Guidelines Governing this Site
PLEASE READ THESE TERMS OF SERVICE CAREFULLY. THE TERMS OF SERVICE MAY HAVE CHANGED SINCE YOUR LAST VISIT TO THIS WEBSITE. BY ACCESSING OR USING THIS WEBSITE, YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF SERVICE. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH ALL OF THE TERMS OF SERVICE, DO NOT USE THIS WEBSITE.
Effective Date: The Terms of Service were last updated on September 17, 2024.
We at Small Business Trends Media Group LLC provide this Site for the benefit of our users. We created the Terms of Service to address commenting, content submission, and other practices governing the Site. (For privacy matters, please visit our Privacy Policy.)
The Terms of Service apply to all the Small Business Trends family of Websites, including Small Business Trends, TrendTracker, SMB TrendWire, Selling to Small Businesses and any Sites subsequently added, as well as our digital magazine. Any reference to “Site” includes all Sites and the digital magazine within the Small Business Trends family.
We reserve the right to change any of the terms, conditions or policies of the Site, at any time in our sole discretion. If we decide to change the Terms of Service, we will publish a new version on the Site. Any such changes will be effective upon publishing the revisions. Your continued use of the Site following publishing of any changes constitutes your acceptance of such changes.
ARTICLES AND SITE CONTENT
Uncompensated Submissions
The following applies to article submissions for which no monetary compensation is paid to you by us.
By submitting articles or otherwise engaging in any communication within the Site, you are granting Small Business Trends Media Group LLC (and its assignees) the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, create derivative works from, transfer, and sell your submissions to the Site (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate your submissions in other works in any form, media, or technology whether now known or later developed.
Compensated Submissions
The following applies to certain submissions for which monetary compensation is paid to you by us.
If we have entered into a signed, written agreement with you specifying that your submissions are a “work made for hire,” then the issues related to ownership of copyright of your submissions are specified in that agreement and that agreement shall prevail on those issues. In the absence of such written agreement, you agree that you are granting Small Business Trends Media Group LLC (and its assignees) the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, create derivative works from, transfer, and sell your submissions to the Site (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate your submissions in other works in any form, media, or technology whether now known or later developed.
All Submissions
The following applies to all submissions, whether compensated or uncompensated.
You are solely responsible for the content of your submissions. We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to edit, refuse to publish or remove any content from the Site for any reason whatsoever, including but not limited to, that we believe part or all of the content: (i) is in need of editing for grammar, spelling or overall readability; (ii) is off topic; (iii) is inaccurate; (iv) is false, misleading or defamatory; (v) is offensive, abusive or uncivil in tone; (vi) is harmful, threatening or intimidating; (vii) contains profanity, hate messages or personal attacks against others; (viii) constitutes spam, phishing or any form of advertising or solicitation; (ix) is used in conjunction with any automated or other means to artificially drive user traffic to the Site; (x) disguises the origin of any user content transmitted to the Site; (xi) impersonates another person or misrepresents your affiliation with a person or entity; (xii) violates another person’s or entity’s intellectual property rights, publicity or privacy rights or other legal rights; (xiii) contains software viruses or any other malicious code, files or programs which may interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment; or (xiv) is otherwise inappropriate or undesirable for the Site.
COMMENTS AND USER GENERATED CONTENT
By submitting comments, audio interviews, podcasts, polls, surveys, trackbacks, articles and other content to the Site, you are granting Small Business Trends Media Group LLC the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, create derivative works from, transfer, and sell your submissions to the Site (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate your submissions in other works in any form, media, or technology whether now known or later developed.
We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to edit, refuse to publish or remove any comments, articles and user-generated content from the Site that we believe may be prohibited or inappropriate under the All Submissions section of the Terms of Service.
TRADEMARKS
“Small Business Trends,” “PowerBlog Review,” “TrendTracker,” “SellingtoSmallBusinesses.com” and “SmallBizTrends,” are trademarks of and owned by Small Business Trends Media Group LLC. The “Small Business Trends,” “PowerBlog Review,” “TrendTracker” and “SellingtoSmallBusinesses.com,” logos are also trademarks of and owned by Small Business Trends Media Group LLC.
All third-party trademarks and other third-party intellectual property rights remain the property of their respective third-party owners.
Notice and Take Down Procedures; Copyright INFRINGEMENT Agent
We respect the intellectual property rights of others. Pursuant to 17 USC § 512 as amended by Title II of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the “DMCA”), the Site has instituted procedures to receive written notification of claimed infringements and to process such claims in accordance with the DMCA. If you believe your copyrights are being infringed, you may file a notification of such infringement with the following Designated Agent:
Leland McFarland
1000 S Hwy 395
STE A/301
Hermiston, OR 97838
(305) 907-5475
admin@smallbiztrends.com
To be effective, your notification of claimed infringement must be in writing, provided to the Designated Agent and include substantially the following information:
- Identification of the copyrighted work you claim to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that Site.
