Terms of Service

• Press Releases
  The press release system is designed for legitimate businesses and organizations directly involved with the pet industry, to post press releases about their pet businesses or organizations. All press releases are subject to review and/or editing by PetHobbyist staff prior to release. Just because you post it, does not mean that it will be approved and listed on site. Press releases prepared in an unprofessional manner, containing spelling, or grammatical errors will not be accepted. No press releases offering the direct sales of products, merchandise, or services to consumers will be allowed. If you wish to sell products direct to the public you will need to use our classified advertising system.
  
  
• New Product Releases
  The new product release system is designed for manufacturers directly involved with the pet industry, to post new product releases of pet specific products. All new product releases are subject to review and/or editing by PetHobbyist staff prior to release. Just because you post it, does not mean that it will be approved and listed on site. New product releases prepared in an unprofessional manner, containing spelling, or grammatical errors will not be accepted. No new product releases offering the direct sales of products, merchandise, or services to consumers will be allowed. If you wish to sell products direct to the public you will need to use our classified advertising system.
  
  
• News Items
  

• Posting warnings about companies or individuals, posting notices about bad deals or dealers, or posting personal attacks about companies or individuals, is a violation.

• Spidering, or gathering email addresses from our systems, or using our site's email system, for the purposes of sending unsolicted or promotional email (SPAM, etc.) is a violation.

• Threats, potentially libelous statements, personal attacks, disruption, and "trolling" (seeking to disrupt the site with inflammatory posts and actions) are violations. Technical disruption of the site is considered a particularly serious violation and when appropriate, legal recourse will be sought.

• Posting obscene materials, profanity, or racial, sexual, personal, or religious slurs to this website are violations.

• Threats of violence are a violation and will be reported to appropriate law enforement agencies.

• Posting copyrighted documents or photographs here without the owner's permission is a violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). If you have an item that was used here without your permission, you must use our Interim Designation of Agent to Receive Notification of Claimed Infringement, following the policies and procedures as required by the DMCA. Claims of infringement that are not made as outlined in the policies and procedures of the DMCA cannot be acted upon and will be disregarded. More information on the DMCA and the procedures for notification of infringement may be found at http://lcWeb.loc.gov/copyright/.

• Posting pyramid schemes and get rich quick offers are a violation, and are propagating mail fraud; violators will be turned in to the US Postmaster.

• Email or other communications containing racial, religious, ethnic, sexual, or personal slurs or attacks to the staff is a violation.

• If you have had your ability to log in, post, or upload on/to the PetHobbyist community rescinded, or had posts or images removed, or had your access to chat rooms blocked, you may contact the site coordinator of the appropriate site and appeal the action. Any public discussion of actions against a user's account will be removed, and we will not discuss any action against a user's account with anyone but the individual themselves.

• Posting personal attacks about individuals is a violation. We welcome discussion and debate on our Forums. However, we ask that you stick to the issues, not the other users of the site.

• Posting under another user's name and/or email address, or impersonating another user or a host/staff member with a misleading username, signature, or statement, is a violation.

• Any attempts to thwart profanity, website, URL, or other filters, or any other security features on our site, are a violation.

• Although from time to time a host or staff member may warn a user about a violation, or post a general warning to a forum, photo gallery, or chat room, we have no policy guaranteeing that you will be warned about violations on your account, nor any specific number or type of violations that may result in action against your account.

• Use of our sites and services is a privilege and not a right. Be aware that if you violate our Terms Of Service, OnlineHobbyist.com, Inc. may delete or edit your messages, contact your internet service provider, have your account terminated, cancel your advertising, and/or block your access to our web site. We reserve the right to refuse service, limit access, or terminate a user's site privileges at our discretion.

• We also reserve the right to delete, remove, or edit content posted or published on our site. We reserve the right to edit for content, spelling, grammer, violations of the TOS, triggering our profanity or URL/email filter, the inclusion of identifying personal information about others without their permission, technical problems, and other unforseen complications.

  This document was last revised on Oct 26, 2003.