defined by us. If you do not follow this directive, we may terminate your account.

VII. 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 we, any user, or any provider of Content links, or that link to us. We do not have any control over those websites and webpages, and are not responsible for their contents or their use. By linking to an external website or webpage, we do not represent or imply that we endorse 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. We disclaim any responsibility for any harm resulting from your use of external websites and webpages, whether that link is provided by us or by any provider of Content on the Website.

VIII. No resale or exploitation of services

You agree not to reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, resell, research, or exploit any portion of the Website, including user content, without written permission.

You agree not to sell, resell, or otherwise commercially exploit use of the Website, or access to the Website.

IX. Exposure to content

You agree that by using the service, you may be exposed to Content you find offensive or objectionable. If such Content is reported to us, it will be our sole discretion as to what action, if any, should be taken.

X. Member conduct

You agree that you will not use the Website to:

Upload, post, or otherwise transmit any Content that is harmful, threatening, abusive, hateful, invasive to the privacy and publicity rights of any person, or that violates any applicable local, state, national, or international law, including any regulation having the force of law.
Upload, post, or otherwise transmit any Content that is spam, or contains 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).
Maliciously impersonate any real person or entity, or to otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with any person or entity.
Upload, post or otherwise transmit any Content that you do not have a right to transmit 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).
Upload, post or otherwise transmit any Content that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, or other proprietary rights of any party.
Interfere with or disrupt the Website or servers or networks connected to the Website, or disobey any requirements, procedures, policies or regulations of networks connected to the Website.
Solicit passwords or personal identifying information for unintended, commercial or unlawful purposes from other users.
Provide any material that is illegal under the laws of the jurisdictions in which the Website operates.
Upload, post or otherwise transmit any Content that contains viruses, worms, malware, Trojan horses or other harmful or destructive content.
Allow usage by others in such a way as to violate this Agreement.
Make excessive or otherwise harmful automated use of the Website.
Access any other person's account, or exceed the scope of the Website that you have signed up for; for example, accessing and using features you don't have a right to use.

XI. Changes

We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to modify or replace any part of this Agreement at any time. We will take reasonable steps to notify you of any substantial changes to this Agreement; however, 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.

We 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.

XII. Disclaimer of warranties

This Website is provided "as is". fandom.ink 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 fandom.ink, nor its suppliers and licensors, makes any warranty that the Website will be error free or that access to the Website will be continuous or uninterrupted. You agree that any interruptions to the service will not qualify for reimbursement or compensation. You understand that you download from, or otherwise obtain content or services through, the Website at your own discretion and risk.

No advice or information, whether oral or written, obtained by you in any fashion shall create any warranty not expressly stated in this Agreement.

XIII. Limitation of liability

You expressly understand and agree that in no event will fandom.ink, 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 or substitute products or services; (iii) interruption of use or loss or corruption of data; (iv) any statements or conduct of any third party on the service; or (v) any unauthorized access to or alterations of your Content. We shall have no liability for any failure or delay due to matters beyond our reasonable control.

The foregoing shall not apply to the extent prohibited by applicable law.

XIV. General information

This Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between us and you concerning your use of the Website. This Agreement may only be modified by a written amendment signed by an authorized representative of fandom.ink, or by the posting of a revised version to this location.

If any part of this Agreement is held invalid or unenforceable, that part will be construed to reflect the parties' original intent, and the remaining portions will remain in full force and effect. A waiver by either party of any term or condition of this Agreement or any breach thereof, in any one instance, will not waive such term or condition or any subsequent breach thereof.

The section titles in this Agreement are for convenience only and have no legal or contractual effect.

XV. Creative Commons

This Terms of Service document is based on content originally developed by Dreamdwidth (https://www.dreamwidth.org/legal/tos), Automattic (http://wordpress.com/tos/), and Discourse (https://github.com/discourse/discourse) and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Last updated 2020-02-14, clarifying section VIII.