Terms & Conditions

1. Introduction 

We, Market Rithm, Inc. (MRI), have a desire and goal to make an online space that allows its customers to create and own their content, engage with others in ecommerce, interact with the public, attract vendors and consumers to their products and services, and speak to the world. We are meeting this by providing digital and online publishing and marketing products and services (“Services”) to you, the “User.” 

We desire to provide these Services with a firm commitment to the Freedom of Speech. We believe the Freedom of Speech should not merely be a government requirement, but a principle that lets responsible speakers govern their own words to seek the truth, find the truth, understand the truth, speak the truth, and improve the world by sharing that truth they discover with others. Because we believe “the truth ” is big, important, often confusing, and requires a great deal of thought, debate, and discussion to find, we believe it is very important that no company – including this one – be able to define “truth” and restrict the Freedom of Speech by that definition. 

At MRI, we are making a platform where the Freedom of Speech is protected, and you and other Users can speak, act, and interact online with the same freedom that is enjoyed on the street. We created MRI so that you, the User, can speak freely, regardless of whether you own and control a multi-billion-dollar social media company. You, not us, will own what you say. You, not us, will determine whether or not what you say is worth hearing.  

You own your speech, and you have the freedom to speak. Even so, not everything is allowed merely because it is “speech.” With rights come responsibilities, and that includes your speech. We have rules and responsibilities to prevent Users from stealing the speech of others. We have rules and responsibilities to prevent obscene or pornographic material. We have rules and responsibilities to prevent illegal threats and other activities that are detrimental to society or illegal. Additionally, there’s no such thing as a free lunch or a free “service” either. We must create rules to address the technical limitations as our Users engage in speech online. We also must create rules to explain what happens when things do not go according to plan.  

For these and related reasons, the following “Terms of Service” are a part of the User’s agreement with MRI.

2. Acknowledgement and acceptance of Terms of Service 

You have engaged our Services directly from MarketRithm.com (the “Site”) or through an MRI approved agency. The entire body of intellectual property, infrastructure, methods, and Services that MRI owns and utilizes, including the Site itself, is the “Platform.” These Terms of Service apply to your use of the Site and the Platform. 

By using the Sites, you agree to the following terms and conditions as it relates to the Platform and Site. You agree to be bound by the Terms of Service, as well as all other operating rules, polices, and procedures of the Site.  

By continuing your use of the Site, you agree that you have read and reviewed these terms, and you agree to abide by them as you engage with the services of this platform. Because the internet is a fast-changing environment, we may change the Terms of Service at any time, with or without notice. These changes to the Terms of Service allow us to act to protect our intellectual property and brand, protect and process the property of Users, update our business practices and offered services, comply with applicable law, and pursue other related purposes in the fast-changing environment of internet business. 

If at any point you refuse to be bound by the Terms of Service, it is your responsibility to make this refusal known, and terminate your use of the services of MRI. 

3. Eligibility 

To be eligible to use the Site, you must be an adult. The Site is not designed or intended to be utilized by minors who do not act under the supervision of their parents or guardians. If you register as a User or otherwise use the platform, you represent that you are at least 18 years of age, or have achieved the legal age of majority where you live, and are able to form a binding contract.  If you do not meet these requirements, you must be under the supervision of a parent or legal guardian who agrees to these Terms of Service on your behalf. 

4. Account Information 

To use the products and services of this site, you must sign up for an account with MRI. It is your responsibility to choose the plan that works for you or your company, and we have no responsibility to match your individual needs to the plans we offer.  

In the creation of your MRI Account (“Account”), you must provide accurate and truthful information. Additional terms are applicable at the time of such purchase of your Account. A User may maintain multiple Accounts, but no User may use multiple Accounts to circumvent or avoid the requirements of the Terms of Service.  