- Identification of the material that you claim to be infringing and information reasonably sufficient to permit us to locate the material, such as its URL.
- Your name, address, telephone number, and if available, email address.
- A statement that you have a good faith belief that the complained of use of the material is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law.
- A statement that the information that you have supplied in the notification is accurate, and indicating under penalty of perjury, that you are the copyright owner or are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.
- A physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner or authorized representative.
Any notification of a claimed infringement that fails to substantially comply with the above provisions will not be considered as providing actual knowledge or an awareness of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent.
Please file a notice of infringement each time you wish to report alleged acts of infringement.
Please note that we will terminate, in appropriate circumstances, the account of any user who repeatedly submits infringing material to the Site.
Please also note that the information provided in your notification, including any personal information contained therein, may be forwarded to the person who has provided the allegedly infringing content, and sending us such notification constitutes your consent to share this information with the alleged infringer.
Please also note that if you make any material misrepresentation in your notification that the material or activity is infringing, you will be liable for all damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees, incurred by us, the alleged infringer, the copyright owner or any authorized licensee of the copyright owner as the result of our relying upon such misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access to it.
We may give notice of a claim of copyright infringement to our users by means of a general notice on the Site, electronic mail to a user’s email address in our records, or by written communication sent by first-class mail to a user’s address in our records.
SITE USAGE
You agree not to do any of the following: (i) contact anyone who has asked not to be contacted; (ii) collect personal data about other users for commercial or unlawful purposes; (iii) use automated means, including scripts, spiders, robots, crawlers, data mining tools, etc., to download or upload data to or from the Site; (iv) attempt to gain unauthorized access to our computer system or to any other user’s computer system; (v) forge any TCP/IP packet header or part thereof in any email or article submission; or (vi) engage in any activity that disrupts, diminishes the quality of, interferes with the performance of, or impairs the functionality the Site.
We reserve the right, without notice and in our sole discretion, to revoke your right to use the Site and block or prevent your future access to the Site.
We also reserve the right to fully cooperate with any law enforcement authorities or court order requesting or directing us to disclose any information as necessary to satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process, or governmental request.
ADVERTISING DISCLOSURE
This Site is run by a small business for small businesses. Our mission is to provide small business success daily in the form of news, information and business resources.
Like most news and media businesses, this electronic publication and associated properties are monetized by various types of advertising and sponsorships. Because of that support, we are able to provide a vast array of information and resources to our small business peers and readers free of charge.
Monetization includes banner ads, sponsored content and affiliate ad links. Advertisements and sponsorships are sold by our Advertising Department, which is separate from the Editorial Team. Some ads are placed algorithmically via Google AdSense or other ad networks, and we have little to no control over those. Affiliate links are placed in certain limited parts of the Site by our Commerce Department and not by individual authors.
Small Business Trends Media Group LLC is required by the FTC to inform you that a relationship exists between it and some of the products or services it writes about. Please see our commerce policy to learn more.
Advertising and affiliate compensation has no bearing on the Site’s views or individual reviewers’ views on products and services, or that of our paid writing staff. For more on our policy regarding reviews, please see our ethics statement.
We take our mission seriously to provide information and resources to serve millions of small businesses. We are self-funded.
DISCLAIMER
The Site includes unmoderated information containing the personal opinions and other expressions of the persons who submit entries on a wide range of topics. Such entries are the opinions of the specific authors and are not statements of advice, opinion, or information of the Site or any or any Site-affiliated person or entity. You should use the content on the Site in the same manner as any other educational medium and you should not rely on the content to the exclusion of your own judgment.
We do not guarantee or warrant that files available for downloading from the Internet will be free of viruses, worms, Trojan horses or other code that may manifest contaminating or destructive properties.
You are responsible for implementing sufficient procedures and checkpoints to satisfy your particular requirements for accuracy of data input and output, and for maintaining a means external to this Site for the reconstruction of any lost data. We do not assume any responsibility or risk for your use of the Internet.
We are not liable for any loss or damages incurred as a result of the use of the Site or any links, including but not limited to any of the following: (i) claims relating to your reliance upon information obtained on this Site or any links thereto; (ii) errors, loss of data, interruption in availability of data, viruses or other harmful components; or (iii) any other legal claims.
CONTACT
If you have any questions about the Terms of Service, please contact us at admin@smallbiztrends.com.
Terms of Service updated: November 14, 2022