TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF SERVICE
 

Please review carefully the terms and conditions set forth below before using the Gradeball.com web site. The terms "You", "Your", "User", or "Users" refer to anyone accessing our services or web site for any reason. The terms "We", "Us", or "Our" refer to Gradeball.com (or Gradeball). The Gradeball.com web site is offered to you conditioned on your acceptance of the terms, conditions, restrictions and notices contained herein. Gradeball.com may amend or modify these terms and conditions without notice, effective immediately, by updating this posting. Your use of the Gradeball.com web site constitutes your agreement to all such terms, conditions, restrictions and notices. Note: For purposes of this agreement, Users are classified as Service Buyers or Service Providers, or Hirers or Freelancers, respectively.

ELIGIBILITY FOR REQUIREMENTS

Gradeball.com shall have absolute discretion as to whether or not it accepts a particular applicant or site for participation in the service. Gradeball.com's web site is available only to individuals who can form legally binding contracts under applicable law. If Users do not qualify, they cannot legally use any of Gradeball.com's services including, but not limited to, those that require the User's ability to form legally binding contracts.

REMOVAL FROM NETWORK

Gradeball.com reserves the right to terminate the participation of any member or site without reason but expressly including any member site that Gradeball.com judges to be in violation of the Terms and Conditions.

Members in violation of Gradeball.com's Terms and Conditions will be immediately deactivated. Gradeball.com may deactivate members with no prior notification. Members found in violation of the Terms and Conditions will not receive any credit or payment from Gradeball.com. Members that are terminated by Gradeball.com on any basis other than violation of these Terms and Conditions will be entitled to receive any payment due from Gradeball.com.

DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES

Gradeball.com offers a wide range of tools, content, products, services, benefits, and other resources on its Gradeball.com web site of particular interest to freelancers and to enable freelancers to efficiently and cost effectively manage their careers, professions, and businesses. These services are for use only under a non-exclusive, non-transferable, and non-assignable license under these terms and conditions of use. You do not have the right to copy, sell, or otherwise exploit for any commercial purpose the services or content (in whole or in part), access to this service or use of this service.

Some of the services offered at Gradeball.com may include feedback to questions by Users of this service and/or articles with original content and opinions. Use of this content or links to this content is at the User's own risk. User understands and agree to the following:

Some of the content provided at Gradeball.com may relate to various subjects such as information pertaining to legal matters, financial matters, health matters, and other matters for which the content of is provided in an advisory nature. This information is provided solely for informational and general non-advisory purposes. If desired, Users should use their own efforts to confirm such information with a professional(s) in the pertinent field(s). All of the information that Gradeball.com provides should not be considered professional, medical, legal, technical, or any other discipline-specific advice.

Gradeball.com is a dynamic time-sensitive web site. As such, the information on Gradeball.com will be changed frequently. It is possible that some information could be considered offensive, harmful, or inaccurate, and in some cases may be mislabeled or deceptively labeled accidentally by Gradeball.com or accidentally or purposefully by a third-party, regardless of whether such third parties are with or without a legitimate business purpose.

Gradeball.com provides unmonitored access to third-party content. Gradeball.com is only acting as a venue and/or portal, and has no liability based on, or related to, the third-party content on this Site, whether arising under the laws of copyright or other intellectual property, defamation, libel, privacy, obscenity, or any other legal discipline. This web site may contain links to third-party web sites. Gradeball.com does not control nor always review the web sites to which we link from Gradeball.com. We, therefore, cannot endorse the content, products, services, practices, policies, or performance of the web sites we link to from Gradeball.com, and Users should not treat any link as such an endorsement or acceptance of veracity or value.

Gradeball.com does not have the resources to nor does it undertake any obligation to, control, research, verify, validate, or approve the content that is received or viewed on its web site. We expect that the User will undertake necessary activities and practices and will use caution and common sense when using Gradeball.com for User's account.

PAYMENT

Service Providers are responsible for paying listing fees for jobs they are selected for. After the completion date Gradeball.com will deduct $1.00 or 10%, whichever is greater, of the agreed charge for the job from the payment method on file with Gradeball.com. Failure on the part of the Service Provider to pay the listing fee shall result in suspension of membership on Gradeball.com until such fee is paid. Service Provider agrees to pay all costs of collections should such costs be incurred by Gradeball.com.

E-MAIL ADDRESSES

Members agree not to post their e-mail address on the site, except in the "e-mail" field of the signup form, or when asked by Gradeball.com at any other time. There should be no need to give anyone your e-mail address. It is automatically provided if you choose a Service Provider (or you are the Service Provider chosen for) a project, and before that time you can use the message board to communicate. This does not only apply to e-mail addresses, but to all methods of communication, including phone, ICQ, AIM, MSN Messenger, etc... See "Avoiding Commissions" below for the reason.

PROVIDING CONTACT INFORMATION

You are prohibited from making direct contact with another member, unless it's for a project you (a Service Provider) have been picked for, or you (a Service Buyer) have picked a Service Provider for. This includes giving out your e-mail address, ICQ number, phone number, or any other method of contact outside of this site. Gradeball.com provides you with message boards, which should be sufficient for pre-project planning.