It is the responsibility of the user to monitor and control access to the Account. We have no ongoing responsibility to ensure the security of the User’s access to or control of the Account. If the User has lost access to the Account for any reason, whether due to the negligence of the User or not, it is the User’s responsibility to inform MRI of this issue before any action will be taken by us to identify the identity of the User and return control of the Account and Content to the User. The User may inform us of any loss of security by accessing this form. 

5. Closing Your Account 

Your Account may be closed at any time for the following reasons: 

a. Compliance with Terms of Service

Compliance with the Terms of Service is a condition of the use and possession of your Account. If you fail to comply by these Terms of Service, we may limit access, close, suspend, or terminate your account at any time. Because harmful actions, illegal actions, and actions that circumvent these Terms of Service are difficult to predict or define, we reserve the right to terminate your account at any time and for any reason to protect our business, the Site, and the Platform. 

b. Facts of Life 

Second, we are a business, and if the business cannot continue, then neither can your Account. That’s a fact. For this reason, we reserve the right to terminate the User’s account (or all Users’ accounts) at any time. If this were to happen, we would feel sad and you, the User, may feel angry about this. However, these are the facts of life, and unfortunately facts don’t care about our feelings. Therefore, we must reserve and do reserve the right to terminate your Account at any time. This includes cancellation of your Account due to lack of use, lack of payment, or other similar reasons. 

For these reasons, we reserve the right to terminate your account at any time and for any reason.

6. What We Own and What You Own

Here is who owns what on the Site and Platform: 

a. Site, Platform, and Content

We own the Site. We also own software, methods, trade secrets, cloud computing infrastructure, and other property that keeps the Site and Platform running. MRI owns the Site and Platform. 

To use the Site and Platform, you must create the Account described above. Using your Account, you may build your online space and connect with those who interact with the text, audio, graphics, information, and other materials you create. The information, data, graphics, and information you create through your Account is the “Content.” You own the Content. 
 

To understand the reason for this, think of the Site and Platform like a digital hotel. Your Content is the luggage and belongings in the hotel room. We are the hotel. You own your stuff. We own the building, towels, pens, phone, lights, and vending machine. 

b. Storage and Hosting of Content

Your Content will be stored on the Platform. Except as described in these Terms of Service or modified by other agreements, we have no obligation to host your Content or preserve the digital information you store on the Platform. It is your responsibility to archive, preserve, and back up the Content you own on our Platform. 
 

To understand the reason for this User responsibility, think again of the digital hotel. If a guest disappears, the hotel can discard their stuff. Likewise, if an Account is not used, we may delete the Content on our servers. If a guest stops paying, a hotel can put their stuff on the curb. Likewise, if you fail to maintain payment on your Account, we may delete your Content. Even when a hotel guest pays in-full and on-time, illegal or unauthorized activity, such as prostitution or drug use can require the hotel to remove the guest and their belongings from a room. Likewise, if we determine there is pornography or illegal activity being conducted through the Site or Platform, we may delete the Account and the Content on our servers. Even if a guest in a hotel is paying on time and in full and doing nothing illegal or improper, factors beyond the hotel’s control -- pandemics, natural disasters, hostile a corporate takeover, city code violations, etc. – can necessitate that the hotel remove guests and place their stuff on the curb. Likewise, cyber attacks, natural disasters, hostile corporate takeovers, and internet regulatory actions – may constrain us in ways that we cannot predict, and necessitate that your Content be removed from the Platform. For these reasons, it is the responsibility of you, not us, to back up the Content you own on our Platform.   

c. License to use Site and Platform

By using the Site and Platform, you agree that we have given you legal permission (known as “a license”) to use our software through the Site. You agree not to alter, abuse, manipulate, or change the Site or Platform, except as intended on the Site. You may not reverse engineer or hack into the Platform to steal trade secrets, collect data, or do any other act or thing to the detriment of our business or the privacy of our Users. 
 

To understand the necessity of this license, think again of the digital hotel. You may use the services of the hotel just as you may use the services of the Site and Platform. In a hotel, you are not allowed to steal the towels and pens or knock down the walls between rooms, or reverse engineer the locks of other hotel rooms. In the same way, you are not authorized to appropriate software, reverse-engineer the site, or use the Site or Platform in ways that it was not intended to the advantage of you and the disadvantage of us. 

d. License to Content

By using the Site and Platform and uploading Content, you agree to a license regarding this Content for certain purposes. Specifically, you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, and worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content. 
 

To understand the reason for this, think of it once again like a digital hotel. Though you occupy the room, that occupation is not the only relevant event. In a hotel, housekeeping needs to change sheets, clean bathrooms, direct pizza-delivery to your room, and move your dirty clothes around the room to vacuum and do other ordinary things in a hotel. In the same way, we need to copy your Content, reproduce your Content in searches, and display your Content across the world through the Site and Platform. Because others will be engaging with, searching for, and viewing your Content through our Platform, we need the ability to facilitate that engagement, respond to those searches, display that content on devices, and do all other actions that are part of running this Site. That is the reason for the license.

f. Termination of License

You can delete or modify your Content individually, or all at once by deleting your Account. When you delete Content, this causes it to no longer be visible to those who visit the Site. Your Content may continue to exist elsewhere on our systems where immediate deletion is not possible due to technical limitations, where your Content has been used by others in accordance with this license, where others have reproduced your Content, either with or without your permission and either in compliance or violation of your intellectual property rights, and where immediate deletion would restrict our ability to comply with lawful orders to investigate or identify illegal activity or violations of our Terms of Service (whether a violation of law, these Terms of Service, or other agreements), or where our ability to comply with a request of a judicial or administrative authority, law enforcement action, or a government agency necessitates the preservation of your Content. In such case, this license regarding your Content will be retained for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it has been retained (the exact duration will vary on a case-by-case basis). In each of the above cases, this license will continue until the content has been fully deleted.
 

To understand the reason for this, think once again of the digital hotel. In a hotel, housekeeping may move around your belongings, even though we do not own your belongings. If you do not want us to move around your belongings, you are free to check out of the hotel. However, if you have left behind your belongings, or if another guest in the hotel has moved your belongings around without your knowledge, the hotel still retains the right to store, handle, and move around your belongings to run its business. In an analogous way, our license over your Content continues. Additionally, if the police were show up to a hotel with a search warrant and demand to search a room and the guest’s belongings, the hotel must allow access, even though the hotel does not own the belongings, and no matter how quickly you may desire to “check out.” In an analogous way, if an authority requires the reproduction or search of your Content, our license continues for this purpose. 

g. Data and Metadata

Not only does the User own the Content on their website, all data collected appropriately collected by the User through their website is also owned by the User, whether or not it is created or displayed as Content. In other words, all contact forms, email sign-up forms, feedback from customers and patrons, and all other similar data is owned by you, not us. 

We own the metadata that is created by your use of the Site and Platform. This metadata we own includes, but is not limited to, information regarding who comes to your site, cookies utilized by the Site and Platform, and all other data that is generated by your and End Users engagement with the Site and Platform. We may use metadata to improve the Site or Platform, or share the metadata with others at our discretion. 
 

To understand the reason for this ownership, think once again of the digital hotel. A guest is allowed to use the phone and internet and conduct business from the guest room. All deals reached and information gathered by the guest in that room is owned by the guest. At the same time, the hotel is able to review and track their own phone records, visitor logs, room-key access, and other information about who enters and exists the doors of the hotel. In an analogous way, you own your customer data, and we own the metadata.

8. Rules 

The following rules apply to your use of the Site and Platform. 

a. Obligation to End User

Our Users have Accounts to connect with their customers, readers, collaborators, and/or audience. These individuals who receive your Content in whatever form and by whatever means are the “End Users.” 