AVOIDING COMMISSIONS

You are strictly prohibited from attempting to negotiate the fee for a project with another member directly (outside of Gradeball.com) after that project has been created/opened and before that project has been closed (basically, during an ongoing project). But this also applies to any project that was closed without a Service Provider being chosen, and then contacting them about the project anyway. Both parties are responsible for notifying Gradeball.com if the payment amount increases (above the bid amount) after the project is closed. Receiving a larger amount than the original project bid, without notifying us, will be considered an attempt to avoid the commissions. When a Service Provider requests a withdrawal, we always review all payments received for each project to verify that they match the bid. If at the time of a withdrawal request the Service Provider has failed to notify Gradeball.com staff of a payment received above the amount of his bid (a total payment above US$100), Gradeball.com reserves the right to deduct double the fee for the amount that should have been reported. We believe our commissions are very fair and justified for the service we provide, therefore we will absolutely not tolerate any of this activity on Gradeball.com.

COPYRIGHTS

No copyrighted material can be posted on Gradeball.com. This includes scripts which are sold by the author. Only posting sections, or excerpts of these scripts, as examples, will be permitted. A "section" or "excerpt" being no more than 10% of the script's contents. This is meant to protect the author's intellectual property rights.

USER CONTENT

User is solely responsible for content or any other information User provides to Gradeball.com. User understands and agrees to the following:
Gradeball.com is only acting as a venue for the online distribution and publication of User content. However, no warranties as to the actual distribution or publication of User content are made or implied. Gradeball.com has the right (but no obligation) to take any action deemed appropriate with respect to User content if it is believed that such content may create liability for Gradeball.com, harm our business operation or reputation, or cause Gradeball.com to lose the services of our suppliers.

User represents and warrants that User's content:

(a) will not infringe upon or misappropriate any copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, or other intellectual property right or proprietary right or right of publicity or privacy;
(b) will not violate any law or regulation;
(c) will not be defamatory or trade libelous;
(d) will not be obscene or contain child pornography;
(e) will not include incomplete, false or inaccurate information about User or any other individual; and
(f) will not contain any viruses or other computer programming routines that are intended to damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept or expropriate any system, data or personal information.

By submitting User content to Gradeball.com (including, but not limited to creating your Account; posting a resume, posting a profile, posting a portfolio, posting a Project; sending messages throw or to Gradeball.com). You hereby grant to Gradeball.com a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free license to use, copy, modify, display, and perform User content, under all User intellectual property and proprietary rights worldwide. For the avoidance of doubt, providing links to content hosted on servers other than that of Gradeball.com (such as a portfolio of sample works hosted on Your own web site) will not be considered "submitting" such content for purposes of this license grant.

USER RESTRICTIONS

Advertising

Users are prohibited from advertising your website on Gradeball.com. Any URL posted in a bid, project description, or the message board, must relate to a project on Gradeball.com. An example of a permissible URL: User's portfolio or resume' page.

Bidding

Service Providers can only place bids that equal the total amount of money they are requesting for the project. You cannot post an hourly bid or any other abnormal type of bid. This applies to Service Buyers too. Service Buyers cannot create projects that directly or indirectly require Service Providers to place hourly or other abnormal bids. The only exception, for both Service Buyers and Service Providers, is when the project is featured. See featured project information at page.

 Buyer agrees that:

1. Buyer will not redistribute any of the content on Gradeball.com.
2. Buyer will not use Buyer’s Account to post false or misleading project descriptions. Buyer will not post project descriptions that are inappropriate to Gradeball.com's audience, viewers, or visitors in the judgment and discretion of Gradeball.com.
3. Buyer agree to pay featured project fee if project posted should have been posted as featured.
4. Buyer will not falsify Buyer’s own or any other identity.
5. Buyer will comply with all Gradeball.com's policies.

Service Provider agrees that:

1. Service Provider will not redistribute any of the content on Gradeball.com.
2. Service Provider will not falsify Freelancer's own or any other identity. ·
3. Service Provider will comply with all Gradeball.com policies.

General Restrictions

1. Users will not use any automated collection mechanism or any manual process to monitor or copy the web pages comprising the Gradeball.com web site or the content contained therein without the prior written permission of Gradeball.com.
2. Users  will not distribute unsolicited commercial messages ("spam") throw User's account.
3. Users will not contact employers or freelancers through our site or throw information gained from our site with the intent of subverting them from using our services.
4. Users will not engage in personal attacks, negative or other unfair criticism or other forms of discourteous and unprofessional online conduct or practices.
5. Users will not create multiple user accounts to avoid fees, suspension or bad ratings on Gradeball.com.

DISPUTE RESOLUTION

Any disputes regarding arrangements between users remain solely between usres. We are not involved in any transactions between You and any other users of Gradeball.com. You acknowledge and agree that Gradeball.com will not be a party to any such dispute or be obligated to take any action or refrain from taking any action toward resolving any such dispute. If you have a dispute with any other users of the Site, you hereby release Gradeball.com from any and all claims, demands, and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown, related to such a dispute. Notwithstanding the foregoing, users are free to contact Gradeball.com, which will use best efforts to mediate any disagreement. Failure of that process does not create liability on Gradeball.com’s part.