All information you provide to End Users must comply with all applicable laws. Since the User owns their Content, speech, and actions, the User is responsible for its Content, speech, and actions. This responsibility to comply with all laws includes defamation and libel laws; copyright laws; espionage laws; laws governing professional services like law and medicine; financial advice and fiduciary obligations; and all other laws relating to the Content and data you collect or engage with on the Site and Platform. 

b. User Content 

There are also rules that apply to your Content. MRI values the Freedom of Speech, and the rights to life, liberty, and property. MRI is committed to preserving the right of Users on its platform to pursue happiness by all lawful means, and to share that happiness acquired through their audience and their followers through likes, comments, subscriptions, and notifications. 

For this reason, the virtual peaceable assembly of Users and End Users on the Site to petition the government or to speak to society at large will be preserved to the greatest extent that the law allows. We reflect this values in our practices, and we do not make a practice of censoring political speech unless it is explicitly required by law. Political Speech – the debate of, discussion of, argument about, criticisms of, or proposals regarding what is good and bad in society – is what we value and what we wish to distribute and share.  

Though we value the Freedom of Speech, this does not mean that we allow any speech or Content on our Site and Platform. 

Public figures and public issues are open to public criticism and public debate. Private individuals are not equally covered by our value of Political Speech. Illegal speech, including private harassment and threats, is not political speech. In a similar way, petitions in whatever form to redress grievances are Political Speech,” plans to commit violence to redress grievances is not Political Speech. 

Services are not Political Speech. The transaction of business is also not Political Speech. Though Users are generally free to transact business on the Site and Platform through their accounts, the ordinary laws, taxes, regulations, and requirements of an honest and fair market apply to services and business in the same way they apply in the real world. These are not Political Speech, and do not receive the same value on our Site and Platform. 

Additionally, though political speech on the benefits or detriments of abortion, or gender reassignment surgery/hormone therapy on children is welcomed on our platform, as a reflection of our value of the right to life and protection of minors, we do not allow the solicitation, provision, or offering of abortion services or gender reassignment surgery/hormone therapy on children on our platform.  

Political Speech includes many subjects, many genres, many forms, and many media. It may engage the mind of the End User. It may stir the heart of the End User. It may bring laughter to the chest or tears to the eye of the End User. However, if the purpose or effect of the speech is to affect the genitalia of the End User (and if that speech is not serious medical advice from a doctor), then that speech is most likely pornography. Pornography is not Political Speech, and it is not allowed on our Site or Platform. We reserve the right to prevent pornography from being hosted or distributed on our platform, and we reserve to right to be the ultimate and final authority on what is or is not “pornography” on the Platform and Site.   

c. Use of the Software and Platform 

You agree to use the Site and Platform without engaging in corporate espionage, reverse-engineering, or any other activity on the site that is harmful to our business and the proprietary software and methods of the Platform. You agree not to use the Site or Platform in ways that unfairly infringe on our trademarks and information, or the trademarks, information, or access of other Users on the Site to their End Users. You agree not to take advantage of any feature or vulnerability on the site to the detriment of us or any User, whether or not this vulnerability is originally caused, discovered, or exploited by you. 

d. Third-Party Content 

Users add Content to our Site through their accounts. Additionally, third parties, whether authors, partners, creators, employees, agents, customers, or End Users, may also create Content on the individual sites of the User. This information, data, etc. is “Third-Party Content.” 

Unless otherwise stated, Third-Party Content is the responsibility of the User, and must comply with these Terms of Service. It is the User’s responsibility to control access to their Account and Content, and we have no obligation to protect the User from the consequences or liabilities related to Third-Party Content. 

9. Billing and Payment 

a. Billing Terms and Refunds

At the time you create your Account and select a plan for Services on the Site, you agree to additional terms of payment for your Account. At the time of the purchase of these Services, you agree to pay the amounts described, along with all applicable taxes. You acknowledge that you are not entitled to refunds for any purchases. Refunds may be considered for accidental purchases, upgrades or any circumstance where a purchase is deemed appropriate to refund at the sole discretion of MRI.  Please submit a support ticket to request a refund.

b. Metered Billing

Some of the MRI products and services are on metered billing or pay-as-you-go pricing. This allows customers to only pay for what they've used in each billing cycle. Because we do not want overages in a metered billing plan to affect your services or cause downtime, we may automatically charge your account and credit card on your account for the overage should you exceed your plan. The charge may be an automated upgrade to the next plan, or to add additional resources. 

An example of metered billing is website page views. Each plan accounts for a certain number of page views per month. Once your website has reached the level of page views in your plan or package, we will automatically charge your card for the additional page views so that your website can remain live on our platform.

We will attempt to inform you when you are reaching the limit before we charge your card, however this is a courtesy attempt and the User’s receipt or lack of receipt of the pending overage notification will not prevent us from charging your account or credit card. By accepting the terms and conditions you are granting MRI permission to charge your account or credit card for metered billing according to the advertised or agreed upon pricing. 

10. E-Commerce 

The Services we provide involve tools to help the User build an e-commerce website. The Services do not include the publication or final product created by the User. Without waiving any right to the templates, software, plugins, or features of the Platform which are incorporated into the User’s website, the e-commerce website of the User is “Content,” owned by the User, and you are responsible for the final form and interface of the End User with your individual website. 

All e-commerce payments and transactions with End Users, Third-Party Content producers, and/or any other person in connection with our Services is the responsibility of you, the User, and not us. Your responsibility to comply with the Terms of Service extends to transactions with End Users and Third-Party Content producers, as well as other persons engaged in this e-commerce.  

11. Privacy 

Our Privacy Policy explains how we collect and use your personal data to determine some of the ads you see and provide all of the other services described below. 

12. Disclaim of Warranties and Limitation of Liabilities 

The products and Services provided to you are provided as-is. We are always endeavoring to provide the best services to our Users and the End Users, but we cannot guarantee that these products and services work perfectly all the time. In the event that our products and Services do malfunction or fail to operate as expected, we are not responsible for any such event. This includes any consequential damages which may result from any such failure. It is the User’s responsibility to protect the information, data, and Content created through the Platform, Site, and Account. Though we will work with our customers to provide the best experience and Platform for their business, you utilize these Services at your own risk.  

The User owns its Content, and as such, the User is responsible for its Content. Should the User take any action that should make MRI a party in any claim regarding the actions or Content of the User on the Site or Platform, the User agrees to take all necessary steps to remove MRI as a party in such claim, pursuant to this ownership and responsibility and these Terms of Service.

13. Copyright Policy 

a. Our Copyrighted Material

In addition to what is already stated in these Terms of Service, all images, products, tools, or other data, software, or code made available through any of our Services, including text, templates, digital downloads, data compilations, and software is the property of MRI or its content suppliers. It is protected by United States and international copyright laws. Additionally, the compilation of Content of Users and End Users included in or made available through the Site or Platform is our intellectual property and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws.

b. Requests for Protection of Users and Others 

We respect the intellectual property of our Users and others. If you believe that your intellectual property rights are being infringed, please provide notice using this form may be used to report all types of intellectual property claims including, but not limited to, copyright, trademark, and patent claims.

We endeavor to respond quickly to the concerns of rights owners have about any alleged infringement, and it is our policy to terminate the Accounts and limit access to the Site and Platform of repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances. 

14. Dispute Resolution 

You agree that the appropriate venue for any dispute that arises concerning the Terms of Service or the use of the Site or Platform shall be in Loudoun County, Virginia. 

That being said, please let us try to fix issues before it comes to that. Nothing in this sub-section shall prevent you or us from voluntarily addressing any issue in good faith to the mutual satisfaction of the User or MRI. Please submit a ticket to let us address your problem. 

15. Governing Law; Severability 

We reserve the right to make changes to our Site, Platform, and Terms of Service at any time. If any of these conditions shall be deemed invalid, void, or for any reason unenforceable, that condition shall be deemed severable and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining condition. The headings used in this document are for organizational purposes only and shall not be deemed to change or override any term or clause in this document.